Say No to the Duke (The Wildes of Lindow Castle #4) - Eloisa James Page 0,89

you up, but not in the midst of a scandal.”

“I don’t care if there is one.” Betsy rolled onto her side, her face on one arm, eyes peaceful.

He wanted to ask her more, but the day waited. He cupped her cheek with his hand and said, “I shall tell my father and my cousin today that I mean to marry you.”

Betsy wrinkled her nose. “I don’t like your cousin. I promise to try harder in the future.”

“Grégoire is difficult to like,” Jeremy said. “But he deserves to hear the news from me.”

Betsy scowled. “Why would he assume that he might inherit? Was it so likely you would die on the battlefield?”

“I thought there was a fair chance that I wouldn’t survive. I told him myself that even if I wasn’t killed, I didn’t intend to marry. I meant it . . . then.”

Her mouth softened. “Until I came along?”

“Knocked me down as neatly as you pocket a billiard ball,” he said, lips ghosting over hers. His emotions felt so naked that he had to phrase them as a jest.

Betsy saw through him. Her eyes were misty and she kissed him sweetly. She’d probably always see through him; his days of sardonic commentary were numbered.

“So you inform Grégoire that he needs to give up his dreams of a title, and I will inform Aunt Knowe that we must plan for another wedding,” Betsy said, sometime later. “I must write to Father and Ophelia as well. I’m not sure how long they planned to stay in Scotland, but it’s entirely possible they could get snowed in and stay there for months.”

“Our marriage must happen before spring,” Jeremy said, smoothing the tumbled hair from her brow. “No condom means babies.”

Thankfully, she looked happy at the prospect.

“You’ll only have had one Season,” he said, a qualm striking him.

“I disliked it,” she said flatly. “After I mastered the art of being a damsel, it all became remarkably tedious. If you want to avoid balls, I will never complain.”

“In its original definition, a ‘damsel’ was a virgin,” Jeremy said. “A docile mouse of a virgin.”

He saw her mouth twitch.

“You are a wild woman, a wild queen. You gave me that, Bess, and it’s the best gift I was ever given.” He let the truth in his words shine in his eyes.

A smile eased her lips, but he wasn’t finished.

“We will make love until we know the feeling of each other’s skin as well as our own. So that we can arouse the other with little more than a kiss. So that the curves of your body are as well known to me as the angles of mine to you.”

He saw her wildness then, proud and true. Sure enough, she reached out and curled her hand tightly around his rigid cock. “You will know the stroke of my fingers as well as your own? Given what you told me about Etonian schoolboys, I will have to practice day and night.”

“I’ll never be satisfied by a solitary pleasure,” he said hoarsely. “Not after this. Not after you.”

“And I feel an ache inside myself, where you belong,” Betsy whispered, caressing him with a slow, tight movement. Her hips swayed, as if touching him was making her squirm with pleasure.

Jeremy swept a hand under Betsy’s nightdress and then around the sweet curve of her hip. Her legs fell apart invitingly. She was satin smooth, plump and wet . . . welcoming.

“I’ve never made love to a woman in the morning,” he whispered.

Her brow darkened. “You will never make love to another woman, morning or night,” she said with a touch of Wilde arrogance.

“That’s true,” he said peacefully. He rolled over and fitted himself to her as readily as an arrow to a bow, poised to fly. “Are you certain you’re not sore, Bess?”

She shifted under him, her hips moving in a hungry language he was beginning to learn. “No,” she said, and then cleared her throat. “Perhaps a little, but I want you . . . Oh!”

He rubbed the blunt head of his cock against her sleek warmth and listened as the breath caught in her throat.

“We can do other things,” he said, registering that his voice had dropped to a hoarse whisper.

“I am aching, and not because I’m sore,” Betsy said firmly.

Still he hesitated. “We have time—”

She arched against him, an involuntary gasp coming from her lungs. “You feel so good.”

“It will be easier like this,” Jeremy said, rolling over so she was on top. He hissed with pleasure