Page 72 of Stolen By the Duke of Stone

“Did you see that?” she whispered.

“I saw it,” he said. “He smiled at you.”

“He smiled.”

“Oh.” The Duchess clasped both hands against her chest. “He is the most delightful baby, Jessie! Rebecca would be so pleased to see the way he has taken to you.”

“I love him,” Jessamine said, and Andrew felt the weight of those words.

I love him.

Andrew kissed her hair, blind to the fact they were in public. He wanted nothing more than to take her back home and kiss her all over, exactly how she liked it. A reward, of sorts, for opening her heart to Rebecca’s son so completely. But also because he wanted to, because he craved the taste of her on his tongue.

It was at times like these, when his heart ached with need for her, that his resistance fell in tatters around him.

“Tonight,” the duchess was saying. “You must come tonight. I can’t wait to tell Henry the news.”

“Of course,” Jessamine was saying, and Andrew took a moment to reevaluate his plans.

Perhaps taking his wife home and pleasuring her immediately was not his best idea.

He could learn to be patient.

Probably.

“All right,” he said. “Tonight it is.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Jessamine hummed as she dressed, her heart feeling as though it was bursting.

William had smiled at her today, and Andrew had been.

He had held her. In public.

This was not the same as the kiss, the way they had frantically reached for one another.

This had been tenderness.

Andrew stepped into the room behind her, and it felt so natural for his hands to slide to her waist, resting there possessively. He met her gaze in the mirror and smiled. She hadn’t been joking when she’d said that he scowled at her less and less frequently now.

“Do you think we are actually getting on?” she asked.

“So far, it seems like it.” He took her necklace from her fingers and untangled it, fastening it neatly around her throat. She liked the look of his fingers there. The way he had held her throat before…

A flush spread across her cheeks, and his gaze traveled across it, turning heated.

“Mina,” he said, his voice low, and the sound of her name, the shortened version of it, sank through her to pool, liquid and hot, at her core.

She turned in his arms. “How much time do we have?”

“Not enough, I’m afraid.” He hesitated, his gaze moving over her face as though he could read her thoughts through her features alone. “Have you had any more nightmares?”

At the question, she paused, a little of the heat dying. “About William?”

“About anything.”

“No, not since…” Since the time he had woken her up. “They have always happened sometimes. I suppose…” I suppose I’m damaged. “I can’t forget Percy, Andrew. It will always affect me.”