Page 50 of An Innocent Bride for the Duke

“My dear Louisa,” Seraphine responded, putting an arm about her shoulders and drawing her into a corner away from the children. “There, take my handkerchief. Is it really that bad?”

“I don’t know,” confessed Louisa. “I only know that I would never have kissed any other man, and then we should not have been discovered as we were and made to marry. You see, when Benedict kisses me, something happens, and I cannot control it…”

Her confession did not seem to shock her cousin in the slightest. Rather, Seraphine smiled a curious little smile, that communicated more approval than disapproval.

“Does he kiss you often, Louisa?” she pressed her cousin.

“We kissed last night, in the library. I didn’t mean to. I only went downstairs for a book, but he was there and then I was in his arms again and I could not help myself. He is nothing like Sir Benedict with Lady Elizabeth. Their love was so chaste and pure. What is wrong with me?”

“Let me get this right, Louisa,” Seraphine spoke again, her smile broadening further. “The man whom you are engaged to marry has kissed you several times and you enjoyed it? Yet this disturbs you?”

Louisa nodded, her cheeks burning.

“Louisa,” sighed Seraphine. “Believe me, marriage is not meant to be chaste, and neither of you would really want that. You will be sharing Benedict’s bed soon enough and will find out well enough for yourself. We will laugh about this in a few weeks time. ”

“Oh!” gasped Louisa, burying her face in her hands at the all-too-exciting thought of finding herself in the Duke of Northwick’s bed. “I cannot even think of it.”

“There is nothing wrong with you at all that you want Benedict to kiss you, Louisa, or to touch you, or even to take you to his bed,” continued her cousin reassuringly.

“But it is nothing like the story,” Louisa repeated her earlier puzzled complaint. “How can I want something that is so far from my dreams? It frightens me, Seraphine.”

“Real life is not a story. Sometimes it is better than that. The next time Benedict kisses you…”

Louisa turned away her face at this look forward, and Seraphine’s assumption that Benedict would soon kiss her again. Her cousin reached out and gently turned her face back.

“Listen, Louisa, for I know far more of these things than you, don’t I?”

Unable to argue this point with someone who had been happily married for six years, Louisa allowed her cousin to continue.

“So, the next time Benedict kisses you, stop worrying about what you should or shouldn’t feel about it, Louisa. Stop fighting yourself and enjoy his kisses.”

Louisa felt herself tremble at this idea, afraid of the consequences of obeying Seraphine’s recommendation.

“But I feel I will be overwhelmed, that I will lose all control,” she admitted.

“Enjoy Benedict’s kisses and what comes afterwards too, for it is truly wonderful, and it is your right,” Seraphine continued to insist. “Do not be afraid, for I am sure he will take care of you. In fact, if Benedict came to your bedroom this very night…”

Here she shrugged and Louisa gasped at the outrageous implication that there would be nothing wrong in letting the Duke of Northwick into her bedroom before the wedding.

“Seraphine!” she exclaimed, her consternation prompting another laugh from her cousin who now slipped an arm through Louisa’s.

“I’ll leave you with that thought, Louisa. Now, the children may stay here with Gertie while we go and dress for our walk.”

Louisa could not argue and let herself be drawn along by Seraphine. She was breathless at the very thought of Benedict opening her bedroom door and stepping inside, a smile on his lips and his blue-green gaze full of that intent that made her body ache and throb so strangely.

Chapter Twenty-One

“Did Louisa not come back with you?” asked Lady Esher as Seraphine and the children tumbled up the steps into Rosemere, pink-cheeked and smiling from their outing and exercise.

Benedict was just descending the stairs as they entered and his ears pricked up at the mention of Louisa’s name. While the house was quiet, he had just been to her empty bedroom and returned her book, laying it on her bed along with a fragrant white rose from the garden.

The addition of the flower was a kind of apology, Benedict supposed, or perhaps compensation for keeping the dried rose that had dropped from the book. Either way, he hoped he had not been seen and would not have to explain what others would wrongly see as a romantic gesture.

“Oh, yes,,” Seraphine answered her aunt. “Louisa has just gone down to the orchard to choose two of the best and sweetest apples for Fanny and Ezra who walked so well today and were so well behaved in our calls on your neighbors, and especially during luncheon with Sir Arthur and Lady Manners.”

“What good children!” Lady Esher praised them. “I have rarely met two such strong walkers so young. Ah, Your Grace, you are here now too. Will you join us for tea? Damien said that he must deal with his correspondence today and I don’t believe we will see him before dinner.”

“Uncle Benedict!” yelled Ezra, hurling himself at Benedict while Fanny took one of his hands. “Come and play, Uncle Benedict!”