months along. Besides, I feel the need to point out that sharing your bed can be far more strenuous.”
That comment earned her a gentle swat to the derriere. “Insatiable wench.” He linked his fingers with hers and led them out of the maze. “I beg to service you with my mouth and have you plead for my cock until I can either do as you ask or never manage a moment’s rest.”
“You have a divine mouth,” she murmured, hugging his arm. “I love it, as I love all of you. But that other part you mention is…” Sophie purred softly. “Well, it is quite irreplaceable.”
He shot her a scorching side-glance, and she grinned impishly in reply. They approached the manse with rapid strides, their eagerness to be alone and as close as two people can be goading them to haste.
They paused at the sound of Thomas’s cry. Turning their heads, they found him standing at the edge of the garden.
Just beyond him was the stream and by the looks of his wet pants, muddy sleeves, and beleaguered-looking tutor he had been enjoying himself immensely there. George and Edward sat on their haunches to the left and right of him, guarding him as they’d been doing since the first night the three had slept under the same roof. They shared his room now, which suited everyone perfectly.
Justin lifted his hand and waved.
Thomas rimmed his mouth with both hands to amplify his voice and shouted, “I found a five-legged frog!”
The deep pride revealed on her husband’s face brought tears to Sophie’s eyes. Being
“We must go see this wonder of nature,” he murmured.
“Yes, my love.” She lifted their linked hands and pressed a kiss to his knuckles. “We must.”
“Pregnancy suits her,” the dowager marchioness said to her dearest friend as they admired the handsome family from their vantage on the rear terrace.
“Most decidedly,” Lady Cardington agreed, stirring sugar into her tea.
The gentle summer breeze pressed Sophie’s golden muslin skirts to her body, revealing a softly swelling belly. “I cannot tell you how it affects me to see her so happy. She was deeply grieving when she carried Thomas. It was difficult to see such a happy event marred by such despair.”
The dowager offered a sympathetic smile. “She is an admirable woman, Caroline.”
“And your son is an admirable man, strong enough to make decisions with his heart and disregard those who have smaller minds. I knew they would be perfect together.” Shaking her head, Lady Cardington rearranged the cashmere blanket that warmed her legs. “Those two. You do realize that I have never looked at pepper the same way again?”
“Oh, dear heavens, neither have I! But you did warn me.”
“Yes. She was a fanciful child. Always concocting some mischief or tall tale. I had thought that light within her had died with Langley, but Fontaine’s affection has restored it.”
“And Sophie has shown him a different view of the world that has altered him for the better. They are well-met. Of course, you and I knew that from the beginning.”
The two women leaned back in their wrought-iron chairs and shared a secret smile.
“Beautifully done,” one said to the other.
The laud was apropos of both of them.
THE RUBY KISS by Noelle Mack
Chapter One
Susannah was wearing the corset. From his vantage point, looking in her window from the balcony of his townhouse next door, Carlyle Jameson could see it and more. What a glorious woman.
She heaved a sigh and Carlyle almost stopped breathing. Still partly concealed by the camisole that she wore underneath it, her full breasts were nicely cupped and lifted high by the frilled top.
His gaze moved to the ribbon rosebuds sewn into the frill, which put him in mind of nipples he could not see. Carlyle had to adjust his trousers when Susannah toyed absently with one rosebud, waiting for Lakshmi, her Indian maid, to finish loosening her laces in back.
Susannah slipped a hand beneath the ribbed silk, rubbing her skin. “One can scarcely breathe in these things,” she said over her shoulder to the maid, “though this one is pretty.”
Carlyle would have to agree. The corset was dangerously pretty. Lakshmi had concealed a fortune in gems in it before all three of them had left India never to return. Susannah had no idea and he had only found out afterward.
The maid had hidden the thing among the clothes in Susannah’s trunks. Once in London, Lakshmi had confessed everything and shown the corset to Carlyle, whom she regarded as her protector. He had been in a way. But he had no idea what to do about the gems, and told her to put it back where it was.
Certainly he had never expected to see Susannah wearing it. Or any other corset. A few minutes ago, thinking she was at the theater, Carlyle had come out onto the balcony that overlooked the back gardens of their side-by- side houses and happened to glance that way.
The dangerous corset fit her perfectly. In fact, it was a marvel of its kind, a hybrid of British rigor and a very Indian love of ornament, made of pink silk. Each of the ribbon rosebuds had its own stem of seed pearls, further adorned with openwork leaves and fanciful tendrils and hundreds more seed pearls covered the corset’s numerous ribs-applied by Lakshmi in hopes of interfering with a woman’s fine sense of touch. The padded ribs concealed rubies and sapphires, while the ribbon rosebuds hid diamonds from the mines of Golconda, six in all.
He wondered why Susannah had donned it tonight-perhaps it was only a whim. Her maid could not very well refuse her.
Susannah plucked at a thread too fine for him to see. “Oh dear. A few of the pearls have come loose.”
The maid circled around her to look, clucking with distress.
“I shall fix it. You cannot sew by candlelight, Lakshmi.”
The maid begged to differ, apparently, murmuring something he couldn’t hear that made Susannah give in. “Oh, if you must. But wait until morning-I insist. Perhaps the sun will appear tomorrow.”
Ah. He heard the sadness in her voice. The gray skies and cold, rainy weather of England oppressed her. That was to be expected for someone who had lived all her life until now in the sensual, enfolding heat of India.
He watched as Lakshmi came around her mistress to unhook the front of the corset and remove it. She folded the thing with some difficulty-it was quite stiff-and set it on the chest of drawers. Then she hovered nearby, not wanting to leave the room for reasons Carlyle could certainly understand.
He had to smile. Kind to a fault, Susannah was waving her maid away.
“That is all the help I need, Lakshmi. Thank you. You may go to bed.”
The Indian woman nodded and withdrew, casting one last glance at the corset. With her gone, Carlyle felt even more like a bounder for continuing to watch Susannah. He too glanced at the corset on the dresser, as if that gave him a reason.
He looked back at her. Now clad in only a thin camisole from the waist up and billowing petticoats from the waist down, Susannah seated herself before a mirror mounted on a small table and began to unpin her hair. Down it came in waves of rich, dark brown that made Carlyle long to feel its heavy softness running through his fingers.
