“And yet,” she pointed out, slipping her hand into the crook of his arm, “it has yielded better results than all our careful coaching. Sometimes, my dear duke, the heart finds its own path despite our best efforts to direct it.”
His eyes met hers, suddenly serious despite the absurdity of the scene they had just witnessed. “As ours did, my tigress?”
The simple question held layers of meaning—acknowledgment of their own unlikely journey from reluctant spouses to passionate lovers, recognition of the feelings neither had yet named but both increasingly felt.
“Yes,” she replied softly, holding his gaze. “As ours did.”
The rain that had begun as a gentle patter during their return from the garden party had grown into a steady downpour by evening, drumming against the windows of the townhouse with hypnotic persistence.
Samantha sat in the library, a novel open but unread in her lap, watching the droplets trace silvery patterns down the glass.
The door opened quietly, and she looked up to find Ewan entering, a glass of brandy in one hand and a steaming cup oftea in the other. Without a word, he crossed to where she sat and offered her the tea before settling into the chair opposite, his long legs stretched toward the fire that crackled merrily in the grate.
“I thought you might prefer this to brandy,” he said, nodding toward the cup she now cradled between her palms. “Though if you’d rather…”
“This is perfect,” she assured him, inhaling the fragrant steam. “Thank you.”
They sat in comfortable silence for a time, the only sounds the gentle patter of rain and the occasional pop from the fire. It struck Samantha how different these quiet moments had become—once tense and awkward, now filled with an ease that spoke of growing intimacy beyond the physical.
“Percy seems quite taken with Miss Waverly,” she observed at length, watching Ewan’s face over the rim of her cup.
He smiled faintly, swirling the amber liquid in his glass. “Indeed. Though I confess, I had not anticipated a young lady of such apparent good sense to respond favorably to being pulled into a fountain.”
“Perhaps she sees beyond his… exuberance… to the genuine heart beneath,” Samantha suggested, thinking of her own journey to understanding the complex man before her. “Not everyone values restraint above all else, you know.”
His eyes, green as summer leaves, met hers with surprising intensity. “As you have demonstrated most thoroughly, my tigress.”
A pleasant warmth that had nothing to do with the tea or the fire spread through her at his words. “I merely recognized that there was more to the Duke of Valemont than his carefully constructed façade.”
“You, clever temptress, have only to speak, and you cut me off at the knees.” He said quietly, setting his glass aside in order to take her lips with his own, warm and insistent, the kiss deepening as she wound her arms around his neck.
Unlike their earlier passionate encounters, this kiss held something more profound: a promise, an acknowledgment of the feelings that had grown between them, feelings neither had anticipated but both now cherished.
When they finally parted, both slightly breathless, the rain still falling steadily beyond the windows and the fire casting golden light across their entwined figures, Samantha knew with absolute certainty that whatever trials lay ahead, they would face them together—not as the reluctant spouses forced by scandal into marriage, but as partners who had found in each other something far more precious than either had dared to hope for.
“Stay with me tonight,” Ewan whispered against her lips, his arms still encircling her, eyes smoldering with promise.
She nodded, heart too full for words even as her pulse skittered across her nerve endings from the anticipation, knowing that this request went far beyond the physical sharing of a bed—it was an invitation to share a life, to build together what neither had believed possible when they’d first exchanged their vows.
And as he led her from the library, their fingers still intertwined, Samantha silently thanked whatever twist of fate had brought them together, scandal and all.
For it had led her to a happiness she had long since resigned herself to never finding.
CHAPTER 22
“Is it true that the Earl of Blackwood mistook Lord Stonehall for a botanical expert at Lady Whitmore’s gathering?” Lady Harrington asked, her silver eyebrows arching high above her spectacles as she leaned forward in her chair. “I heard the poor man spent nearly an hour discussing his prize roses before realizing his mistake.”
Samantha bit back a smile as she set her teacup down carefully on the delicate china saucer. The ladies of the Athena Society had spent precisely twenty minutes discussing Mrs. Radcliffe’s latest novel before abandoning all pretense of literary discourse in favor of more compelling subjects—namely, her nephew’s many exploits and the transformation of her marriage.
“I cannot speak to Lord Blackwood’s horticultural conversations,” she replied diplomatically, “though my nephew-in-law does possess a certain… enthusiasm that might be mistaken for expertise in any number of fields.”
This elicited a ripple of knowing laughter from the circle of women gathered in Lady Knightley’s elegant drawing room. The afternoon sun streamed through tall windows, illuminating motes of dust that danced above the silver tea service and platters of delicate pastries.
“Oh, do tell us more about the peacock incident,” Annabelle, the Duchess of Marchwood, implored, her eyes alight with amusement. “Henry claims the bird nearly carried off an elderly baronet’s toupee.”
“A toupee!” Samantha echoed, unable to suppress her amusement. “I fear the tale grows more extravagant with each telling. I can assure you no hairpieces were harmed, though I understand several tail feathers were sacrificed in the name of… scientific observation.”
“Scientific observation!” Lady Harrington snorted, thumping her cane against the carpet for emphasis. “Is that what the young people are calling mayhem these days? In my day, releasing exotic birds in a musicale would have been termed lunacy, not science.”
