Chapter 52
WHAT ABOUT THE PINK TULLE?” Edna asked as she rifled through Margaret’s wardrobe for a dress to replace her riding habit.
“I’d prefer something dark. I suppose my mourning clothes are packed away?”
“Of course they are,” Edna replied. “You aren’t in mourning.”
“Odd, it certainly feels as if I am,” Margaret remarked with a sigh.
“I take it your morning ride didn’t cheer you up?” Edna guessed.
“Was it supposed to?”
“Well, it used to.” Edna huffed, then, “What about this beige batiste with the—?”
Margaret gave her maid a few moments to finish the description, then glanced behind her to see why she hadn’t, and caught sight of Edna scurrying out the door—around Sebastian.
She went very still. She was struck with an unseemly giddiness over his presence, such joy, when she’d thought she’d never see him again, at least not in England, and certainly not this soon, a mere two weeks after he’d left.
She’d already concluded that she would see him again, though. Even if she had to spend years tracking him down, she was going to find him just to tell him—well, she hadn’t got that far ahead in her resolve yet.
Which was too bad, since there he stood, and she wasn’t sure what to say to him, bowled over as she was, other than to wonder aloud, “Did you leave something behind that you need to retrieve?”
“Yes.”
How bloody disappointing! But she didn’t have time to feel it. As soon as he said it, he began crossing the room toward her in a determined manner, and she simply didn’t know what to think until he reached her and immediately pulled her into his arms and began kissing her like a starving man.
Well! That wasn’t disappointing a’tall! In fact, it satisfied the urge that she’d had to fly into his arms. She’d been starving, too, apparently, for the sight of him, the taste of him.
She’d been standing next to her bed while changing her clothes, which made it too easy for Sebastian to drag her onto it with him. His knee thrust between her legs, her chemisette was yanked down. He buried his face between her breasts, breathing deeply.
“God, I’ve missed the smell of you, the taste—”
“You aren’t going to embarrass me with lusty words, are you?” she hurriedly interrupted.
He leaned up and actually grinned at her. “Would it embarrass you?”
She didn’t have the heart to tell him yes when he was grinning like that. “Possibly not.”
“That’s what I thought. But I’ll compromise,” he said and licked a path to her ear. “Did you start getting that divorce yet?”
The shivers his tongue was causing prevented her from thinking clearly, or she would have been highly disturbed by that subject. She did manage to get out, “not yet.”
“Then what would you think about not getting one, Maggie?” She was shocked speechless. He added, “That was as close as I’m getting to asking for your hand.”
He seemed to have gone very still himself, waiting for her response, while she was having trouble dealing with that much happiness dropped on her all at once.
“What would you think about closing the door?” she finally got out.
He glanced over his shoulder to see he’d left it open. She added, “That’s as close as I’m getting to saying yes.”
His gaze dropped back to hers. It was there, what she’d seen only once before in his eyes when he looked at her. Tenderness, and so much of it, her breath caught in her chest.
“Are you going to tell me you love me?” she asked.
“I’m thinking about it.”
She gasped, sputtered. He laughed and kissed her really deeply, then shot off the bed to slam the door shut. He tore out of his coat and shirt on the way back.
“While I had no doubt—” he began.
“Course you didn’t.”
“I’m bloody well glad that you love me, Maggie.”
“Don’t need to hear me say it, eh?”
“No, no more than you do, though if you feel like saying it, I won’t try to stop you.”
She laughed. “Course I do, you dratted man.”
He rejoined her on the bed, gathered her close. His kiss was exquisitely gentle but quickly turned remarkably passionate, kindling the fire between them. Amazing how easily he could do that.
“God, Maggie, I never thought I would ever feel this kind of happiness again. I do love you, m’dear, more than I thought possible to love anyone.”
She could make him even happier, she realized, and said, “I should mention—”
“It can wait,” he replied, stripping them quickly of the rest of their clothing between his kisses. “We’ve an appointment at Edge-wood, but that can wait, too. Everything will have to wait—on this.”
He entered her as he said it, catching her gasp of pleasure with his mouth. That “appointment” at Edgewood might have stirred an inkling of curiosity in her, but he was quite right. That and everything else could wait.