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She licked her lips. Like a tiger scoping out the slowest gazelle, he watched her do it. “I, well, yes. I think that I actually am, er, looking for action.”
He smiled then. Or something close to it. And then he dipped his head and claimed her lips.
Not two minutes later, she was naked on the desk. He’d peeled all her clothes off in record time. Most of his were still on. She kept thinking she wanted them off him.
But then he unzipped his trousers and positioned her just so at the edge of the desk. She stared up into his black, black eyes.
And everything flew away but the wonder of him touching her, caressing her, filling her in one long, slow, deep glide. She lifted her legs and wrapped them around him and let him sweep her away to that place where there was nothing but the two of them and the sweet, mindless pulse of pleasure beating between them.
* * *
In the week that followed, the scandal sheets and royal-watching bloggers got hold of their story. Their pictures were all over the internet. The headlines were silly, as always: The Earl’s Princess Bride, Princess Genevra Takes an Earl, Princess Genny’s Hasty Wedding.
Rafe grumbled about the invasion of their privacy.
Genny told him to be grateful she was so far down the tabloid food chain. Her older brothers couldn’t go anywhere without some paparazzo popping up, snapping pictures frantically and shouting rude personal questions.
“That’s just so wrong in so many ways,” he said.
And she replied, “Maybe so. But it’s a fact of life if you’re a prince of Montedoro.”
During that week, they moved forward with their plans to repair the West Wing interiors. Rafe commissioned structural surveys of Hartmore Castle and the stables, as well. Genny toured the gardens with Eloise. They discussed enlarging the range of income-generating events at Hartmore. Within the next few years, they wanted to add a Medieval Faire in the late spring and an annual Christmas at Hartmore celebration.
Over the generations, earls of Hartmore had taken wealthy wives and sold off income-generating land to keep the house and grounds intact. The goal in this generation, Rafe, Genny and Eloise agreed, was to make it so that Hartmore could provide for itself.
From Colorado, Rory sent a wedding book full of beautiful pictures, not only of the ceremony and the reception, but of all of them out by the lake. There were pictures of the dogs and Eloise, of Geoffrey with a tiny kitten cradled in his arms. There were beautiful shots of Brooke. And of Hartmore in all its glory. And so many of Genny and Rafe. They looked happy in the pictures. They looked like two people in love. Seeing them filled Genny with hope for the future.
She called her sister. “The pictures are beautiful. Rory, I can’t thank you enough.”
“I’m so glad you like them. I sent you a link to all the pictures in an album online, too.”
“I got it, yes. Rory, I love them.”
“Be happy.”
“I will,” she promised, because she fully intended to be just that. She told Rory about the baby.
Rory congratulated her. And then she said, “Walker’s here.” Walker McKellan was a friend of the Justice Creek Bravo family, a rancher, fireman and search-and-rescue leader. According to Rory, he could do anything: communicate with mountain lions and speak the language of ravens, build a cabin with a pocketknife and some willow bark. “I have to go.”
“Tell the mountain man your sister says hello.”
“Will do. Later, then...”
The next morning, Genny went to see the DeValery family doctor in nearby Bakewell. He said that both she and the baby were doing well, gave her a prescription for prenatal vitamins and a due date of December 20.
The days were full. And the nights were magic.
No, she and Rafe had not spoken again of what had happened the night Edward died. Genny told herself she was all right with that. For now anyway. In time, she hoped her new husband would open up to her about the most difficult things.
But the here and now wasn’t bad at all. She knew a certain fragile joy, a sense of something very like fulfillment. She was finally living the life she’d always yearned for. Yes, all right. It was a life she was supposed to have led with Edward. But she was going to try to be like Eloise, to roll with the punches, as they said in America. Life had given her Rafe.
And it was working out just fine.
On the second Monday in June, Rafe left for a series of business meetings in London. Genny stayed at Hartmore. She watched him drive away at nine in the morning and missed him already—which was silly. He would only be gone for two days.
Brooke arrived home early that evening. Fiona Bryce-Pemberton came with her. The two had traveled down from London together. Fiona had green eyes, a turned-up nose and long, gorgeous red hair. She lived half the time with her banker husband in Chelsea and half the time at her country house, Tillworth, right there in Derbyshire. Her husband, Gerald, came to Tillworth on weekends and holidays when he could manage it. Her twin sons went to school in nearby Bakewell and lived at Tillworth, where there was always the staff to look after them while their parents were in London.
