Forever Yours Series Bundle (Book 1-3)

“I daresay she did, but I hardly saw any love between them while I grew. My father died when I was eighteen away at Cambridge. He did love her, and when I returned I observed no grief. I think she was relieved.”

“How horrid! Surely it couldn’t have been so?”

“Perhaps I did not fully perceive the nature of their marriage,” he murmured, recalling the quiet moments in which he would spy his mother staring at his father’s picture, her face a study in heartbreak and regret. “Do you regret marrying me, Fanny?”

They stopped near a lamp post, the soft light spilling across her lovely face. Her eyes were wide and uncertain. “What an odd question. I haven’t had cause to reflect with regret, only a wish we...we would be closer. We've been married two weeks, and I feel like I do not know you.” A becoming flush covered her cheeks. “Well except outside of carnal relations.”

He tucked a wisp of curl behind her ear. "And you want to know more do you?"

“Oh yes. Our marriage is forever you know.”

Forever. His heart jolted. His mouth had gone dry; he paused to clear his throat. It was then Sebastian realized on some fundamental level, he’d expect her to slip from his fingers one day. “I’m an open book,” he murmured.

She tapped her chin thoughtfully, a gleam in her eyes, one he quite liked. “You are very accomplished for one so young.”

Pride swelled within his chest at her tones of admiration. That he hadn’t expected. I’ve much to learn about you wife. “I worked hard for it. I never expected the viscountcy, I never even met my predecessor so removed I was from a life of elegancies.”

The notion didn’t seem to repulse her. He kissed her. Just a brief touch of his lips to hers, but that small touch made his insides heated. He stepped back and smiled. His wife shivered, despite the warm summer night.

“Are you cold?”

“No.”

Ah...it was desire then.

“Are you in love with Lord Trent?”

“Who?” she asked vaguely, staring at Sebastian’s lips, and stepping closer.

Savage satisfaction filled him that she wasn’t pining away for the bounder. “The man you were to marry a few weeks ago.” He hated reminding her, but several times he had found himself wondering in the nights he spent alone if she was craving the marquess.

Her eyes widened. “Oh dear.”

He scowled. She smiled.

"I am not, and I think that makes me a terrible person for I had been set to marry him until I saw him with his lover. I liked him, admired his humor even and his gentleman-like qualities, but never did he make my heart race from a stare, or made my lips tingle or my stomach ache with the need to be kissed. You do that to me, Sebastian."

How easily she shattered his world. The hand he lifted to cup her cheek trembled, shocking him at the strange intensity of the emotion coursing through his veins.

“Would you like children?” she asked shyly, peering up at him with sweet anticipation.

He gazed at her, briefly at a loss for words. For so long he had wanted her because he had found her charming and attractive. Her kindness had even been more appealing than her prettiness. Many times, he had observed how she danced with the gentlemen, the bucks society ignored, and she conversed at length with the ladies no one deigned to notice. What a fool the marquess had been to let her slip from his grasp, but Sebastian was still glad the man had been an ass, or she would have been lost to him. Though he had wanted her with every emotion in his soul, he hadn't thought of a life beyond having her. But now...he could see them, in the country, strolling by the lake, and her swollen with his child, her eyes radiant with happiness. Hunger for that very picture clawed through him “I would,” he said gruffly. “Like to have children.”

A burning need to feel her in his arms took hold of him. "Would you like to dance?"

“In the streets?”

“At the ball.”

She glanced up at the townhouse at the top of the road and then back at him. “We are to appear without invitation?”

“Yes.”

Her eyes sparkled with uncertainty, wickedness, and temptation. “How naughty of us!”

A slow smile stretched across her face. And he saw her intrigue. “Be daring with me, Fanny,” he teased, tugging her toward the townhouse.

Laughingly she came with him, her eyes sparkling with mischief and tender sentiments. And he wondered if her fierce vow that night when she had accepted his proposal about not wanting love held true. His heart jerked hard and then settled. Sebastian wanted her love, for she was a woman he could cherish until breath left his body. She belonged by his side and without question in his heart. How fortunate she had consented to be his wife. And he must be careful now with how wicked he tempted her to be. While he wanted to encourage the part of her which had defied the expectations of society and her family and ran from the altar, he did not want to repel her with his rough manners and actions.