“Willow.”
She inhaled sharply. Her breath froze in her lungs. His voice was pitched so low it found its way beneath her skin, sliding into her bloodstream.
Gooseflesh spread all over her body.
“How did you . . .” Her lips parted and shut again. “Where did you . . . I . . .”
“Is there a question in there, love?”
To her astonishment, amusement colored his voice. Was he laughing at her? Had he just called her “love”? After they had drugged him and tied him up? She cast Poppy a perplexing look, who, in return, lifted her shoulders in a careless shrug.
“You’re too late, St. Ives,” Poppy piped up when Willow failed to speak. “My sister and Warton are reunited, and I daresay wild horses could not drag those two away from each other.”
“I see. Am I too late for cake then, too?”
“Excuse me?” Willow croaked, at last finding her voice. “Cake?”
A smile tugged at his lips. “I’m quite famished, having been tied down to my bed for an entire night. The experience has made me fancy a slice of cake.” His eyes swept over the rushing servants. “Wedding cake, I presume?”
Willow blinked up at her husband. Ambrose, her stoic imperious duke, was casually talking about cake as if hehadn’tbeen tied up for an entire night. Was this a trick? He sounded soamendable.
“Is there some place we can talk?” he suddenly asked. “Or do you wish to hash this out before an audience?”
Willow cast a brief glance at Poppy who looked much too intrigued for her liking. “No, let’s go . . .” Her eyes swept the hall for a spot of privacy.
“Home?” Ambrose suggested. “I, for one, would not mind settling this in the privacy of our bed.”
Poppy made a gurgling sound.
Color swept up Willow’s neck to her cheeks. “What? You . . . That . . .No.” Willow glanced around uncertainly.
“Then shall we stay and enjoy the wedding with your family first?”
Willow’s head jerked back to him, reading only sincerity in his obsidian eyes. “You want to stay for the wedding?”
He shrugged. “Why not?”
“I’m missing something here, aren’t I?” Poppy said.
Willow paid her sister no mind. “Why are you behaving like this?” she asked, her eyes darting to Lord Jonathan, who had suddenly entered the hall from the drawing room.
“Like what?”
Willow met her husband’s gaze and motioned at his person. “Amused. Happy. Humorous. Not like yourself.”
“I am more myself at this moment than I’ve been in the last ten years, love.”
“And why are you calling me ‘love’?” she asked with a skeptical scowl. “I tied you up and you aren’t even angry?”
“And he’s smiling,” Poppy remarked. “It’s making my skin crawl. Downright scary.”
“I only wish to talk,” Ambrose insisted. “I mean no trouble.”
“And about what do you wish to talk?” Willow challenged.
“My feelings. Apparently, believe it or not, I have a ton of those,” Ambrose said, his eyes never leaving hers.
“You do?” Willow blurted. She hadn’t meant to sound so surprised, but merciful heavens, he’d said the wordfeelings.
