His gaze went from hard to molten, and he rolled onto his back. “All yours.”
Joan moved forward on all fours and stopped. “Thaddeus.”
He instantly turned his head.
“I really mean it about marrying you. I don’t care about being ruined. I don’t care if there’s a scandal. I believe that our marriage might be destroyed if your father carries out that campaign. It would cause an explosion, whether or not you won the law case, which I’m sure you would.”
“I understand your point of view,” he said.
They stared at each other mutely, a distant creak from a wooden floor and a loud cricket making themselves heard. She swallowed. “In that case?”
His face had gentled, his eyes far too knowing. “I’m still yours.”
Something had happened between them: some line crossed or breached, she wasn’t sure. By declaring herself—and she meant it—a new cord bound them together. They were closer, rather than farther apart.
But just at the moment there was another world to discover. She edged closer and put a hand on his ribbed stomach. Just below his navel, his tool thumped against his skin again. “Out of your control,” she said, letting her fingers slide in that direction.
“Generally speaking, yes,” he agreed.
Obviously, there were nuances to the situation, ones she could learn later. She moved her fingers sideways, like a crab dancing.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
“That my fingers are crablike.” She glanced up; his eyes were surprised. “I’m sorry, that wasn’t very romantic, was it? Seductive, I mean.”
Delight spread over his face. “It didn’t live up to all those pouts by which you ruled the ballroom, no.”
Joan had forgotten that she wasn’t wearing clothing, but suddenly she was achingly aware of the weight of her own breasts. Her legs were tucked to the side, like a mermaid, but the pressure of her legs together made her private parts flare with heat. As if, having been introduced to the act, she . . .
No, that was ridiculous. She could feel herself growing pink.
“I’m going to assume that your thoughts have moved from animals to humankind,” Thaddeus said. He picked up her hand, hovering just above his belly button, and released it squarely on top of his cock, as Ophelia would have called it. Or rather, as Shakespeare apparently called it.
Her hand closed greedily to see if what had felt thick and strong was—
It was. He was. His gasp was the most delicious thing she’d ever heard.
Joan discovered she was smiling.
Had she claimed him before? Not like this. Here, this moment, with Thaddeus’s head flung back and his intent eyes closed in pleasure, all because her hand slid over satiny tender skin?
Claiming.
Chapter Eighteen
The following evening, back in Lindow Castle, Joan asked her maid a precise series of questions about pregnancy. She knew the basics, of course.
But nine months? Ten months? Time had a different rhythm at the moment because deep in her gut, in some knowing part of herself that she hadn’t been acquainted with before, she was certain she was with child.
In nine or ten months, there would be a little girl or boy who needed married parents. She knew that much, if only because of her own childhood. The errant Duke of Eversley, Thaddeus’s father, needed to be taken in hand.
Thaddeus was made to be a duke . . . it was his destiny, to be grandiose about it. The question of the dukedom had to be settled now. Lady Bumtrinket’s grim predictions floated through Joan’s head and she pushed them away. Thaddeus had to become the man he was meant to be, because if marriage to her lost him the dukedom, it might destroy their future.
Joan descended the staircase in her favorite gown, silk dotted with exquisite hand-painted flowers. The bodice was very low, and trimmed with a pleated silk ruffle starched to frame her neck.
Thaddeus waited for her at the bottom of the steps. He looked up at her expressionlessly, but the stillness of his face was no longer imperturbable to her. He would always be there, waiting for her.
“Don’t look at me like that!” she exclaimed, reaching the bottom step.
A smile reached his mouth, this time. “How so?”
“As if you’ve seen me naked,” she whispered, so that the two footmen Prism had assigned to the entry wouldn’t hear her.
Thaddeus shot them a look, and they melted back through the green baize door.
“I have seen you naked,” he pointed out. “I would rather lose every memory I’ve ever had than the memory of last night.”
Joan’s smile wobbled.
Thaddeus’s sultry eyes were intent on hers. “I would give up every single memory, Joan. But not those that lie in our future.” He drew her against his body and tipped up her chin. “May I?” His voice was an erotic murmur.
She nodded, and his mouth came down on hers. He took his time, lavishing her face with kisses so that by the time he breached her lips, she had her arms wound around his neck, and she was on her toes.
When his tongue finally slipped between her lips, she whimpered, a small sound that died in the large entryway but burned between them. He hardened against her, and memories of the night before rushed through her head, making her shiver. “Me, also,” Joan whispered.
Thaddeus pulled back, his eyes the dark blue of twilight and slightly dazed. “You what?” He sounded short of breath, and Joan let herself savor the triumph of it for a moment.
“I wouldn’t ever want to forget last night,” she told him.
They were kissing again, hot and fast. “I can’t get enough of you,” Thaddeus growled, tearing his mouth away.
The baize door opened, and a footman diffidently reappeared, sidling along the wall.
Thaddeus ignored him. “You won’t allow me to announce our betrothal?” His voice was achingly soft. “I haven’t yet asked your father for permission to marry you, but I believe he will not cavil.”
“Absolutely not,” Joan replied. “No dukedom, no wife.” Then she kissed him again because she couldn’t stop herself.
He took her arm and drew her toward the great doors to the drawing room. The footman sprang forward and pulled open the door; Prism, standing just inside, bowed.
Thaddeus looked at her. “Truly, no?” He sounded surprised, nonplussed. Likely no one said no to him.
“No,” Joan said, enjoying the moment.
“Damn.”
Prism announced them as they walked into the room.
“We’re like an old married couple, speaking in one-word sentences,” Thaddeus murmured.
“I will help you with your father,” Joan said. “I can help.”
“I’d like to kiss you again,” Thaddeus remarked. “By way of thank you.”
“Absolutely not!” Joan replied. “And I said it before: Don’t look at me like that!”
She turned away, willing away a blush. For such a proper future duke, Thaddeus had remarkably suggestive eyes. More of her siblings had descended on the castle during the day. Her older brother North and his wife, Diana, were talking to Sir Reginald, and her parents were chatting with her adopted brother Parth and his wife, Lavinia.
“There’s Jeremy,” Thaddeus said, a happy note in his voice, looking to the other side of the room where Lord Jeremy Roden, who was married to Joan’s older sister Betsy, was talking to Aunt Knowe.