Page 65 of The Baronet’s Bartered Bride

“The worst.” He reached his room and paused beside a side table, where she set down the candlestick. “No, that’s not quite true.”

He set her on her feet but held her within his arms, resting his chin on the top of her head. She slipped her arms around his back, leaning against his chest, and everything stopped hurting.

“The worst would be to hear that my inheritance was a lie and the estate really belongs to someone else. Though that would save me a good deal of bother.” He pulled the cap from her hair, then began hunting out hairpins, collecting them carefully in his palm. Her hair was soft as silk thread.

“In actual fact, Reuben has left me several debts and not much money. He hasn’t done repairs to his buildings in quite some time. He owes his tenants several repairs, too.

“The land he lets has been planted for spring, but not the home farm, as there is no one but Thaker left. We have some animals, but the spring shearing hasn’t been done, so there is no wool to market, and no one to oversee the lambing.

“The stables are a shambles. My cousin had ambitions to cultivate a racehorse and so spent a stupid amount on that. I can sell the animal back, Hoskyn tells me, though it will only pay off part of the debts. And I’ve no notion how I’ve to support this house. Or staff.” He buried his face in her neck, inhaling her scent. “Or you.”

“That is the way of it all over,” she murmured. “You live on credit until you are back on your feet.”

“All over, is it?” He rubbed his hands over her back, soothing himself with the quiet strength of her. Then he set to unpinning her bodice, freeing those lovely breasts.

She nodded, holding out her arms so he might undress her. “Aboard ships, certainly. Captains take on their cargo and sail for months, sometimes years, before they see a profit. Very often the crew have to wait to see their wages, too. We never knew, when my father returned home, if he would have coin in his pocket to support us.

“And the great houses run the same way. All on credit, until the harvest comes in, and one sees how much of it one may pay off for the year.”

“You are far less worried about this than I am.” He set her bodice aside and began unlacing her leather stays, a process much impeded by his need to pause and slide his hands over her bosom. So warm. So soft. So obliging she was, her dark eyes lifted to his in trust and innocence.

Mirroring back what he felt for her: lost, utterly lost, in desire.

“We will manage, Joseph,” she whispered against his lips. Her stays opened and her breasts spilled into his hands, at long last, and he bent his face to kiss her.

“Hoskyn was kind but honest. I can keep the house if I am very, very frugal.”

He lifted her again and carried her to the tester bed, draped with curtains of red and gold. Reuben’s bedchamber carried a vaguely Eastern flavor, as if he imagined himself a Turkish pasha or Persian shah. Joseph felt the faintest bit like a king choosing a companion from his harem for the night.

Except his harem only held one girl, this one, and he would choose her over and over, every night from now through the rest of his days. She half-rose toward him, holding out on arm, and he crawled over her.

“Boots,” she murmured, and he kicked off his shoes with a low laugh. “I know how to be frugal.” She tugged him over her body and kissed him deeply.

“But how am I to pay you?”

“I’ll work for room and board, and you can arrange a salary when funds permit.” She slid her tongue into his mouth as she commenced undressing him, and Joseph felt the flame rising up to enfold him. This woman was a siren, a spellcaster.

All his awkwardness, all his fears had vanished. He knew how to please her. His mouth on her breasts brought pants and soft moans. She tugged off his coats and shoved her hands up his shirt, dragging her palms over his skin, taking as much pleasure in touching him as he did in touching her. When he lowered his weight to her body she shifted her hips to cradle him, fitting herself to the bulge in his breeches, and once again a great scissors came and snipped off the top of his head, letting thought tumble out.

All he needed was Inez. She was everything good and sweet and beautiful, and she made him feel powerful and whole.

“You’d be best to return to London with Jock,” he muttered as he kissed his way down her body, pushing away the voluminous hem of her shift. “Let the Duchess take care of you.”

“I’ve fended for myself this long.” She fisted her hands in his hair, clutching at his shoulders as he kissed down her legs, then back up. Her chest heaved as desire shook her, and he marveled that it was this powerful for both of them. They were lost together in the storm and only the one could bring the other safely to the far shore.

“Don’t make me leave you,” she muttered, and the words punched inside his chest, bruising his heart, making it swell. No, he didn’t want to part with her, not with this between them. This passion. This craving. This sense that she saw what was good in him and brought those qualities to the light to show to the world in her tender, careful hands.

“I want you,” he murmured, kissing the soft inside of her thigh, then curling his tongue around those parts of her that made her shake and cry out his name in a voice of desperation and amazement.

“Be with me.” She pulled at his arm, panting for breath, tugging him toward her. “Be with me. Inside me.”

He wanted nothing more. She fumbled with him to loosen the buttons of his breeches, then shoved them away. Her hand on his bare cock was ecstasy itself. He loved her sureness with him. He loved her want. Because it was for him.

“There cannot be a babe.” He held himself poised at the entrance to utter bliss. Or what he’d been told was the portal to the only paradise this earth knew. Reuben and Eyde. Reuben and how many others. He couldn’t leave her with a babe, because how could he support two when he couldn’t support one?

“Don’t spend inside me,” she whispered. “Spill your speed outside.”

“This is…”