“Is this right?” she asked.
“Yes.” He saw stars and had to clutch the bedsheets to hold off climax.
She adjusted. “What about this?”
“Yes.” His voice was barely a growl.
“What about—Oh, this.”
“God, yes.” He opened his eyes and looked up at her, watching as she found her climax. She gazed down at him, and for the first time, he didn’t look away. He let her see everything he was feeling, how much he adored and loved her. Then he let himself go, finding his own climax, and meeting her gaze as he found ecstasy.
After, she slumped against him, and they lay in a tangle of limbs.
“How is your head?” she whispered.
“Better. I should probably be hit in the head every few months.”
“It would do you a world of good,” she said, and he could hear the smile in her voice.
“You do me good. Katie, thank—”
She rose and put a finger on his lips. “Don’t thank me. I’m here because I love you, and I don’t need to be thanked for that.”
He pulled her close, and finally, they both slept.
*
To her surprise,Carlisle actuallyhadspoken to several potential tenants before he gave in to the urge to playjust one handat the tables. When they arrived back at the guardhouse, they’d barely settled in before families came to discuss working the land for him come spring and planting season. The cottages could be built by then, and before she knew it, they had three more tenants, some of whom agreed to help the current tenants with the fall harvest.
At the end of the quarter, they sent all of the manservants back to London, except Ebenezer. Katie argued they needed at least one, and she liked him best. Carlisle argued that if they sent him home, she could go to Edinburgh and buy several new gowns to update her badly outdated wardrobe.
Katie managed to persuade the duke that he liked her better naked anyway, and Ebenezer stayed.
Life wasn’t perfect. Carlisle could be moody and restless. He’d never shown her that side of himself before, and she knew that was when he was craving the gaming tables. He showed her because he truly did love her. He did trust her. On those days, she did what was necessary to distract him. Sometimes that was putting an axe in his hand and pointing him toward a pile of wood. Sometimes that was listening to his concerns and fears and holding him while he cursed the ledgers.
And sometimes, the best times, it was closing the door, unbuttoning her bodice, and pushing him against the wall. Sometimes he allowed her to take him, but often he took her, sometimes roughly, which she rather liked. She enjoyed seeing the duke lose control. She liked that he needed her.
She liked that he was resisting the lure of the tables for now, and everything would have been just about perfect…if not for the curse hanging over him.
She was sitting in the parlor, looking out over the brown of the lawn and thinking of that blasted curse, when the doorflung open and Carlisle came inside, bringing the cold from the outside with him. She might have chastised him, but his eyes were wild, and he held a letter.
She stood. “What’s wrong?”
“I have a letter from King. He’s coming.”
“What?” Katie reached for it. Carlisle handed it to her, telling her what it said even as she skimmed it.
“He says he’s found true love. You remember the counter-spell said—”
“I remember, yes.”
“And he’s bringing her to Scotland. He wants me to come as well. He’s also written to Rory. We all need to go.”
Katie stared at the letter, then at her husband. “You’ve been trying to arrange this for months.”
“I know. It’s happening. Finally, we’ll be out from under this curse.”
But Katie was thinking about the empty guest chambers on the first floor. “We must get ready for him. We need beds and wardrobes and—”
