And then she fell into the waterfall.

Two gentlemen strolled by as Noble tried to help her wring the worst of the water out of her gown. They both paused for a moment, watching the scene while drawing on their cigars, then proceeded on their promenade.

“Silly chits and their dampened muslins.”

Seven

“Mmmm.”

The Black Earl gritted his teeth and refused to lift his eyes from the latest threatening letter that had arrived in the morning’s post. He had no need to gaze at his wife. He knew just how fetching she looked in a hunter green and cream dress, her fiery hair twisted into a simple chignon that he knew would immediately begin to disassemble itself into tendrils that would soften the planes of her face. He knew about the sweet swell of her bosom that led upward to the soft, rounded line of her shoulders, which in turn swept into the graceful curves of her arms, leading down to…blue hands.

He knew also what she would be doing. She was enjoying strawberries. In a manner guaranteed to make a saint fall. He grew hard just thinking about it.

He stared at the paper in his hand, not seeing the threats or the vile words, seeing instead the image of his wife as she had appeared the past night, curled up in his bed. He had been surprised to find her there after the scene at Countess Lieven’s, and especially after he had lectured her the entire way home about his expectations for his countess’s behavior. She had said not a word, sitting quietly as she listened to his reprimands until he began to feel he was an ogre, full of nothing but scolds and remonstrations. And yet she had sought his bed rather than her own. He had puzzled over this as he stood, candle in hand, gazing down on her for a moment that seemed to stretch into a thousand. Her hair had been loose, flowing over the white linen, flickering away from her as if she were a phoenix rising from the flames. His eyes traced a path down her satiny freckled cheek as it rested against her blue palm. She was asleep, and the sight of her so peaceful, so lovely, so very right did something deep inside him.

A tiny ray of light pierced the blackness of his soul and began to glow. He had wronged her, misjudged her. She was no Elizabeth, using his physical desire for her own gain; she was simply his Gillian, his wife, the woman who muddled her way through life with an impish smile and devilish twinkle in her eye. He sighed as he slipped into bed and curled up behind her, sharing her warmth, feeling suddenly as if a burden had shifted, lightening a little.

Why had she agreed to marry him? he wondered suddenly. Marriage to him offered security and a title, but he knew instinctively that neither mattered to her. He stroked the arm curled around her ribs and breathed in the seductive scent of sleepy woman. Why had she married him? The thought tortured him most of the night and into an indescribably lovely English summer morning.