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James did not speak but came to the other side of the escritoire where she sat. Panic pierced her chest, fear that she had somehow offended him, somehow made an error of judgement, and she rose to apologize. Yet that trepidation was swiftly extinguished, dissolving like cold ash before a hearth, as her husband dropped to his knees and buried his face at her waist.

“Thank you,” he rasped as she stroked his hands through his beautiful hair. The light from the fire made it appear golden. “Damnit. I wished to ask something of you, but now I am all out of sorts,” he grumbled as he sank back on his heels.

Mariah sat back down so that she was closer to his level. “What d-did you wish to ask?”

James reached his hand behind his neck in a gesture that charmed her against her will. “Can I move the women sewing in the assembly hall to the drawing room until Christmastide?”

That was just about the last thing she would have expected James to ask but apparently, they were surprising each other that day. “Here? At B-Bailey Hall?”

“Yes. Do you take umbrage at their working here?” He remained poised upon his heels, yet he braced his frame with a raised knee that lent him a rakish, almost piratical air. Mariah tightened her hold upon the steel pen at her escritoire, seeking to anchor her concentration.

“No, of course n-not. Do you?” She had originally thought to bring the women to Bailey Hall, but always assumed he would object. The James of several months ago would certainly have objected, but this man in his local linens and wools…perhaps this man was capable of growth.

For some reason, that thought scared her more than she was willing to admit, and she abruptly turned her body back to the escritoire, as if the wood could shield her from the power of her attraction to her husband.

“Mariah?” James began carefully. “I would not ask if I did not wish for them to come here.” At that, he grew quiet and Mariah turned back to the man, who appeared uncharacteristically somber.

“What is it?” Mariah asked, her hand shaking as she attempted to will it away from reaching out to stroke her hair.

“The Queen’s husband died today. Prince Albert.”

“Oh.” In truth, Mariah did not often think of the Queen. “I am s-sorry for her.”

James settled his palms upon his knee, utilizing the position to anchor his chin as he watched her. “They say they were quite devoted to each other.” He studied her for a moment before he spoke again. “Do you regard Queen Victoria as Grace O’Malley viewed Queen Elizabeth. A respected adversary?”

Mariah huffed as she considered his question. “Perhaps a l-little. Though I am truly sorry to hear that. For her and for her children.” As she finished speaking the weight of his words dawned on her. “It has been so long, I had f-forgotten that I sent my writings. That you r-read what I wrote to you. About Grace the Pirate Queen.”

In the firelight, she could have sworn she saw his throat work. “I did. A very worthy subject for a worthy play.”

“You do n-not think it foolish or unnatural? A w-woman in trade? An Irish woman fancying h-herself a great playwright?”

“You are the wife of a peer. A gentlewoman.”

“I am all of those things.” She fixed her gaze upon him, daring him to object. The fire at the hearth spit in the silence between them.

“And you are also a writer. You are not foolish for loving something of beauty, nor applying your hand to such a thing. It is my understanding from your father, you come from a long line of storytellers. When you combine that with a love of the theater…” he gestured with his hand, as if creating smoke or magic before he went on. “But there was one thing you wrote that made me curious.”

“Oh?” the temperature of the room changed at his words, as if the fire grew more intense.

“You said you did not believe that Grace loved either of her husbands, that she married for the good of those that followed her.”

“Or p-power depending on how you view it,” Mariah mused, then noticing the heat in James’s eyes, she crossed her legs at the responding pulse of awareness at her core.

“Do you think she could have loved a husband? Could a marriage of convenience or alliance evolve?”

Mariah scowled at her escritoire as she gripped the steel pen in her hand, willing the cold metal to settle her pulse, which was beating erratically. When she looked back, James was suddenly impossibly close, much nearer than he had been a moment before. At this distance, she could smell the linen he wore, his usual seductive scent of leather and sandalwood mixed with the northern earth and flax. It was, unfortunately, an irresistible combination to her person.

“What w-was the question?” she blurted, overwhelmed by the heady combination of his proximity and his scent, suddenly recalling that moment where he had buried his head at her waist, her mind conjuring another way he could bury himself inside her.

The cocky smile that followed told her he was well aware of the effect he had on her. He began to reach for her, then he stopped, a slight tremor to his hand as he pulled back, a flex of his fingers that told her he was not indifferent toward her.

Mariah took a deep, centering breath before she spoke, allowing herself to address the tension between them. “The b-bedroom has never been a problem for us, my lord.”

“True.” His response was husky as he watched her, the fire reflecting in those pale blue eyes. “But what could it be like if there was true trust?”

Mariah swallowed, her throat so dry it seemed impossible that words would ever escape again. Yet she was able to ask: “What are y-you asking, James?”

Kneeling directly before her again, he placed his hands on her knees and Mariah struggled to hold in her shudder of arousal. James was almost directly between her legs now and she began to sense a familiar dampness at her core as she sat up straight.