Page 55 of Stolen By the Duke of Stone

“Are things that bad?” Irene demanded.

“No! At least… I hope not.” Jessamine snorted. “Although what should I know? I went to sleep in his bed and awoke in mine, and he left first thing. I haven’t seen him since. Perhaps he’s hoping to return to the first days where we barely saw or spoke to one another. How should I know if he doesn’t speak to me?” She fiddled with the hem of her sleeve. “But even if he did, I don’t know what I would want him to say. Everything is so tangled in my head.”

“Well then, take the time to untangle it before you force a conversation,” Irene said. “There’s no need to rush things. You will be married for the rest of your lives. Just know that… If you do decide to let things happen as they will, I think it will make you very happy.”

Jessamine buried her head. “I don’t know. Perhaps.”

“As for William, Lady Marwich said it the best.” Irene tugged at Jessamine’s hair. “As long as he has you, he will be loved. That’s what you do best, you know. It’s why Rebecca was so fond of you, and why she chose you to be William’s godmother. She knew that you would do everything you could to care for him in every way you could. Trust in that. Trust in Rebecca.”

Irene smiled gently when Jessamine raised her head.

“And if he proves himself to you, trust in Andrew,” she finally added.

Chapter Nineteen

“Ihad an idea,” she said as he entered the room, not even giving him time to greet her.

Andrew finally came home to find his wife present, glowing from having been in the sun all day. She looked even more beautiful than usual, and his heart clenched dangerously when he saw her.

“Oh?” He came over to see what she was doing: rearranging the decorative snuff boxes in a glass cabinet. “And what’s that?”

“Lady Marwich is throwing a ball, and she has invited us.”

He looked down at her mahogany head, trying to make sense of it all. “I see,” he said.

“Do you disagree?” She turned, cradling a snuff box against her chest, and he had the strangest feeling she was in the mood to argue with him.

Perhaps in a valid way, considering the fact she had risen and left the house when he’d been with Nicholas, and thus, she probably thought him avoiding. When, as far as he was concerned, considering he returned to the house to find it empty, it was the other way around.

“Not necessary,” he said evenly. When she looked at him like that, all smoldering defiance, it reminded him of how she had been in his bed, and the memory only made him want her more. He stepped back to give them both more space. “Is there a particular reason?”

“Well, we’ve been married a little while now, and I don’t want to give the gossip mongers any reason to think we’re anything but deliriously happy.”

“Ah.” He smiled a little. “So this is a kind of vengeance.”

“Not vengeance.” She scowled. “More that… I don’t want them thinking the worst of us.”

“No, neither do I.”

“It’s for William,” she said then, still more defiantly.

“Even if it were for you, I would not have fought against it,” he said, and won himself a startled glance. “Does that shock you? I don’t want rumors about you or your unhappiness any more than you do, and if a few appearances is all it takes, then that’s what we will do.”

“You will have to seem as though you like me,” she warned.

She was being increasingly standoffish, and it amused him enough that he couldn’t keep the distance he had intended. “That will be all right,” he said. “I’ve managed it before.”

And after he had managed it, he had taken her to bed and kissed her until she reached her peak on his lips.

But better not to think of that.

“When is the ball?” he asked.

“In three days. Will you be… Can you be ready by then?”

“Yes.” He took the snuffbox from her hands and placed it at the end of the neat row she had already set in place. He closed the lid. “Will you have a dress?”

“You made sure of that.”