Chapter 10
“Lady Vitty! Lady Vitty!”
Verity was quite shocked to discover Emma cheerfully racing toward her when she returned to Castelyn House.
It was an odd mirror of Verity’s visit to Everett.
She scarcely had sufficient time to hand off her hat, wrap, and gloves in the entry.
But this time, there was a child bearing down on her instead of a mulish brother.
She sank down to the girl’s level. “Hullo, Emma. What is the cause for so much excitement?”
Verity rather hoped the child hadn’t caused a disruption in her absence. Heaven knew King had yet to warm to her presence. Where was Grace, she wondered, the maid who had yet been tasked with acting as the child’s nursemaid?
“I loseded my locket, and the duke ’elped me to find it,” Emma announced.
The duke?
King?
Verity searched the child’s excited countenance, sure she had misheard. “His Grace helped you to find the locket?”
Emma nodded, her golden curls bobbing excitedly around her heart-shaped face. “It was under my bed.”
“My goodness, His Grace has proven quite a hero,” Verity said, startled that he would have involved himself.
How would King have known the child’s locket was missing? Had Emma been weeping?
The girl held up her locket, clasped firmly in her fist, and that was when Verity noticed Emma held one of King’s handkerchiefs in the other.
A brief, sudden memory hit Verity of King handing her a handkerchief when she’d been weeping.
It was the same memory that had come to her before, faded and indistinct then but clearer now.
She had been disconsolate about something, she remembered vaguely.
Or perhaps someone. And there had been a ball, she was sure of it.
Frowning, she scoured the corners of her mind for the memory that seemed determined to elude her grasp. They had indeed been in the alcove overlooking the ballroom at her brother’s town house as she had initially recalled. But why had she been weeping?
“There you are, Miss Emma.”
King’s sinfully smooth baritone caught Verity’s attention. She looked up to find him striding toward them, elegant and handsome. The smile that curved his lips when he saw Verity was genuine and laden with sensual heat.
“And there you are, darling wife.”
“Husband,” she greeted him, summoning a smile even though her mind was still bogged down by the memory.
“Come now, Lady Verity. I don’t bite.”
Had they been flirting? She wished she could recall. Verity had the faintest, fleeting impression that the ball had been held in Sybil’s honor. But how could that have been? Sybil and Everett were still fairly newly wed.
Whilst she and King had been in love for far longer.
How long, she didn’t remember.
Why had no one told her?
Why did it feel as if everyone around her were keeping secrets from her?
“Angel, is something wrong?”
She blinked at King’s voice, so near now, and realized he had reached the place where she and Emma stood and loomed over them. What could she say? Something was wrong, but she didn’t know precisely what.
“Not at all,” she lied brightly, standing as she forced the unfinished memory aside for now. “I hear that you have been quite heroic in finding Miss Emma’s lost locket whilst I was away.”
His gaze searched hers, almost as if he didn’t quite believe her. “I don’t know that I would describe myself as heroic, but I will selfishly accept all accolades from two such lovely ladies.”
“I hope Miss Emma wasn’t disrupting your day,” she added. “Where is Grace?”
“The nursemaid? I do believe she is fetching something sweet for Miss Emma from the kitchens.”
Verity lifted a brow. “At this hour of the afternoon? She shall spoil her dinner.”
King grinned, looking sheepish. “At my suggestion. All blame for the spoiling of dinner shall be laid at my door, I fear.”
She studied him, realizing he didn’t appear bothered by the child’s presence, when he had previously gone out of his way to avoid Emma. “What has happened whilst I was away?”
“Quite a bit, actually,” King said, his smile fading and giving way to seriousness.
“Your Graces.” The nursemaid appeared in the hall, bearing a tray laden with a small bowl of cream ice and a spoon, dipping into a curtsy.
“Forgive me for Miss Emma’s exuberance. She promised to behave whilst I fetched her treat from Monsieur Barreau.
Come with me to the nursery, if you please, Miss Emma. ”
“She was behaving quite well,” Verity reassured the concerned maid. “She was merely telling me about the afternoon’s adventures.”
Which had apparently involved King helping Emma to find her missing locket.
The knowledge warmed Verity’s heart. She had feared he would never grow accustomed to the girl making a home with them.
Meanwhile, as the days had gone on, Verity had been more certain than ever that Emma was the daughter of her heart.
