The Matter of a Marquess - Jess Michaels Page 0,55

something. I need to hold some wicked moment over his head.”

The word wicked made her flash to Nicholas perched between her legs, mouth making magic against her clitoris, and she blushed as she shoved those thoughts away.

“Oh, if it’s moments to hold over his head you’d like, then I could probably provide a few,” she said. “Give me a bit to compile a list. It will be longer than you might think.”

Morgan tipped his head back and laughed, and for a moment she was put to mind of Nicholas at twenty, right before they’d been torn apart.

“Well, I look forward to that, my lady, very much,” he said with a tip of his head before he slipped off to join his wife, sister and brother-in-law.

She worried her lip. She’d expected him to engage in some kind of interrogation. And perhaps he had at that. Morgan seemed capable of reading people on a different level than anyone else she’d ever met. Perhaps his questions had allowed him to see whatever it was he was looking for. She just had no idea what it was.

She sighed and turned to go to the table herself, but came to a sudden stop. There, standing in the door, watching her, was Nicholas. She hadn’t seen him since she reluctantly slid out of his bed just a few hours before, but the way her heart thumped, she would have thought it was days, weeks, years all over again. He’d been much more mussed when she’d kissed him goodbye, but now he was back to his usual fully pulled-together self, not a hair out of place.

She rather liked him in both iterations, liked knowing she could make him come undone. She also looked forward to doing it all again. After all, they’d both said they wanted more of what they’d shared.

Even though she had no idea what more meant or how long it would last.

“Nicholas!” Selina called out. “Come and sit. Join us.”

That shook Aurora from her slack-jawed distraction. She smiled at him, then took her seat between the Duchesses of Roseford and Northfield. The opposite side of the table from Nicholas, but it didn’t matter. The connection was there, just as it always had been. And she was realizing more and more that time and distance had never erased it. Changed it, perhaps, but not destroyed.

She wasn’t certain whether to be comforted or saddened by that fact.

“—what we do today,” Katherine was saying, and once again Aurora was pulled from her thoughts and back to reality.

“It’s true, the fine weather does change things,” Robert said. “And I hate to trap our party inside with it so sunny.”

She blinked as she realized they were discussing the day’s activities. The original plan had been cards, she thought, because it was supposed to rain.

“What about a picnic?” Lizzie said from the opposite end of the table.

“Oh, an excellent idea, my dear,” Morgan agreed. “I have not had a chance to truly explore this estate since our arrival and steal all of Roseford’s best management tools to impress your brother.”

Roseford chuckled. “I have no good tools, Morgan, you should know that by now.”

“I would tend to disagree,” Katherine muttered with a half-smile. No one else heard her except for Aurora and the Duchess of Northfield, but the two of them giggled together. Katherine cleared her throat with a guilty look for the pair and said to the room at large, “I think Lizzie’s idea is perfect! A walk through the grounds and a picnic would be lovely. I’ll make the arrangements and we can leave in an hour. Does that suit everyone?”

The room murmured its agreement and then everyone went back to eating and talking in small groups, which afforded Aurora the ability to watch Nicholas once more. He smiled with his siblings, though it seemed strained. And his gaze kept sliding toward her, their eyes meeting, the tension between them humming like a constant noise under the surface.

By the time breakfast had ended and everyone had begun to leave the room to prepare for their hike through the property, Aurora’s knees were shaking with renewed desire for him. With the physical need to touch him.

He moved to the sideboard, fiddling around with the coffee and tea pots as his siblings and the other guests finally departed. When the last had disappeared through the door, he crossed to it and shut it.

Her heart leapt and she drew in a breath to say his name, but before she could, he crossed