Page 90 of To Steal a Duchess

“And the next time we bicker?”

“Then sequester me to another room, but I will not leave you. I was positively miserable without you in my life, my Eloise.”

Her breath hitched at such wording.

My Eloise.

She was kept.

She truly was wanted.

“Do you promise?”

Dorian looked out the window of the lighthouse. “I promise on my own life, on yours, and every wave that may one day carry us beyond this country. I promise it on the world, Eloise. I am yours, utterly yours. Your husband, the father of our children when we have them, and your duke.”

Eloise lifted her head, her jaw clenching. “Then eat with me. Show me your love.”

“Of course, my Duchess.”

“Dorian?”

“Yes, Eloise?”

“I love you,” she declared, and her husband grinned widely.

He took her hand and kissed it softly. “My Eloise… I love you.”

And so, she sat beside him, her legs folding beneath her carefully, and she allowed him to raise an oyster shell to her lips without any utensil. Her eyes widened, but his smile was a challenge.

“We have both been taught how to eat this without a fork, have we not? John Reed taught me to suck the meat right out. I will not be convinced you do not know to do it, either.”

“Yes, but I am a lady⁠—”

“You are my wife, and the first chance I get, I will put us on a boat, and you will not have to worry about propriety. Enjoy yourself, Eloise.”

Even though her stomach fluttered with worry and nerves, Eloise lowered her mouth to the shell, thinking of their wedding breakfast, thinking of every time Dorian had found out what she liked and took the meat.

It slipped through her lips deliciously.

She let out a quiet groan.

Dorian held her closer. “You look beautiful. You look like you. Not the bride I rescued who stepped on petals, crushing them beneath her shoes. You just are you.”

“You noticed.”

“How could I not?”

“I was never a lot to notice.”

“You always have been to me, as much as I stubbornly fought it. Now, part your lips.”

Eloise’s eyes closed, and her mouth parted, and she felt the hard shell against her mouth as more meat was placed on her tongue. She embraced it, her hand sliding up to grasp Dorian’s wrist. She held it against her throat as he gave her the food, and she moved further. Her mouth caught his other hand when he placed the empty shell down.

“Touch me like you did that first time up here.” The words left Eloise in a heavy desperation. She had spent too long without Dorian, too long in an empty, huge mansion, and a cliffside that crashed with water but not her husband’s love.

But he had come back to her.

He was giving himself to her once more.