She hadn’t realized, until spending so much time with the child, just how badly she wanted to become a mother.
And while she knew she could never replace Emma’s mother in her heart, Verity hoped there would be enough room there for her as well.
“Do enjoy your cream ice, Miss Emma,” King was telling the girl. “And then mind your nursemaid for your lessons.”
“Yes, Your Grace,” Emma said and dipped into a quite respectable curtsy.
Verity watched, bemused, as the girl and her nursemaid took their leave. When they had disappeared up the winding staircase, she turned to her husband.
“All is well?” she asked hesitantly.
He smiled, tracing her cheek with a lone finger. “It is now that my beautiful wife is home where she belongs.”
She couldn’t contain her answering smile at his easy charm. “But Emma…was she a bother? I hadn’t thought there would be any need of me for a few hours. If I had known, I would have—”
“Hush,” he interrupted gently, laying the same finger across her lips to stay her words. “You are entitled to pay calls as it pleases you, and I promise that the household shan’t fall apart in your absence.”
She kissed the pad of his forefinger and then moved her head so she could speak. “Still, I didn’t want to cause any trouble for you.”
“You didn’t do so.”
“But Emma…”
“The girl child was wailing loudly enough to be heard all the way in Wingfield Hall,” he said wryly.
“Oh dear.”
He offered her his arm, as polished and debonair as ever and looking somehow unaffected by the mayhem he described. “Walk with me.”
She tucked her hand into his arm and allowed him to guide her down the hall. “Where are we going?”
“To my study.”
“Why?”
“Do I need a reason to have my gorgeous duchess all to myself?”
That made her smile. “Of course not. But you ordinarily keep to yourself during the afternoon.”
They had established a comfortable routine. King was a busy man with an impressive number of business interests in addition to his other duties and obligations. She usually spent her afternoons with Emma.
“Here is a reason, then,” he said. “I want to be alone with you.”
Heat slid through her. “In your study?”
“What a wicked mind you have, angel,” he said, sotto voce.
Heat crept up her throat even as an answering pulse of desire awoke deep within her. “How do you know what I had in mind?”
“The naughty glint in your eye.”
“Perhaps it matches the one in yours,” she suggested boldly.
He chuckled, the sound decadent and masculine. “I have no doubt it does.”
They reached his study, and he gestured for her to precede him over the threshold. Verity swept inside and turned to watch him as he closed the door with the same deft ease he performed every motion. She would never know how he made every action look so effortless and graceful.
His dark gaze smoldered, and he closed the distance between them in two steps, taking her in his arms. “I missed you.”
His declaration took her by surprise.
She wound her arms around his neck, leaning into his strength, tipping her head back. “I wasn’t gone long.”
“One minute from your side is too long.” His gaze fell to her lips. “Is your brother still being a pigheaded arse?”
Her sisterly loyalty to Everett balked at King’s description, but she couldn’t disagree.
“Yes. I am so sorry for the way our marriage has affected your friendship.”
“I’m not.”
Her brows rose. “You’re not?”
“No.” He shook his head slowly, the sizzling heat in his eyes making her body come to life. “You are worth any price I have to pay.”
Her heart tightened with an emotion that felt almost unfamiliar. “I am?”
“Never doubt that you are the sun of my days.” He cupped her face with one hand. “I would lose every friend I’ve ever had and every last ha’penny to my name if it meant you were forever mine.”
There was something different about him that she couldn’t quite define. He possessed a searing intensity she’d never seen before.
“I am forever yours,” she reminded him, turning to lay a kiss in the center of his palm.
For she was his wife. Nothing could change that. Nor could anyone or anything ever alter the immense love she had for him. It was bigger than she was, bigger than them both. Verity was also aware that the love she recalled felt…deeper now, in a way she did not quite understand.
They were husband and wife, after all—intimate, sharing laughter and conversation long into the night—so it stood to reason her feelings would deepen.
And yet, a quiet unease stirred within her.
The sensations growing inside her did not feel the same as those she remembered.
Those had been comforting, familiar. This new depth felt altogether different—almost too profound.
“Promise me you’ll not forget that, angel.”
She searched his countenance, trying to understand the hint of desperation in his voice. Perhaps it was the loss he had suffered that made him wary. Mayhap he feared losing her as he had his daughter. Her heart ached at the thought.
“I won’t forget,” she vowed tenderly.