Jonathan held up hands in surrender. “Only if you promise not to do anything remarkably foolish to scare off your lovely wife,” he cracked a grin, “at least not without me to bear witness.”
Ambrose had always admired his brother’s carefree, passionate nature, but at that moment, he wanted to bash his skull in. But he didn’t have time for that just now.
His eyes dropped back to the letter on his desk. At the moment, he had to figure out how to convince his wife that, though he’d kidnapped her sister, he was letting go of his grievance in order to keep hold of something else altogether more important.
Namely, her.
“Your cheeks are bright.”
“What?” Willow asked, her eyes flicking to Poppy. She’d been staring off into the distance, fingering the rim of her teacup in thought.
“Your cheeks are bright,” Poppy repeated.
Willow lifted her hand to cup her cheeks. “They are not.”
“How would you know? Can you feel how bright they are?” Poppy said dryly.
“Don’t be ridiculous. But I’m sure they aren’t bright.”
“They are practically glowing,” Poppy said, her blonde brow knitting in a frown. “Also, you look airy.”
“Airy?” Willow laughed. “One does not look airy. What does that even mean?”
“It means,” Poppy said in mild aggravation, “You have the appearance of someone walking on clouds.”
“I do not!” Willow exclaimed, almost spilling tea all over her pink muslin dress. Or perhaps she did. It certainly felt as though she was walking on air. Her eyes skittered to the sofa on which her sister was seated. She and Ambrose had thoroughly enjoyedthatsofa. More than once.
This time she felt her cheeks pinkening.
Poppy quirked a brow. “AndI am sitting in your drawing room.”
“I don’t see how that’s related. I invited you for tea.”
“Well, it’s just another interesting observation. Have you forgotten whom you married? I keep expecting St. Ives to barge into the room and drag me off. Though how it is that you look so,” she waved her hand in the air, “airywhen your husband is hunting our sister and plans to marry her off to his brother, I’ll never know.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Willow said with absolute confidence.
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because . . . things are different.”
Steamy different. Doting different. Airy different.
“I’d certainly say so,” Poppy’s voice was laced with skepticism. “Starting with that swooping kiss at Gunter’s.”
Willow opened her mouth to reply, but Poppy waved a hand at her. “No, no, you cannot tell me that was nothing. I’m still astonished Scotland Yard did not haul you away for indecent behavior.”
“It was just a kiss,” Willow defended, her face flaming.
“It’s never just a kiss, and that, dear sister, was nomerekiss, that was a burst of fireworks and stars all at once.”
Willow’s hand lifted to cover her heart, and she forced herself to say, “It was a spur of the moment kiss, between husband and wife. Nothing to be so concerned with.”
Liar.
If only Poppy knew what that kiss had led to and what Ambrose and she had been doing at every opportunity since. And that sofa she was seated upon . . .
Poppy made a disbelieving sound. “I’d have found it romantic had it not nearly killed two ladies craning their necks so much they nearly got trampled by a vegetable cart.”
