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“I don’t want to wonder whether I’m allowed to touch you or kiss you. I’d like to not fear that if I come to your room at night you’ll turn me away. I didn’t understand what I was agreeing to give up when I told you we’d have a marriage without intimacy.”
“It isn’t always like this,” he said.
She nodded. “I gathered that.” After a long moment, she twisted in his lap to face him. “Perhaps we could agree to break our promise.”
The possibilities stretched before him. He could lose himself in the woman he loved whenever he wished. He might never reach the heart of her—she might never know the awesome power of his love for her—but he could have this. The physical. The passion. It would still be an incomplete marriage, but it would be more than he’d dared hope for.
“If that’s what you want,” he said.
She arched a brow at him. “If it’s what we both want. You do get a say in this marriage.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” He laughed and kissed her on the forehead. It was just a simple gesture, but one he never would’ve dared before. Now the barriers holding him back from showing those little signs of affection had fallen, and he planned to take full advantage.
“So what do you say?” she asked.
“I agree. It’s what we both want.”
“Good.” A saucy smile curved her lips. “Now that you’re in such an agreeable mood, I have to tell you something.”
“Is it something dastardly?” he asked.
“No, but I’m sure it’ll cause a near scandal when people find out.”
“We do seem to specialize in near scandal,” he said.
“The statue in the studio is my entry for the Royal Sculpture Society’s exhibition. Or it will be when it’s finished.”
His eyes widened in surprise. “But they don’t allow women entrants.”
She leveled a look at him.
“You know I don’t agree with them,” he continued, “but surely they’ll deny your submission.”
“That’s why I’m not entering under my name.”
“What name will you be using?” he asked slowly.
“I.R.D. Although now perhaps it should be I.R.B.”
“I wish you could enter under your own name,” he said, brushing a strand of hair off of her face and hooking it behind her ear. “Everyone should know what I know—that you’re incredible. If you can’t, however, you should be I.R.D. Ina Rose Duncan. It’s who you were when you first started sculpting.”
“I had also intended to make my identity known once the judging is completed and the exhibition is open to the public,” she said slowly.
“I’ll be the proudest man in Edinburgh when everyone knows just how brilliant my wife really is.”
“You aren’t angry?” she asked, looking up at him through her lashes.
“I’d be a sorry excuse for a man if I was. How are you planning to do it?”
She shrugged. “I hadn’t thought of that yet.”
“You do have two newspapers at your disposal, although you probably want to leak your identity to the Lothian rather than to the Tattler. The gossip rag would feel a bit sordid.”
“Do you think Mr. Moray would mind?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Not one bit.”
She rose up and brushed his lips with hers. “Thank you. You have no idea what a relief it is to tell you.”
