The Bridgertons Happily Ever After - By Julia Quinn Page 0,12
for three years running. She was damned if he was going to get the better of her this time.
“Give up now, dear wife,” Anthony taunted. “Admit defeat, and we shall all be happier.”
Kate sighed softly, almost as if she acquiesced.
Anthony’s eyes narrowed.
Kate idly touched her fingers to the neckline of her frock.
Anthony’s eyes widened.
“It’s hot in here, don’t you think?” she asked, her voice soft, and sweet, and terribly breathless.
“You little minx,” he murmured.
She slid the fabric from her shoulders. She wasn’t wearing anything underneath.
“No buttons?” he whispered.
She shook her head. She wasn’t stupid. Even the best laid plans could find their way awry. One always had to dress for the occasion. There was still a slight chill in the air, and she felt her nipples tighten into insulted little buds.
Kate shivered, then tried to hide it with a breathy pant, as if she were desperately aroused.
Which she might have been, had she not been single-mindedly focused on trying not to focus on the mallet in her husband’s hand.
Not to mention the chill.
“Lovely,” Anthony murmured, reaching out and stroking the side of her breast.
Kate made a mewling sound. He could never resist that.
Anthony smiled slowly, then moved his hand forward, until he could roll her nipple between his fingers.
Kate let out a gasp, and her eyes flew to his. He looked—not calculating exactly, but still, very much in control. And it occurred to her—he knew precisely what she could never resist.
“Ah, wife,” he murmured, cupping her breast from the bottom, and lifting it higher until it sat plump in his hand.
He smiled.
Kate stopped breathing.
He bent forward and took the bud in his mouth.
“Oh!” She wasn’t faking anything now.
He repeated his torture on the other side.
Then he stepped back.
Back.
Kate stood still, panting.
“Ah, to have a painting of this,” he said. “I would hang it in my office.”
Kate’s mouth fell open.
He held up the mallet in triumph. “Goodbye, dear wife.” He exited the shed, then poked his head back ’round the corner. “Try not to catch a chill. You’d hate to miss the rematch, wouldn’t you?”
He was lucky, Kate later reflected, that she hadn’t thought to grab one of the Pall Mall balls when she’d been rummaging for the set. Although on second thought, his head was probably far too hard for her to have made a dent.
One day prior
There were few moments, Anthony decided, quite so delicious as the utter and complete besting of one’s wife. It depended upon the wife, of course, but as he had chosen to wed a woman of superb intellect and wit, his moments, he was sure, were more delicious than most.
He savored this over tea in his office, sighing with pleasure as he gazed upon the black mallet, which lay across his desk like a prized trophy. It looked gorgeous, gleaming in the morning light—or at least gleaming where it wasn’t scuffed and battered from decades of rough play.
No matter. Anthony loved every last dent and scratch. Perhaps it was childish, infantile even, but he adored it.
Mostly he adored that he had it in his possession, but he was still rather fond of it. When he was able to forget that he had brilliantly snatched it from under Kate’s nose, he actually recalled that it marked something else—
The day he’d fallen in love.
Not that he’d realized it at the time. Nor had Kate, he imagined, but he was certain that that was the day they had been fated to be together—the day of the infamous Pall Mall match.
She left him with the pink mallet. She had sent his ball into the lake.
God, what a woman.
It had been a most excellent fifteen years.
He smiled contentedly, then let his gaze drop to the black mallet again. Every year they replayed the match. All of the original players—Anthony, Kate, his brother Colin, his sister Daphne and her husband Simon, and Kate’s sister Edwina—they all trooped dutifully to Aubrey Hall each spring and took up their places on the ever-shifting course. Some agreed to attend with zeal and some with mere amusement, but they were all there, every year.
And this year—
Anthony chortled with glee. He had the mallet and Kate did not.
Life was good. Life was very very good.
“Kaaaaaaaaaaate!”
Kate looked up from her book.
“Kaaaaaaaaaaate!”
She tried to gauge his distance. After fifteen years of hearing her name bellowed in much the same fashion, she’d become quite proficient at calculating the time between the first roar and her husband’s appearance.
It was not as straightforward a calculation as it might seem. There