The Duke and His Duchess - By Grace Burrowes Page 0,14

lying-ins to feel rather possessive about the quantity yet flowing in her veins. “I’ll think about it.”

“That’s all I ask.”

And then, just when she thought the skirmish had played itself out, he took her prisoner. Scooped her up against his chest and carried her from the room, the spoils of an altercation Esther hadn’t seen coming and certainly hadn’t won.

***

An officer could raise his voice when the situation warranted, could swear a bloody streak, drink himself into oblivion, and order some miscreant flogged for serious transgressions.

A husband and father had no such outlets, not with children sleeping in the next room and a wife who looked so lovely and sad nursing her infant that Percival wanted to tear his hair in panic.

In his arms, Esther felt light as a wraith, and her very docility scared him worse than the French, the Indians, or the wild creatures of the Canadian forest ever had. She offered not even a “Percival Windham, put me down,” across the length of the entire house—and with such a precious burden, he did not hurry.

He deposited her beside their bed then divested her of her robe. “To bed, madam, and you will sleep in tomorrow. If you are fatigued, and you refuse to consult medical authority, then you will submit to my authority when I tell you to rest.”

His authority was nonexistent with her. He’d known that before they married and had delighted in her independence. A man in love was a fool.

While he tried to glower at her—please God, let his glowers be more effective with the children than they were with his wife—she met his gaze. He knew that look, knew that obdurate, mulish expression, and felt a predictable response to the challenge it portended. His blood quickened in anticipation of a great row—maybe their most rousing argument so far—when Esther slowly, deliberately, crossed her arms and inched her nightgown up over her head.

Sweet suffering Christ. Like a damned upstart colonial, she was launching a sneak attack.

“I’ve missed you, Percival. Perhaps you’d like to get into this bed with me.”

She flung the words at him like a gauntlet, an accusation of intentional neglect that was not at all fair. Then the infernal woman plastered herself—her entire naked, warm, lithe self—against him and took his mouth in a kiss.

“Esther…”

Holy God, she felt wonderful. His hand, sliding down the elegant turn of her flank, gloried in the absence of flannel and propriety. Could a man’s hands be hungry? For his surely were—for the feel of her, for the exact contours and shifts of her muscle and bone beneath his palms. Her nudity, so rare in recent months, topped any argument his reason might have put forth about their mutual need for rest, or a man not pestering his wife beyond the necessary.

This was necessary. It was necessary that Percival fling his clothes away between kisses; it was necessary that he heave his wife onto the bed like he hadn’t since the early weeks of their marriage. It was as necessary as his next breath that he climb over her and trap her body beneath his, the better to plunder her mouth with his own.

And then—because he was not just a husband and father, but also a man still in love, it was necessary that he try to exercise some damned restraint.

“I should find a sheath, Esther.” Though the sheaths were clear across the room, secreted somewhere in the wardrobe—halfway to Canada, according to the compass needle pointing directly at Percival’s wife.

She got her mouth on him again, sank her teeth into his jawbone, not enough to hurt, but enough to distract. “Sheaths break. Love me.” To emphasize her words, she traced his lower lip with her tongue, dipping inside his mouth then feinting back.

“Esther, I am concerned for—” Worried sick, he was. Somewhere beneath the tempest of passion she was evoking, he was worried for her, for their marriage, for his family. Nigh distraught with it.

His cock, however, was distraught in an entirely different and—just at that moment—more convincing manner.

“Love me.”

“I do. I do love you, dammit, but for the love of God, if you don’t stop—” He went on the offensive, covering her mouth with his own, trapping her hands beneath his against the pillow.

She went still, breasts heaving beneath him, a tease and retreat of puckered nipples against his chest. By the narrowing of her eyes, he realized she understood what even her breathing did to him.

“I love you,” he said again, more softly. A