Page 70 of Stolen By the Duke of Stone

The sun shone, and he felt rather than saw the gazes on him.

In the army, everything had been simpler. There, the rules were very clearly laid out, and everyone knew precisely where they stood. There was an agreed-upon hierarchy. Here, everything seemed rather blurrier around the edges. He had never been intended to inherit, and thus, he had never been introduced to this world in quite the same way as his brother had.

Similarly, Jessamine had grown up half her life in Scotland, and not just Scotland, but a tiny village in the upper Highlands, by the sounds of it, entirely separate from this world.

They were both playing a game they only had a few of the rules to. And neither of them, especially him, would ever admit that they were out of their depth.

She tilted her face to the sun. He wondered how much she was thinking of last night, and wondered too if she would mind overmuch if he took her to the nearby copse of trees and kissed her until her beautifully soft lips were pink and swollen.

“What a lovely day for a stroll,” she said with a sigh, glancing over at where William was asleep in his pram. “You’ve gone all stiff, Andrew.”

“I dislike being on display.”

“You were the one who suggested this.”

“It was a good idea,” he said, doing his best not to look around them as though they might be under attack. “And I stand by it. But that doesn’t make its execution any easier.”

“You attended the ball with me,” she said.

“I did. But there, I had you to dance with.”

A smile ghosted over her lips, and he felt absurdly pleased. “Ah, so I made the experience more enjoyable?”

“You know you did.”

“Even though you had lots of experience dancing the waltz with ladies who were not me?” she teased, her voice light.

“That was an entirely different experience.”

“How so?”

“Because you are my wife,” he said simply.

When he’d first entered that room to find her straight-backed and refusing to relinquish William despite his most pressing arguments, he had thought there could be no world in which he would ever learn to tolerate her. And yet here they were.

“Oh, is that all?” She arched a brow at him. “So, if you had offered for one of those other girls, it must have been the same?”

“I would not have offered.”

“Because you were a captain?”

“A captain makes a perfectly acceptable husband,” he said. “But that’s not the reason.”

“Then what is?”

“Because none of them compelled me to marry,” he said simply. “I had no interest in any of them.”

“You had no interest in me when we first met,” she pointed out.

“In my defense, we had barely spoken by the time I offered for your hand, so that fact has very little to do with you. If I had known you longer, I might have offered for you based on your merits alone.”

She did an exaggerated double take as she looked at him. “Heavens above. Can this be how it feels to have one’s husband flirt with you?”

“I’ll admit I’m not practiced at the art.” He placed his hand lightly on hers. “But you wanted the truth, and that is my truth. You make an excellent duchess.”

“And mother to William,” she said, smiling up at him.

“And that,” he admitted. “It plays no little part in my decision.”