Page 91 of After the Spy Seduces

“You’d better like me.” He softened the warning with a smile, his hands not leaving the oars as they skimmed the water’s mirror-like surface and took them further away from their own wedding celebration. “It’s too late now to change your mind.”

She watched the sunlight sparkle against her wedding ring as she lazily dipped her hand into the water. “I won’t be changing my mind.” With a happy laugh, she flung a handful of water up at him. “So tell me where you’re taking me.”

“Even pharaohesses don’t need to know everything.”

“Then how about your wife?”

He flashed her a grin, and her belly fluttered.Please, God, never let me grow used to this feeling of Christopher smiling at me.

“My wife is allowed to know everything,” he promised.

His wife.Thatsent her belly into somersaults.

The new appellation would take some time to get used to, especially since it was less than four hours old. Even now, the grounds of Kingscote Park were filled with hundreds of guests of all stations, ranks, and association to them, from the Duke of Wellington all the way down to Angus Higgins, the steward at Idlewild who had once come after Kit with a gun…although at the time, Diana had had no idea how common an event that actually was. And something she prayed would never happen again.

The rooms of the grand manor house were filled to bursting with people who had come to help them celebrate their wedding, a small ceremony held that morning in the village church with only family and close friends in attendance. Even then, though, the pews had been filled with all the Carlisles and their growing families, the Winslows, the Mattesons, the Westovers—the Duke and Duchess of Strathmore’s beautiful little girls took up a row of pews all by themselves—a scattering of Whitbys, and even Nathaniel Grey, along with his wife Lady Emily and their son. With Kit’s brother, Ross, standing beside him as his best man, Miranda Carlisle as her matron of honor, Meri as the flower girl, and the general walking her down the aisle, it was a true family affair.

Diana wouldn’t have had it any other way.

As she watched Kit row in his shirtsleeves, his jacket removed and the muscles of his shoulders and back rippling, happiness bubbled inside her. The most wonderful man in the world loved her, a man who also loved Meri and insisted that her daughter be publicly raised as their child…who had already hired a solicitor to start the adoption process, in fact, so that he could also make herhisdaughter. In every way possible.

Diana didn’t want to create any more upheaval in Meri’s young life, preferring to ease her into all the changes to come. Kit agreed. So when they returned to Idlewild after the events at Bradwell, the family and household servants quietly enacted their subtle plan. Now, Diana was referred to as Meri’s mama, with Diana’s mother as her grandmama and Garret as her uncle. Meri transitioned well, experiencing only a bit of confusion when everyone began to refer to the general as her grandpapa. They gently yet persistently corrected her whenever she referred to them by their old roles, and always without directly confronting her about it.By the time of the wedding, Meri had come to accept the new roles without a second thought…including referring to Kit as Papa.

There was no explanation for Meri, except that Kit was going to marry them. The truth would come later, when she was older and could understand. Then, she would be told the story of John Meredith, of what a good and brave man he’d been, how he would be proud to know that she was his daughter.

But for now, they would form their own new family and simply enjoy being together.

The rowboat rocked suddenly beneath her, and she grabbed at the sides of the boat.

“If I’m going to have to swim for shore,” she teased, taking a different tack to discover why he’d brought her out onto the lake, “I’d like to know in which direction to head.”

He nodded toward the little island in the center of the lake. “There.”

Her heart fell with disappointment. “There?”

“Wooded and private, with a hermitage. One that is conveniently lacking a hermit at the moment.”

“Convenient,” she drawled a bit suspiciously.

“Very. Even more so since I asked the servants to get it ready for us.”

She sat up. “Ready?”

Knowing that he’d pricked her curiosity and now had her full attention, he lazily described, “Flowers, wood for warm fires, soft bedding…lots of soft bedding.” A wolfish gleam lit his eyes, and that predacious stare pulsed all the way down between her legs, where a soft ache began to throb in time with his rowing. “And a picnic basket filled with enough food and wine to keep us fed for days.”

“Days?” The word emerged as a throaty purr, only for the tingles of excitement to be dashed by reality. “But someone will notice we’ve left the party and come looking for us. They’ll find us by nightfall.”

“They can’t.”

The smug way he said that made her ask, “Why not?”

“Because this is the only boat on the lake that’s still seaworthy.” He winked at her. “I scuttled all the others last night.”

“You didn’t!”

“Days,Mrs. Carlisle.” He rested his elbows on his knees as he paused in rowing to lean toward her to punctuate his point. “Days and days of nothing to do but ravish you, thoroughly and repeatedly.” He glanced regretfully over his shoulder toward the little boathouse on the far shore. “But I suppose we could go back and—”

“Keep rowing.” She gestured her hand imperially toward the island and once more reclined on the seat. “Your pharaohess demands it.”