Epilogue #2
She went with him up the great stairs, past the door of the chambers that had been hers, that neither of them had used in months, and on to the ones at the end of the corridor.
He had not asked her to move her things. She had done it herself the week she came home without a word, and he had come up one evening to find her hairbrush on his dressing table and had stood in the doorway looking at it for a long moment as though it were the finest thing he owned.
They shared everything now. That was the quiet astonishment she was still getting used to, three months on.
Not only the bed—though there was that, and she had discovered in herself a frank and unrepentant appetite for it that would have scandalized the wallflower she used to be—but also the rest of it.
The letters that came about his father’s case, laid open on the desk for her to read and answer.
The estate decisions, settled across the breakfast table between the pair of them.
He had meant it when he had said the word partner. He had put her beside him and left her there, and somewhere in the last three months, she had finally stopped waiting for the day he would change his mind.
He closed the door behind them, and the warmth of the room folded around the two of them. He drew her back against him and placed his mouth to the side of her throat.
“D’ye ken,” he murmured, “there was a night nae so long ago when I stood in a cold warehouse and thought I’d never have this.
Any of it. That I’d die without ye kennin’ that I love ye.
” His hands found the laces at her back and slowly began to unfasten the careful armor of the evening.
“I’ve a great deal of makin’ up to do for that, Duchess.
Every foolish, silent year of it. I thought I’d start tonight. ”
She turned in his arms and kissed him. There was no hesitation in it now, no careful testing of what she was permitted to want. She simply cupped his face in her hands and kissed him in the warm dark of the only home either of them had ever truly had, freely and without fear.
Magnus made a low sound against her mouth and drew her closer.
For a while, there was nothing but the slow press of his lips and the warmth of his hands on her waist. Then Rosaline reached for his cravat.
He caught her fingers before she could undo the knot. “Wait.”
She looked up at him. His expression had changed. Not with reluctance, but with something so unexpectedly tender that her breath caught.
“There’s a wee bairn in there.”
She laughed softly. “That is generally how it works.”
“Daenae mock me, woman. I’m having a revelation.”
His hand settled carefully against her belly, almost tentative despite everything they had shared. Rosaline covered it with her own.
He looked down at their joined hands. “A spring bairn,” he murmured.
There was such naked amazement in his face that her teasing deserted her.
She touched his cheek. “Are you happy?”
His eyes came back to hers. “Rosaline.” His voice roughened. “I daenae have a word large enough for it.”
He bent and kissed her again. This time, the kiss deepened slowly, all the wonder of the moment still there beneath the hunger.
Rosaline worked loose the knot of his cravat and drew it free. Magnus shrugged out of his coat while she started on the buttons of his waistcoat, neither of them in a hurry.
He kissed the corner of her mouth, her cheek, the spot just beneath her ear, while the fabric loosened beneath his hands. Rosaline pushed his waistcoat down his shoulders and let it fall.
“You realize,” she murmured, “that we are going to have to become respectable, eventually.”
“Nay, absolutely nae,” he said, and kissed her again.
She laughed against his mouth.
He lifted his head, their gazes locking. “I love you, Rosaline.”
Before she could respond, his lips were on hers again, more urgent now, as he swept her up into his arms. He gently laid her down on the bed.
Then his lips traced a fiery trail down her body until they found their way between her thighs.
He nuzzled them apart and flicked his tongue against the inside of her thigh until he reached her bud.
As his tongue swirled around it, Rosaline arched her back.
He teased her closer to the brink before pulling back and slowly trailing kisses back up her belly.
Rosaline let out a mew of protest. “Magnus—”
He cut off her protest by entering her, and her walls clenched around him. He slowly slid in and out of her, until she impatiently grabbed his hips and pulled him deeper.
“Are ye sure, lass? The bairn—”
“Is fine.” She arched up and met his thrust.
He needed no further invitation. He buried himself deep inside of her, and she felt a wave of pleasure start at her toes.
“There.” The word tore out of him, rough and reverent, his forehead dropping to hers. “God, lass. There ye are. Ye feel—” He broke off, and a low, wrecked sound rumbled up out of his chest. “Ye’ve nae notion what ye do to me. None at all.”
She was learning. She felt it in the tremor of the arms braced on either side of her, in what it plainly cost him to keep himself slow and unhurried when she could feel how badly he wanted otherwise.
He set a rhythm that was almost cruel in its patience, and with each thrust the wave climbed higher, and he watched her through all of it, his eyes dark in the firelight, murmuring the whole time.
“That’s it. That’s my clever girl. Let me see ye. Dinnae hide from me, nae here, nae ever.” His mouth moved against her throat, her jaw, the corner of her lips. “Look at ye, comin’ apart under me. Ye were made for this. Made for me. Say ye ken it, Rosaline. Say ye’re mine.”
“I’m yours,” she gasped, and meant it to the marrow.
“Aye. Mine.” Something fierce and tender broke open in his voice. “And I’m yours, lass. All of me, God help ye. Now let go. Let go for me.”
With each thrust, it rose higher and higher until it crested and broke over her.
Her body shook as he took her. And when he spilled inside her, she collapsed under him, spent.
Afterward, she lay curled against him beneath the sheets, her cheek resting over his heart. His arm was wound around her, his hand slowly stroking up and down her back in the dark.
For a while, they said nothing.
Then Magnus murmured, “Do ye think it’ll be a lass?”
Rosaline smiled without opening her eyes. “I thought you were certain it would be a boy.”
“I was certain of nothing. I was merely expressing a preference.”
“You said he would need a pony.”
“A lass can have a pony.”
That made her laugh softly.
Magnus dipped his head and kissed her hair.
“I think a girl,” Rosaline said after a moment. “Dark hair. Very solemn.”
“God save us. Another ye.”
She lifted her head. “I am not solemn.” He looked at her, and she narrowed her eyes. “Do not say a word.”
His mouth twitched.
She settled against him again. “And if it is a boy?”
Magnus was quiet for a moment. “Then perhaps he’ll have yer eyes.”
Rosaline’s fingers traced lazily over his chest. “And your voice.”
“Poor wee soul.”
She smiled. “Do you suppose the child will speak like you?”
Magnus caught her hand and kissed her fingers. “The bairn will speak properly,” he informed her. “Unlike its English maither.”
She laughed, and this time he laughed with her, low and warm.
Rosaline tucked herself closer. “A little voice like yours,” she murmured. “Running through the house.”
Something shifted in his face then, the teasing giving way to wonder.
“Aye,” he said softly. His hand found hers beneath the covers and wrapped around hers. “A little voice.”
They lay there, imagining it for a while. A boy or a girl. Dark hair or fair. Her eyes or his. A solemn little face, perhaps, or a laughing one. A child racing through the halls, calling for Mama and Papa in some impossible mixture of England and the Highlands.
Magnus pressed another kiss to her temple. “Whatever it is,” he said, “I think I will like it very much.”
Rosaline smiled against him. “I think I will, too.”
The End?