Page 67 of Duke with a Deception
Emma’s head bobbed up and down. “Yes, then. We’ll stay. We like it ’ere.” She looked down at her new doll. “Don’t we, Annabelle?”
King cocked his head and regarded the child with grave seriousness. “I’m afraid I couldn’t hear what Annabelle said. Does she like it here as well?”
“She’s a quiet one, she is,” Emma replied, nodding. “But she said she does.”
“I’m pleased to hear it, Miss Emma,” King said.
The girl curtsied, and he rose to his feet, offering her an elegant bow as if she were a princess before him rather than a six-year-old orphaned girl with an accent that betrayed her East End roots. Emma giggled happily, a rare, joyous sound Verity hadn’t heard since before the fire. King grinned back down at her, unbearably handsome.
And that precise moment, as he paid court to a small child and opened his bruised and battered heart to her, was when Verity fell in love with her husband for the second time.
“Where are we going?”Verity asked, all bright enthusiasm and sunshine from the carriage squabs opposite him.
King couldn’t contain his own smile at her eagerness. “You shall see.”
She sighed dramatically. “Why must it be a surprise?”
“Because I like surprises.”
“What if I don’t?”
He chuckled. “You like everything, angel.”
She pouted. “Not everything, if you will recall.”
“Fish,” he remembered. “But I cannot think of a single other thing.”
“I also dislike wet stockings,” she declared.
“I shall add that to my list.”
Her lips curled. “And the scent of horse dung.”
“Blast. I have a habit of carrying it about in my pockets. I reckon I shall have to stop doing so.”
Verity laughed, then bit her lower lip, trying to appear stern. “Yes, you really must halt that at once. I cannot love a man who carries horse dung about.”
He laughed with her. Verity’s effervescence was contagious. He felt dangerously, alarmingly happy, sharing the carriage with her as it swayed over the wet London streets. Happier than he deserved to be. Happier than he had ever been. But with that happiness came the sobering reminder that all it would take to dismantle his world was Verity’s memory returning to her. Were that to happen, she would never forgive him.
He ruthlessly tamped that down, not wanting to allow it to ruin the surprise he had planned for her.
“Am I permitted to guess where you are taking me?” she asked now, dragging him from his thoughts.
“You may guess, but there is no guarantee that I shall answer.”
“King.”
He grinned. “I like the way my name sounds on your lips. Particularly when you’re coming.”
Her eyes widened. “Sir. That was most shockingly forward of you.”
But despite her words, her voice was breathy. He spied the wickedness in her eyes, and it lit an answering fire within him.Suddenly, his surprise for her was the furthest thing from his mind.
“I could be more forward than that.”
Her brow rose. “Oh? I don’t think you possibly could be.”
He moved swiftly to join her on her side of the carriage, crowding her with his body. King leaned down, his lips grazing her ear as he spoke, the scent of roses and bergamot surrounding him, making molten and thick desire course through his veins.
