Lillian circled around him with an unreadable smile, then meandered away from him. He followed, pinching at and catching a bit of her skirt. Her steps hitched as she realized her gown was caught on something. She whirled around, looking for the catch, found it.
He grinned, tightened his grip, and pulled her to him. Devon wanted to feel her warmth nearer. He owed her their daily kiss, after all.
Her gaze faltered. Her hands fluttered, finally settling, palms flat against his chest. “You have been to the patent office, then?”
“Offices. And possibly Scotland. Though I’ve not gone there yet.”
“My. It sounds daunting.”
“Frustrating,” he growled. “Much rather kiss you.”
She pecked his lips, a chaste flutter that enticed instead of fulfilled. Then she pushed out of his embrace and crossed the room to sit at a large desk. He threw himself into a chair opposite her, and the stretch of polished wood between them made Devon long to throw her on top of it. No, to bend her over it, throw her skirts up, and—
“Iamsorry, Devon,” Lillian said in a tone that made it clear she had no idea the sort of lascivious thoughts currently occupying his mind. “I am glad you have come. We must speak of important matters, with the wedding so near.” Lillian pulled a sheaf of paper from a drawer and fixed a pen.
Important matters would likely lead to more frustration. He’d sought her out to forget such things, to dip himself into the coffee warmth of her, and find solace, the only solace left to him in a month’s time.
She prepared a pen and set it to paper.
“What are you writing down?” He shivered. “I tremble to think it. I know what a danger you are with ink. You can tear a man to pieces.”
With a grin and a brief lift of her gaze to him, she continued writing in slow, careful sweeps of ink.
He leaned, tilted his head, and read—Lillian and Devon, Premarital Negotiations.
He crossed his arms over his chest. “My name should be first. What are we negotiating?”
“My name shall remain first because I intend to win the lion’s share of these talks.”
“Oh ho ho, do you?” He leaned back, crossing a boot over his knee and lacing his hands behind his head. “Continue thinking that, darling. It will keep you unprepared for my strategic advances. Now, what conversations will I be winning?” He kept his tone chipper, though the paper and its title glowed like a specter from the dark, a premonition of troubles he wanted none of.
Her tongue appeared at that kissable corner of her lip, and she wrote a concise list down the page.
Frederick’s—gift or loan?
Where shall we live?
Respectability?
Clothing?
The future?
Even read upside down, the questions chipped away at him. Even when he could not quite guess the meaning of her words, they lay so close to his own eternal frustrations and fears, all of which had been magnified since that fateful explosion, that explosive kiss. The list made him itch and burn and want to turn tail and run.
But the woman who had softly placed her pen beside the paper seemed as calm as she was pretty. Meaning more than was good for him. She deserved this conversation. She deserved to have her answers, and he’d give them to her, even if it felt like raking his soul across hot coals.
“Shall we begin?” she asked.
He nodded.
“Would you accept Frederick’s as a gift from me?”
He bolted to his feet. “No.”
“Sit back down.” Her gaze bounced down to the seat, then back up to him. “Why cannot a bride gift her groom what he desires most, especially when she is able, as I am, to do so?”
He sat slowly, a man about to find himself sitting on a bed of nails. “If I refuse to pay for Frederick’s out of my own inheritance, I will certainly not use your dowry or your inheritance.”
