Page 61 of The Duke's Only Desire

Her eyes widened. “Is that why you told me to never trust him?”

“A pretty coincidence that he’s suddenly interested in my marriage, don’t you think?”

Coldness swept over her, and she shivered as she pulled the covers tighter around herself.

He wrapped his arms around her and nestled her naked body along the length of his to warm her. “Becoming duke was the last thing I wanted,” he murmured as he tucked her head beneath his chin. “I would have gladly handed it to my uncle if I could have, but Parliament frowns on giving titles away. After all, it’s only a short step from giving to taking, and the majority of them are just corrupt and duplicitous enough to steal each other’s titles if given the chance.”

“Thank God you become the Duke of Malvern. I know you think it’s part of your punishment, but it’s not. It’s other people’s salvation.”

When he scoffed at that, she slid over on top of him. She pressed her hands into his shoulders to keep him pinned to the bed, and her gaze firmly locked with his.

“Don’t you see? Everyone your life as a duke touches is better off for it.” When he lifted a disbelieving brow, she pressed on, “The servants here at Ravenscroft would have hated working for John. He would have mistreated them and abused them, driven them off to find other employment, or refused to pension them if they didn’t leave. He would have made a mockery of the estate by wasting its profits and letting it fall to ruin. That is, the entailed properties he couldn’t sell for blunt for gambling and whoring. And if he’d stayed in London at Malvern House, he would have been plagued by scandal, debt, and dishonor of his own making that would have destroyed the family’s name and the dukedom’s reputation.”

Before he could counter that, she captured his mouth in a blistering kiss and sat up, straddling him.

“Just ask the villagers and tenants,” she continued. “You don’t have to do anything except send Mr. Enfield to collect their rents. But you’ve worked to improve their lives, their homes—even the village market and commons. You’ve given them the chance to be in a partnership with the estate, not simply subservient to it.”

Sophie could tell from his doubtful expression that it would take a good while before he believed that. But she would make him, and she had the rest of her life to do it.

First, though, she had a much more important point to make. So she leaned down and placed a soft kiss to his lips, then slid her mouth over his scarred cheek to his ear.

“And you savedme. You could never have done that if you hadn’t become Malvern. True, I didn’t like the way we married,” she admitted, “but there’s never been anyone I’ve ever wanted more for a husband than you.”

His eyes softened as he reached up to brush a stray lock from her face. “And now you have me,” he murmured, just as quietly as she had. “And I don’t deserve you.”

The desolate words pierced her, for one tragic moment seeming to stop her heart completely. But she would have the rest of her life to disprove him of that, too. Starting tonight.

“No,” she agreed with an exaggerated sigh. “You really don’t.”

With a growling laugh, he rolled over on top of her and tickled her beneath the covers until she fell into a fit of laughter.

The tension between them vanished, and she wrapped her arms around his neck as he kissed her so deliciously her body began to tingle in all kinds of wanton places. His lips trailed down to her throat, where he placed hot, openmouthed kisses against her spiking pulse, and the heat of his body seeped into hers, warming her all the way down to her toes.

She wiggled her hips temptingly against his in seductive invitation and whispered, the words barely louder than a breath, “Make love to me.”

He did exactly that, coaxing and cajoling her body with his hands and lips until she was ready for him, until he was able to slip inside her with a silken glide of his hips. This time, there was no burning, no discomfort—there was only the bliss of being filled by this wonderful man whom she loved beyond all boundaries, of moving perfectly together as one. And this time, they both found release not in fierce cries of pleasure but deep sighs of happiness.

With his weight still resting on her, her arms and legs wrapped possessively around him, she kissed his scarred cheek and whispered, “I love you.”

She held her breath for a long moment, waiting for him to say it back, but he didn’t. Instead, he placed a tender kiss to her temple.

Her heart pounded brutally against her ribs at his silence, but she knew better than to press. Not now. That, too, would come in time.

So she tightened her hold on him and refused to let go.