his neck like a monkey and William running wildly about them, swinging a stick like it was a sword.
How she loved him! How she loved them all. The children had invaded her heart from the very first moment. But she’d been more cautious with him, as any woman should. Crossing the street, she joined them near the gates.
“Now can we go to Gunners?”
“Gunter’s,” Winn corrected Charlotte with a grin. “And yes, now we may go to Gunter’s.”
“You spoil them shamelessly,” Callie said, smiling as he leaned forward and kissed her cheek.
Winn set Charlotte down. “Go chase your brother down and tell him we’re going for ices.” With Charlotte gone, he leaned in once more, and this time, he didn’t kiss her cheek. He kissed that delicate and so very tender spot just below her ear which made her shiver. Then he whispered, “When we get home, I’m going to spoil you, too.”
Callie spared a glance for Claudia who was watching Charlotte closely as she chased down William. “I believe that’s called despoiling,” she whispered back. “Now behave.”
He grinned at her. “It’s only called that if we’re not married. Being married, it’s referred to as being an attentive and thorough husband.”
There was no chance for her to reply. William and Charlotte returned then, running at them like wild things. “I want a coconut ice!” Charlotte said.
“And I want lemon!” William cried.
“You shall all have the flavor of ice that you desire so long as the shop has it,” Callie offered smoothly. Claudia held Charlotte’s hand. William skipped ahead of them and she and Winn were left to walk behind.
“It’s all rather remarkable, isn’t it?”
“What?” Callie asked, looking up at Winn, noting his somewhat bemused expression.
“You were mere yards away from me. Growing up at the Darrow School, you were yards away from me, from Averston, from the place that should have been your home.”
Callie shrugged. “There was more than distance separating me from all those things. Class can be an unreachable barrier. I was a servant… beneath notice. Or at the very least that is what I was being reared for.”
“Hardly that,” he said. “You could never be beneath notice. But whatever strange stroke of fate brought you into my world when it did, I am grateful for it,” he said, his tone heartfelt and weighted with emotion. “I didn’t know how empty my life was until you. Even with the children, I loved them, but was too weighted down by the tradition of how things had been in my own childhood to show them that.”
Callie leaned her head against his shoulder as they walked arm in arm toward the sweet shop and the treats that the children were all but salivating for. “If it’s any consolation, my life was quite empty, as well. And I knew that. I felt it. Every day. But I don’t feel it now. And I daresay, I won’t ever have to feel it again. I love you, Winn. I could say it a hundred times in a day and it wouldn’t be enough.”
“I love you, too,” he said, pausing for a moment to kiss her lips.
“EWWW!”
They broke apart, laughing, as they faced William and his look of disgust. “You’re the one who kept suggesting I marry her,” Winn pointed out.
“But I didn’t know you’d be doing that all the time,” William insisted.
When the boy was facing forward again. Winn kissed her again, quick and hard. “Just wait… once we get home, I’ll kiss you properly.”
“We could send them into Gunter’s alone for a moment and you could kiss me properly here,” Callie suggested.
Winn’s lips quirked in a wicked grin and in a low, conspiratorial whisper, he said, “Oh, no, my darling wife. Because that proper kiss won’t be on your lovely lips… and neither one of us will be wearing a stitch.”
Callie blushed furiously, even as she disengaged her arm from his. They’d reached Gunter’s and she was in full governess mode, herding children. “Come along, children. We don’t have time to dawdle. Your uncle has a very pressing engagement later.”
She could hear him laughing behind her, but she didn’t care a whit. Ices were delightful, but she had something even sweeter on her mind, after all.
About the Author
Chasity Bowlin lives in central Kentucky with her husband and their menagerie of animals. She loves writing, loves traveling and enjoys incorporating tidbits of her actual vacations into her books. She is an avid Anglophile, loving all things British, but specifically all things Regency.
Growing up in Tennessee, spending as much time as possible with her doting grandparents, soap operas were a part of her daily existence, followed by back to back episodes of Scooby Doo. Her path to becoming a romance novelist was set when, rather than simply have her Barbie dolls cruise around in a pink convertible, they time traveled, hosted lavish dinner parties and one even had an evil twin locked in the attic.
Website: www.chasitybowlin.com