‘Then take my mind off them and do not try to test your theory that I can always find you by running away again. It ruins my sleep,’ he added as he joined her on the wide bed.
Julia gave a little snort of laughter and kissed his collarbone, the nearest part of him she could reach. Ah, the smell of his skin...
‘That is good—I was wondering if I would ever hear you laugh again.’
‘I like this, having you naked and at a disadvantage,’ she murmured, pursuing the line of the bone to the point of his shoulder and biting gently. ‘Tired and battered, my poor love. I can have my wicked way with you.’
‘Disadvantage?’ He rolled her over with a mock growl and pounced, wrestling with the squirming, laughing, woman and the loose tapes of the corset. ‘It would take more than a few bruises and a disturbed night to weaken me.’
Julia lay back with a contented sigh of agreement as Will began to kiss his way down her body. He paused to twirl his tongue in her navel, which always made her giggle, then raised his head. ‘Talking of disturbed nights, do you feel any more comfortable with the idea of children?’ He spoke lightly, but she could sense his underlying hesitation in case he hurt her.
‘I feel very comfortable with that idea, my lord,’ she said. ‘In fact, I think we may have already begun the process. I am not certain, but I have hopes.’
Will moved so fast she hardly had time to blink. One moment she had been sprawled in sensual abandon, the next she was under the covers in Will’s arms and he was holding her as cautiously as he might a basket of eggs. ‘Will! I am not fragile.’ Julia twisted to try to caress him, show him that she wanted, above everything, to make love.
‘Are you sure you are all right?’ His forehead was furrowed with worry lines she had never seen before. ‘It must have been bad enough, these past days, but to have gone through all you have if you are carrying a child—’
‘I am fine,’ Julia said. ‘And I might not be expecting, we need to wait a day or two more in case it is simply stress disrupting my system. But I do not want to wait to make love to my husband.’
Will’s face relaxed. ‘I suppose we could. Just in the interests of securing the succession, you understand, now we cannot rely on Henry.’
The words You know? were on the tip of her tongue. Julia bit them back just in time, but Will smiled. ‘That was another thing that I thought about yesterday. It helped distract me when I was going insane worrying about you. I realised, when I was thinking with my heart, instead of...other parts of my anatomy, that I trusted you. I also thought about Henry dispassionately and not as simply my rather irritating heir and put two and two together. I may have made six, of course.’
‘No, you have not.’ Julia snuggled close against Will’s flank and inched her fingers across his flat stomach. ‘It will not be easy for him, but I have encouraged him to take chambers in London, where the presence of just one close servant would not be remarked upon. Are you shocked? I am sorry if you do not approve.’
‘I am not shocked, so much as anxious for him. But you have given him good advice. And now, having settled Henry’s love life to your satisfaction, might we resume our own?’
‘I thought I was,’ Julia murmured, closing her fingers around the evidence of her husband’s desire.
Will laughed and rolled on to his back, taking her with him. ‘Ravish me, then.’
His eyes were golden, laughing, clear of any shadow. She had never seen them like that, Julia realised as she knelt astride the slim hips and took him into her body with a sigh of pure happiness. ‘I cannot remember when I felt so content, so free of anxiety. So joyous. I love you very much, Will. I thought I would never be able to make love with you again.’
He pulled her down so he could raise his head to meet her lips and smiled up at her. At the look she melted, yielding and as boneless as a swathe of velvet. ‘We’ve been though hell to get here, my love. I think we are owed our little piece of paradise on earth. We will kiss and we will love and then we will sleep and then we will go home and be happy.’
‘For ever?’
‘I am prepared to devote the next eighty years to it,’ Will said. ‘We can review things after that.’
‘Very well, my lord,’ Julia agreed and sank into his arms and his kiss and delicious contentment.
Louise Allen
A lady with a secret sorrow
Reeling from heartbreak, Lady Laura Campion transformed herself into the infamous Scandal’s Virgin of high society—flirtatious, alluring and utterly shocking—yet always stopping short of absolute ruin. But now she has new hope—the daughter she thought lost is alive, and under the guardianship of the powerful Avery Falconer, Earl of Wykeham.
Going into battle against Lord Wykeham may be her only option to win little Alice back, but she doesn’t expect the irresistible attraction that simmers between her and the formidable Earl. Laura finally has a chance at happiness, but can she persuade Avery to forgive her past?
To all my friends in theRomantic Novelists’ Association.
April 1816—the park of Westerwood Manor,
Hertfordshire
Keep still! The circular image shook, swooped over immaculately scythed grass, across flower beds fresh with young growth, over a flash of bright blue cotton... There.
The watcher’s hand jammed so hard against the branch that the rough bark scored the skin from the knuckles. Yes. Glossy ringlets the colour of autumn leaves, determined little chin, flyaway brows over eyes that must surely be clear green. Beautiful. She is so beautiful.
And then the girl smiled and turned, laughing as she ran. The telescope jerked up and a man’s face filled the circle. Hair the colour of autumn leaves, stubborn chin, angled brows, sensual mouth turned up into a smile of delight.
‘Papa! Papa!’ The child’s voice floated back through the still, warm air. The man stooped to scoop her up and turned towards the house as she buried her face in the angle between neck and broad shoulder and clung like a happy monkey. Her laughter drifted on the breeze towards the woodland edge.
The telescope fell with a dull thud onto the golden drift of fallen beech leaves and the woman who had held it slid down the tree trunk until she huddled at its base, racked with the sobs that she had stifled for six long years.
* * *
‘You saw her then.’
‘How did you guess?’ Laura Campion let the door slam shut behind her.
‘Look at the state of you. All blubbered up. You never could get away with tears, my la—ma’am.’
Trust Mab to exhibit the delicate sensibility of a brick. The scratch of wicker on wood as the maid pushed aside the mending basket, the sharp tap of her heels on the brick floor, the creak of the chain as she swung the kettle over the fire, all scraped like nails on a slate. But the words steadied her as gushing sympathy never would have done. Mab knew her all too well.
‘Yes, I saw her. She is perfect.’ Laura pulled out a chair and sat down at the table. Her boots were tracking leaf mould across the floor and she tugged them off and tossed them onto the kitchen doormat without a glance. ‘She looks like Piers. She looks like him.’
‘You just said.’ Mab slopped hot water into the teapot and swirled it round.