She liked that they were seeing it for the first time together. “Do you think there are many visitors?” Finding deserted little paradises in the twenty-first century was rare. There would be twenty other couples in here with them if they were home.
“I do not think there are any visitors,” he said, his voice, deep and thrilling against her ear as he stepped closer. “We are alone.” He scooped her hair away from her nape and kissed what he’d exposed. His arms slipped around her and pulled her close against him. He felt as hard as his armor, but he was warm, his muscles twitched and tremored when her flesh touched his.
A few rays of sunshine shot into the cave before a billowy cloud passed the sun and cast them into its soft radiance. They smiled at each other, close enough to kiss.
Instead, Nicholas bent his knee and took her hand. “Kestrel—”
Her heart thundered in her chest and felt like it moved to her throat and lodged itself there. Was he going to ask her…?
“Since you got here, you have taken over my thoughts. I think about you all the time. I want to be with you and nowhere else. I want to laugh with you and learn about your life and the people you love. I want to take pictures,” he stopped to smile at her, “of us and our children. Nothing in this life would please me more than to be your husband. Will you be my wife?”
She brought her free hand to her mouth. His wife. His wife!
“Yes,” she said in a dulcet whisper. She could give no other answer.
Chapter Twenty-One
“Yes, I’ll be your wife.”
Was she crazy? Marriage? This meant she couldn’t leave here without him. It also protected her should anything befall him. But marriage? Her? She smiled thinking about what Lilith and Jack and the others would say.
She watched her fiancé…or betrothed as they said here, stand up. Her mouth went dry when he scooped her up to cradle her in his arms. He carried her up the next few ledges, where the water barely reached, and set her down.
“You will tell Elia whatever you wish for our wedding and celebration.” He sat beside her with her between his legs and gave her an indulgent grin. “Whatever you wish. I will spare no expense.”
Goodness, he sure knew what to tell a girl. “And where did you come by so much money?”
“Everything that was my father’s and his father before him, is now mine. I also have the pay from my service to the king and to England, and—”
She held up her hand to stop him. Ok, he was rich I. She got it. “Well, I’m glad we won’t be starving.”
“I will take care of you, Kestrel, and I will provide for our children. We will never starve.”
“I want to help,” she told him, looking into his eyes. “In twenty nineteen, many women provide for themselves, as I did with my career as a historian.”
“Very well, help then.”
She almost gasped a smile at him. She never expected to hear him agree. She thought he’d beat his chest a little. But he didn’t.
“Do whatever you can think of to keep yourself busy, and that will not get you thrown into a cell. I will put coin to your desire, aye? If you wish to continue your work as a historian, Walter has enough pieces of history in his house to log and keep you happy. Or open a shop at the market, with Elia, mayhap. Have your exercise classes, though I will have to station a man outside the door to protect you. Whatever you wish, my love.”
She had to be dead and this had to be Heaven. She pinched herself. Nope. This wasn’t Heaven, she felt pain.
Those were wonderful ideas. “Maybe,” she said, feeling like she might cry or leap around the rocks with happiness, “I will do it all.” She could help Cook cook, give some of the servants the night off, even if it meant her doing some serving. As the lady of the castle, she could get whatever anyone needed.
She stared into his lightning-colored eyes and vowed to give him whatever he wished for “that won’t land us in hell.”
He gave her a worried look. “Like what?”
She giggled into her hand. “I’ll let you know if it ever comes up.”
“’Tisn’t kissing you, for you let me kiss you already.”
He leaned forward and kissed her, parting her lips gently with his tongue.
All that touched her was his lips. It sparked lightning in her everywhere else. She wanted more and broke their kiss to sigh when he put his arm around her and gently pulled the back of her against his chest. She had to turn her face upward to kiss him, and she did so happily. She let him seduce her with his lips, his teeth, and one hand moving from behind her to cup her upstretched throat and then lower to her breast. His fingers disappeared beneath the lace and tugged at her nipple.
Kes groaned and he rubbed the taut nub until her knees parted.
“Nicholas, I’m not…I’m not a virgin.”
He stopped for a moment, leaving Kes to wonder if he’d take back his proposal.
“Neither am I,” he admitted.
Goodness, he relieved her at every turn. It was as if nothing fazed him—except her name. How would he feel about the Lancasters after the last Yorkist king was killed? Would he want her around him then? He said he’d never change his mind, but just how deeply did he hate her ancestors?
“Then there is no judgment,” she whispered. “Only pleasure.”
“Only pleasure,” he agreed with a lazy smirk before his lips covered hers again.
This time, he used both hands to expose and cup her breasts. He kissed her upside down and spread his rough palms over her flat belly to the small triangle of hair beneath her panties.
Her legs opened with a will of their own. Beneath her, she
