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Chapter Thirty-Six
“Would you like to try the pudding, Your Grace? Cook has made some changes to the recipe and would like your opinion.” Bentley uncovered the dessert before her with a kindly smile on his face.
Like the evening before, Jenny dined alone because Nicholas was not home. He had left her a note, telling her that he had a meeting at Westminster. Jenny thought he was spending too much time with the Lords but it was his responsibility to spend a lot of time with them. He was the Duke of Seaton, after all.
She had her own life to live and progress to make in geology which she was spending ample time working on. This provided her with the distraction she required and she had barely left her laboratory today.
“Certainly, Bentley,” she replied, picking up her spoon and pausing to decide which of the two varieties to taste first: One was orange and the other brown. She chose the brown and scooped up a generous amount. Chocolate. Decadent chocolate that made her eyes close in delight. She smiled and looked up at the butler.
“I hope we are keeping some for the duke. He would love this.” She took another scoop, which melted in her mouth, and then another.
“Yes, Your Grace, we will keep some for him.” He pushed the orange pudding toward her. “I would recommend taking a few sips of wine so that you may better judge the other one.”
“Oh, I did not think of that.” To her surprise, the wine cleansed her mouth of the taste of chocolate, preparing it for the orange pudding. Jenny winced when she tasted it and Bentley’s brows rose. “This is perfect for the duke but I fear it is not for me. It is too sweet.” She sipped more wine and gave the chocolate pudding more attention.
“I shall tell Cook to use less sugar next time.”
Jenny nodded. “The orange flavor is nice, nevertheless.”
“Noted, Your Grace.”
“Have Sarah prepare a bath for me, please,” she requested after dinner as she was leaving the dining room. She was undoing her hair in front of the vanity table when Sarah told her that she had finished preparing the bathwater.
“Do you remember the wedding gift Mrs. Atwood gave me?” she asked her.
Sarah nodded and quickly retrieved it from one of the vanity table drawers and began to uncover the cap. Jenny rose and took it from her. It was time to put the citrus and orchid fragrance oil to good use after letting it sit in her drawer all these months. It was not for her vanity but she hoped that on her, it would be to her husband as honey was to bears.
She stirred the water with her hand after pouring generous drops of the oil and got in, allowing the fragrance to fill her senses and the water to relax her body. When Sarah brought out one of the simpler nightrails from her trousseau that she'd been using since her wedding, Jenny asked her to replace it with one of the silk ones Persephone had chosen for one such occasion as the night she had planned.
"I’ll wear the deep red one, Sarah," Jenny said from her bath, smiling as anticipation coiled in her belly. She was excited for Nicholas to return and for her to visit his bedchamber that night.
The wait is over, she thought.It is time to love my husband the right way.
After drying up and getting into her silky nightrail, Sarah proceeded to brush her hair that she had put up to avoid wetting. Their eyes met in the mirror and Sarah immediately looked away, her cheeks striving to match the redness of Jenny’s nightrail.
"What is on your mind, Sarah?" she asked lightheartedly.
"I beg your pardon, Your Grace?"
"Would you share what you’re thinking?" Jenny asked again, laughing at her maid's pretense.
"I think that not even the goddesses from the fairytales could hold a candle to you tonight, Your Grace," Sarah said, smiling. "And I think that His Grace would be positively stunned by your beauty when he beholds you later," she added demurely now.
"Well, let us hope that he does not forget to breathe," Jenny said with a chuckle, hoping she would be able to steal his breath tonight.
Some minutes before midnight, Jenny heard her husband moving about in his bedchamber and she bit her lower lip excitedly before slipping out of her bed and into his chamber. The sight of him standing looking out the west window, still dressed in his waistcoat and breeches, with his arms folded across his chest kicked her heart into thumping hard in her chest. A snifter containing some amber liquid rested on the windowsill next to him but it looked untouched.
He seemed lost in thought but turned at the sound of her entering the room.
"Are the carriages and lanterns providing you with adequate entertainment?" She covered the distance between them to stand in front of him. The sound of her heartbeat was threatening to drown out every other sound and she pleaded with it to calm down. "I think I'd like a painting of whatever has you so transfixed."
"Jenny," he whispered, his eyes darkening with desire as he gazed at her. A robe covered her red nightrail and if he could react this way before seeing the rest of her, then she must have done something right this night. She grinned. Sarah must have somehow foreseen the future because here he was, looking stunned.
“Youhave me transfixed,” he murmured, smiling ever so slightly.
Jenny circled her arms around his neck and raised herself onto the tips of her toes. “I am all yours, Nicky. Tonight and every night for the rest of our lives.” She drew his face down towards hers. He did not immediately pull her against him like the other times but after a beat, he did, claiming her lips with his.
His kiss was slow and sweet. He tasted every inch of her lips with reverence and Jenny thought her heart would explode from the joy of her triumph. "Oh, Jenny!" he groaned, pulling away a little to look into her eyes. "You make this so hard."
