His eyes flickered.
“In the best way,” she amended throatily.
He dipped his head and gave her a greedy kiss. The lovely sense of relaxation she had felt seeped away as delicious lightning crept back.
Jeremy began moving faster and then faster, his jaw clenched. Betsy tried to stifle wanton sounds by kissing his shoulders and his neck, but she ended up licking his sweat, and that made her moan. He somehow moved harder and faster until she clung to him with everything she had.
Their bodies moved as one, breaths shuddering, eyes locked on each other.
“Damn it, I love you,” Jeremy whispered, his voice strained and harsh.
She would have smiled. She would have answered in kind, or thanked him, or . . . something. Instead, she watched as his eyes closed, head rearing back, his breath hoarse. Something ferocious, delicious slammed through her.
He waited, sweat glistening on his face, cheekbones tight, until Betsy lay beneath him dazed with pleasure.
Then he caught her hips, pulling them up to him.
Letting go with a hoarse shout.
Chapter Twenty-two
Jeremy woke from sleep with a tingle of alarm. Dawn was creeping into the chamber, which was nothing unusual: He often watched the sky turn rosy in the morning.
Then his mind cleared and memories flooded back: the way Betsy’s hair fell around his face the second time they made love, when he coaxed her into sitting on him, the moment when she decided to play a naughty Cupid and licked him until he shuddered uncontrollably, hoarse groans erupting from his throat because the ache in his loins ruled him. That and the light in Betsy’s eyes that said she wanted him with no regard to his title, or his shame.
For a few minutes he savored that memory, letting healing grace settle into his bones. He had a wife (almost). And . . . thinking of the night, and his utter disregard for condoms, children. Possibly children. Probably children, given that she had sobbed his name, and then breathlessly told him that she wanted to spend every night like this.
Yes, children.
A girl with Wilde eyebrows and a naughty giggle. A boy . . . a future marquess.
Grégoire had scarcely disguised his disappointment when Jeremy returned from war unscathed. He wouldn’t welcome the children. Perhaps Grégoire, in his resentment, had spread rumors about Jeremy’s supposed cowardice on the battlefield.
He could imagine the kindling fury in Betsy’s eyes if he ever shared that suspicion. She already didn’t like his cousin. Grégoire wouldn’t be invited to Lindow for Christmas.
But Jeremy would. He had a family now. And he had his father, too.
Perhaps he could talk Betsy into a trip to Gretna Green. Lady Knowe’s scowl came into his head and he retracted the idea.
No Gretna Green.
But he’d be damned if more than one night would pass before he saw that blissful surrender on Betsy’s face again. That meant children would come sooner rather than later. Too bad he’d walked her back to her room—even if it was only next door.
Except when he turned his head . . . there she was. A rumpled pile of silky hair, a sweet upturned nose, an arm flung over her eyes, just as she did when she was trying to hide, to be the demure lady that she wasn’t.
His whole body reacted with a ripple of happiness.
He never intended to love a woman like this, or at all. But there it was. And here she was. He rolled over and slid his hand down her side. She had put on a nightdress before she returned to his bed.
“Betsy,” he said, leaning over to kiss her temple. Her closed eyes. Her rosy lips, pillowy and swollen after a night of kissing.
“Mmm.”
“Queen Bess, you must return to your chamber,” he said, kissing her chin. “Maids will be up and about, if they aren’t already.”
She turned her head away with a muffled protest and then tried to curl her body away from him. Desire was running through him again, a hungry throb. He only had to look at her to have a cockstand. He was fairly sure it would be like this their entire life.
“Queen of my heart,” he whispered, nipping the vulnerable place where her throat met her shoulder.
“Why are you calling me a queen?” Betsy suddenly said, turning toward him.
“You are a queen,” Jeremy said. “For one thing, you made your way into my bed against all propriety, so you clearly intend to change the rules in your kingdom.”
Betsy giggled. “I washed and went to bed, but it was lonely there. So I came back. You were sleeping.”
Jeremy shook his head. “I suppose you take responsibility for that.”
She slid one silky leg forward, over his hip. “Shall I prove it?”
He took a deep breath. “I mean to marry you, tomorrow or next week or whenever your family will give you up, but not in the midst of a scandal.”
“I don’t care if there is one.” Betsy rolled onto her side, her face on one arm, eyes peaceful.
He wanted to ask her more, but the day waited. He cupped her cheek with his hand and said, “I shall tell my father and my cousin today that I mean to marry you.”
Betsy wrinkled her nose. “I don’t like your cousin. I promise to try harder in the future.”
“Grégoire is difficult to like,” Jeremy said. “But he deserves to hear the news from me.”
Betsy scowled. “Why would he assume that he might inherit? Was it so likely you would die on the battlefield?”
“I thought there was a fair chance that I wouldn’t survive. I told him myself that even if I wasn’t killed, I didn’t intend to marry. I meant it . . . then.”
Her mouth softened. “Until I came along?”
“Knocked me down as neatly as you pocket a billiard ball,” he said, lips ghosting over hers. His emotions felt so naked that he had to phrase them as a jest.
Betsy saw through him. Her eyes were misty and she kissed him sweetly. She’d probably always see through him; his days of sardonic commentary were numbered.
“So you inform Grégoire that he needs to give up his dreams of a title, and I will inform Aunt Knowe that we must plan for another wedding,” Betsy said, sometime later. “I must write to Father and Ophelia as well. I’m not sure how long they planned to stay in Scotland, but it’s entirely possible they could get snowed in and stay there for months.”
“Our marriage must happen before spring,” Jeremy said, smoothing the tumbled hair from her brow. “No condom means babies.”
Thankfully, she looked happy at the prospect.
“You’ll only have had one Season,” he said, a qualm striking him.
“I disliked it,” she said flatly. “After I mastered the art of being a damsel, it all became remarkably tedious. If you want to avoid balls, I will never complain.”
“In its original definition, a ‘damsel’ was a virgin,” Jeremy said. “A docile mouse of a virgin.”
He saw her mouth twitch.
“You are a wild woman, a wild queen. You gave me that, Bess, and it’s the best gift I was ever given.” He let the truth in his words shine in his eyes.
A smile eased her lips, but he wasn’t finished.
“We will make love until we know the feeling of each other’s skin as well as our own. So that we can arouse the other with little more than a kiss. So that the curves of your body are as well known to me as the angles of mine to you.”