Page 115 of Duke with a Deception
Verity laughed, then dashed at her tears before pressing a hand to her middle. “The gift I have for you is here.”
“There?” He followed her hand, frowning. “But what do you…are you…angel, are you saying…”
His lack of composure made her smile. “A babe.”
His mouth fell open. “My love. Are you sure?”
She nodded. “I’m as certain as I can be.”
He took her back in his arms with a whoop, spinning her about in a circle this time until she was dizzied and laughing and weeping all at once. She had never been happier.
When he at last set her back on her feet, they were grinning at each other like fools. King cupped her face and kissed her soundly on the lips. It was short and chaste in deference to their audience, but it was laden with love and promise and filled her with yearning.
“I love you,” he whispered.
“And I love you,” Verity returned.
“Don’t leave me again.”
“Never,” she promised.
Emma giggled, and they turned as one to see that Samuel had begun to eat her bonnet.
“Samuel, no,” King said with a groan.
“He told me it tastes better than Cook’s biscuits, it does,” Emma said.
King and Verity laughed at the pair, who were clearly going to have many mischievous adventures together.
“Let’s go home, my loves,” King said.
Hand in hand, they made their way to the waiting carriages.
“If I may say,Your Grace, you are looking decidedly happier this evening,” Hutchens commented as he emerged from the dressing room where he had deposited King’s freshly shined shoes.
“That is because I am.”
“I am heartened to hear it,” the valet said as he went about placing some garments in the wardrobe.
“You seem in excellent spirits yourself,” King observed wryly. “You didn’t even complain about my missing button.”
“Easily fixed,” Hutchens intoned. “Now, had the scamp eaten the button and I had to wait to procure it so that it could be soundly washed and refastened…”
The valet finished with a shudder.
King grinned, in excellent spirits because all was right in his world now that his wife and Emma were once more in residence at Castelyn House. “I daresay another button could have been purchased in its stead. I’d never expect you to poke about in Samuel’s leavings, you know. I am not an ogre.”
“Of course you aren’t, Your Grace.” Hutchens’s countenance, like his tone, was bland.
Fair enough. King had been beastly without Verity. But shelovedhim. Him, not the ghost of the man she had once loved, butKing himself, with all his imperfections and flaws. She had been coming back to him. And she had forgiven him.
“I am no longer an ogre, then,” he corrected. “You may thank my lovely wife for that.”
“I speak on behalf of the household when I say how very pleased we all are at the return of the duchess and young Miss Emma,” Hutchens said, closing the wardrobe.
“I can assure you that no one is more pleased than I am.” King grinned.
The valet continued his toils, but King couldn’t wait any longer, desperate for the private reunion with Verity that he had been awaiting all bloody day.
