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Her smile was slow and sweet, then a bit naughty. “To take you to bed.”
Thank God.“I intend to court you properly for all the world to see.”
She slid his coat from his shoulders. “Must you?”
“For the three weeks necessary to cry the banns, I will be a pattern card of swainly devotion. I will walk you home from services, endure meals with your bothersome family and even be somewhat polite to Lord Stephen, drive out with you…”
His waistcoat went next, casually draped over her vanity stool. “You were saying,my lord?”
“Something about making passionate love until the sun comes up.”
“That’s in a mere hour or two.”
He let her pull his shirt over his head, then eased her dressing gown off. “We won’t have an easy time of it, Althea, not at first.”
“I don’t want easy. I want honest and meaningful, and I wantyou.”
“We are in accord.”
“Let’s be in accord in bed, shall we?”
They were, gloriously so, and when Nathaniel came down to breakfast hand in hand with Althea, not even her brothers dared offer a remark, though they, Millicent, and Her Grace of Walden did smile. Both Quinn and Stephen passed the duchess a coin, while Nathaniel passed Althea the teapot and the entire basket of cinnamon buns.
