Page 87 of The Lady is Trouble

This is what love returned feels like, she thought in wonder.

“Lady Elizabeth Piper Alexander, Viscountess Beauchamp. There is a certain something,” he said with a tilt of his head. As if teacups in drawing rooms all over England were not rattling with the statement.

Tears blurred her vision; she dashed her hand across her eyes. “I love you, Jules. I always have. But I’ll make an appalling viscountess. I wasn’t even a passable granddaughter of an earl.”

Cupping her jaw, he brought her face into the light, into his view. “Rather, love, you’ll teach them how it’s done.”

“Hmm, perhaps,” she murmured and began to think of ways to do just that.

Tipping his head, he laughed as her temper sparked. She could play dirty. Scandalous Scott was known for it. Bouncing on her toes, she set her lips to his, pressing against him in the way he liked, as close as she could get when she loved such a very tall man.

His smile vanished as he tumbled into the kiss, a ragged moan creeping from his throat. “Unfair,” he said and reached to open the door and push her inside.

“Always.”

He pulled back just enough to see her eyes. “Promise?”

“Yes, my lord, I do.”

Epilogue

I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.

~Sarah Williams

Oxfordshire, 1869

Julian lingered by the bassinette,listening to his son’s whispery breaths, cut only by Piper’s sturdier ones coming from the settee she slumbered on. Make no mistake, and he never would again: his entire world lay within the narrow confines of Harbingdon’s nursery.

Walls he and Humphrey had painted an eye-stinging yellow because Piper had read bright colors comforted babes. Or encouraged intelligence or some such rot. He’d even gone so far as creating a whimsical series of landscapes featuring frolicking bears and romping unicorns, nonsensical apart from the smile that had lit Piper’s face when she’d seen it.

He would do anything,anything, to be the reason behind that smile.

He slipped his finger into Lucien’s curled fist and gave it a gentle waggle that had the boy cooing and shifting on the blankets. Then the baby smiled dreamily, a slight curve of his perfectly bowed lips, a tiny scrap of naught that shot an arrow straight through Julian’s heart.I’m going to paint a thousand paintings of you, my love.He leaned in and gave the boy’s silken cheek another caress, happiness as substantial a presence as the woolen coat warming his body.

Lost to love, he didn’t hear her walk up behind him.

“If you wake him, I may have to kill you,” she whispered as her arms circled his waist, her head settling on his back. Solace as necessary as the blood flowing through his veins, the oxygen entering his lungs. He released a tense sigh he hadn’t realized he held—had been holding since he left them at dawn.

“You know how I am when I miss dinner with my two favorite people.”

“Is that the reason for the pensive look? Isn’t our darling boy enough to bring a smile to your face?”

He linked their fingers and pressed her hands against his belly. “A joy is what he is. An absolute terror and delight. With his mother’s spirit—”

“And his father’s eyes.”

Julian released her and crossed to the window, ticked the drape aside to gaze into a night full of promise. The stars had agreed to create a remarkable show, bleeding light on the lawn and sparking off the blue-black waters of the lake. He located Canis Minor, his touchpoint, high in the heavens. Still bright, still there.

Piper fit herself onto the window seat, tucking her feet beneath her. “You’re going to worry yourself sick until Lucien can tell us he touches things and doesn’t see visions? Or until he tells he does? Just because he has your eyes…”

He let the drape fall and wiggled in beside her, pulling her against his body. This window seat wasn’t large—but it was large enough. They’d made love on it more than once. Had made love in every room in the main house, the outbuildings, Brook Cottage. The conservatory. The stables. Every inch of his property presented delicious options. Piper loved leaving him notes telling him to meet her in said location. And like a dog on the hunt, he went. He never knew if he was going to find her naked and wearing only a wicked smile, or all those layers she expected him to peel from her luscious body.

Sexual games, bawdy negotiations,laughter.

She had punctured a hole in his life and let blissful contentment flood in. Let joy and fun flood in.

He placed a kiss on the crown of her head, trying for a carefree response. “Maybe. When do babies start talking again?”