Page 49

Six Months Later

Violet hunched over the drawing table. Her back ached and her eyes were tired. She’d been up for hours working on the plans for her hospital, as she did every morning before she saw patients.

“We’re going to be late for the wedding, my love,” Alistair said as he swept into the room. He was sun-bronzed and lithe, moving with grace. Every bit Violet’s parlor panther.

Violet stood and smoothed her palms over her dress and rounded belly. Alistair walked behind her and pulled her close.

“What is it?” he whispered. “Do you not feel well enough to travel to Surrey? Catherine will understand.”

She closed her eyes and inhaled him. His virile scent of sea wind and balsam and adventure had only increased since they’d moved to Kent.

Darius and the Marquess had provided them with Rosehips as a wedding gift, as well as a hefty investment in the shipping and trading company to boost what he and McGann had already received from their anonymous benefactor.

“I would never miss her wedding,” Violet said. “It’s only that I have a bad feeling about this. Tell me again that Pembrooke is a decent man. He’ll be good to her?”

“He’s decent,” Alistair said. “You shouldn’t worry over much. It’s bad for you.” He ran his hands down her shoulders and then wrapped them around her increasing middle, pulling her near. “And bad for the little one.”

“I know,” she said. “I just cannot remove this niggle of worry from my mind.”

“I see.” His fingers lightly brushing up and down her stomach and then coming up to rest on her swollen breasts. “I could help with that.”

Violet leaned against him. Her body, as always, responsive to his presence and his touch. “Can you?” she murmured. “Then we will be very late.”

He leaned down and nibbled the crook of her ear. “I don’t care if you don’t.”

She grinned. “I definitely do not care.”

“Wonderful. Turn around and let me look at this dress.”

It was a high-necked concoction, with buttons from her neck to her toes, as her day dresses always were. “You are going to hate it,” she said and smiled at him wickedly.

“Oh,” he answered, that one eyebrow arched. “I do so love to hate your dresses.”

He placed his two strong hands on the edges of her dress and ripped it open, the sound of buttons popping from the fabric and hitting the floor arousing them both.

They kept Madame Tremaux in a brisk business with the number of new, modest, highly buttoned dresses Violet ordered. If the woman ever wondered why Violet needed so many, she’d never asked. Just brushed off the question entirely with a Gallic shrug.

“That’s better,” Alistair said, his fingers roaming over Violet’s belly and breasts, playfully tweaking her nipple.

She pressed against him. “We are going to be very late.”

“I know. We’ll blame it on the train. Or McGann.”

The Scot was readying to launch the first ship from the new docks in Kent. He’d postponed the maiden voyage to attend Violet and Alistair’s nuptials, and then, after the gift of Rosehips, the two men decided it was better to postpone once more and sail from their new port.

“Are you sorry you won’t be sailing?” Violet asked, stepping away from her husband for a moment to look into his dark eyes.

“The only thing I’m sorry about,” he murmured in his low, husky voice, “is that you are still wearing your drawers.”

“Knickers,” Violet corrected. “Drawers belong in a desk. But I think you can get my knickers off soon enough.”

“I think I can, my love. I very much think I can.”

He bent his head and kissed her then. Her body and his, her heart and his, her mind and his in perfect accord.