When the Earl Met His Match (Wedded by Scandal #4) - Stacy Reid Page 0,67
how tiny she appeared. The wailing died down as the child regarded the two faces peering at her.
“I’ll protect you both.”
Phoebe smiled, and it wobbled, tears filling her eyes once again. “We’ll protect you, too.”
He almost waved a dismissive hand at this, but something strange and unexpected writhed through him. Hugh was beset with a powerful emotion he couldn’t quite describe. And for the first time in years, he wondered at the sensations burrowing deep inside his heart. He closed a mental fist around them before they floated away like ashes in the wind, like everything that made him feel eventually did.
Do not leave. Stay with me, he silently whispered to the sensations as he reached out to brush a damp tendril of hair from his wife’s cheek with shaking fingers.
Phoebe turned her cheek into the palm of his hand before peering down at the child. Hugh shifted closer. He touched the bridge of Phoebe’s nose, and she looked up at him.
“Thank you for our daughter.”
Chapter Thirteen
Phoebe raced across the lanes of her home, enjoying the power of the horse beneath her. It felt wonderful to be outdoors, basking in the wild scent of flowers and the rays of the sun. It had been only last week Dr. Edwards and the midwife had visited and had said that both her and her daughter were doing fine. The doctor’s permission to restart a more energetic normal life was something she had been hoping for. Her darling, Francesca Elizabeth Winthrop, was doing well at two months old and putting on weight. When the doctor had declared Phoebe to be fully recovered from the ordeal of the childbirth, she had been exultant.
She took the horse to the bluff overlooking the oceans and lifted her face to the sky. The season had changed, and autumn crept closer. Her parents, the duke and duchess, would be preparing to return to the country soon. Phoebe had replied to Richard’s letter a few weeks ago and had informed him of his niece’s arrival into the world. Hugh had also revealed that he’d not heard from the duke and duchess.
I shall not fret about it.
Her days were too busy with the joy of learning to be a mother to be consumed with the absence of responses to their letters. In a few months, they would be travelling to England and then to town for the season, and her marriage would then fall under the scrutiny of her powerful parents and society. There was no need to wish for it to happen any earlier.
Tugging on the reins of the horse, she turned him around and nudged him into a gentle trot toward the main house. She had only been riding for about an hour, but already Phoebe missed the wonder of her baby.
And Hugh.
The very thought of him was enough to bring a flush to her entire body and set her heart to racing. They had yet to consummate their marriage, and Phoebe felt as if each day she walked on a tightrope, waiting to fall off into something wonderful and frightening. His kisses were more ravishing than before—longer, deeper, as if he fought a battle only he understood.
Phoebe was on the verge of trying to figure out how to trick her husband into allowing her to tie his arms on their bed board, so she could take advantage and assuage her ever-present hunger for him. The very thought of being so salacious and improper brought a blush to her face.
Only yesterday morning, they had taken a stroll to their special meadow, where they had kissed passionately several times. She groaned, recalling how frustrated she had been by the whole encounter that she had pushed him into the brook. He had been astonished, then his eyes had narrowed in retribution. She had raced off laughing, but he had caught her, tumbling them to the grass and taking the brunt of the fall.
There had been a question in his eyes as he had peered down at her, and she had blushed like a silly miss, not certain how to tell him the doctor had implied they could resume marital relations. Phoebe wanted him to strip her naked and be wicked with her, but she had no notion how to seduce her own husband. That was all she had thought about for the last three days, and to her great mortification, all she did was blush whenever he caught her staring at him.