“Die to protect her?”
“You would too.” She sounded sleepy but sure of her point.
He didn’t argue—a gentleman never argued with a lady—though marrying Hester hardly equated to offering his life for his niece. Instead of arguing, he stroked his hand over the warm, delicate planes of the lady’s back, tracing her bones and muscles, learning her geography by touch.
When he realized he’d let the silence stretch for some minutes, he offered another point for her consideration: “Your husband would give you children, Hester.” A high card, he hoped. “He’d provide for you and those children, keep you safe and comfortable all your days.”
She said nothing. While her breathing evened out and she became a warm, trusting weight on his body, Tye reveled in the chance to explore her. He could reach the delectable curves of her derriere, trace the knobs and bumps of her spine, turn his nose and catch the flowery fragrance of her hair.
He fell asleep trying to find the right words to ask her—ask her in all seriousness—if she might consider marriage, were he to be the one providing her those children.
Hester awoke feeling safe, warm, and happy. The contentment was a bone-deep bodily awareness, spectacular in its pervasiveness.
“Not only do you have sense and bottom”—a large, warm hand squeezed Hester’s fundament—“but you excel at the marital art of sharing a bed. Good morning.”
Tiberius Flynn, the Earl of Spathfoy, was wrapped around her in all his naked glory. In all of their naked glory. What did one say under such circumstances?
“Good morning, my lord.”
“Miss Daniels.”
She did not dare turn over to peer at him. “Are you laughing at me, Spathfoy?”
“I am cuddling with you, much to my surprise—and delight, of course.”
His voice sounded convincingly serious. Hester peeked over her shoulder and found his green eyes were dancing with suppressed mischief.
“Dratted man.” Wonderful man. Wonderful, warm man, holding her close and making her day start with such a sense of well-being. “The rain has stopped.”
“Ah, the weather. How it gratifies me to know my lovemaking, or perhaps my mere presence in your bed, reduces you to platitudes. And here I took you for the daring sort.”
“You are so naughty. Teach me another word if you don’t want to discuss the weather.”
That shut him up. It chased him from the bed in fact, which was a pity. Hester heard him cross the room, then heard a stream hit the bottom of the chamber pot behind the privacy screen.
She blushed. She listened, and she blushed. When Spathfoy came back to the bed, she caught a minty whiff of tooth powder.
“Will you marry me, Hester Daniels?” He spooned himself around her, making the entire mattress bounce in the process. “I’ve never spent the night with a woman before. I find it rather agrees with me.”
“You have an untapped capacity for the ridiculous, Spathfoy.” Now she got out of the bed, having to struggle a bit to escape his hold. She grabbed the first piece of clothing she could find—his dressing gown—and wiggled into it before leaving the bed. She didn’t need to use the chamber pot, thank a merciful God, but she did avail herself of the tooth powder.
He’d appropriated her toothbrush. Hester set the thing back into the cup that held it and stared.
This was intimacy, to share a toothbrush, to wake together. Last night had been intimate too, but it wasn’t the sexual thrill Hester would miss when Spathfoy departed.
She would miss him—cozy and casual in the morning, laughing with her in the bed, whispering unpronounceable naughty words into her ear, and running his hand over her backside in the most proprietary fashion as she fell asleep on his chest.
Intimacy with him was wonderful, thrilling, and precious at once. She very much feared this combination of feelings was what vapid young ladies alluded to when they said they were smitten with a man.
In love with him.
She felt an abrupt urge to cry, ignored it, and twisted her hair into a thick braid instead.
“What are you doing back there?” Spathfoy’s voice floated from the direction of the bed. “I propose marriage, and you must see to your toilette?”
“Stop teasing me, Spathfoy.” She emerged from the privacy screen while tying a ribbon around the end of her braid. “You used my tooth powder.”
“Come here, and I shall kiss you, then you’ll appreciate my larceny. I could have done that for you.”
He was regarding her braid narrowly. Hester stopped her advance before she got within range of his long arms. “Why aren’t you leaping up, wishing me good day, and scampering off to your own quarters? The sun will soon be up, Spathfoy.”
He looked amused, and perhaps he had cause. His dressing gown hung nearly to the floor on her, swallowing her up in its vast, comfortable folds. Then she realized he was peering at her socks, the only article of clothing to survive the night’s festivities in a proper location.
“The sun will be up soon,” he said, stretching out on his side, “but the servants know to leave the trays outside our doors, Miss Daniels. Stop grousing at me and get back in this bed.” He patted the mattress as if he had every right to invite her into her own bed.
“You will not blame me, sir, if you’re found here in flagrante delicto and we are forced to marry.” She attempted to flounce onto the bed, though his dressing gown made flouncing a rather undignified business. He had to help her get extricated from his clothing, and then she found herself wrapped again in his embrace.
“Do you wish me to go, Hester?”
How she loved feeling the way his words rumbled up from his chest. She closed her eyes, the better to feel him speak. He’d put her on her back, while he was still on his side with her tucked along his length.
“Soon. You must.”
She felt his cheek against her temple, felt him hike her leg over his hip. “I’m not teasing, Hester. I have to leave within the week, and I intend to keep proposing to you until you agree to leave with me.”
“Hush.” She turned her face into his chest to prevent herself from saying something stupid. He was sincere. She heard it in his voice, felt it in his body. He was also a man bound by duty and honor to an excessive degree—witness his visit to a mere niece—and Hester was not about to take advantage of him.
She regarded him too highly for that.
“I am not ready to consider any proposals of marriage.”
It was the kindest thing she could think of to say. He’d offered out of decency, and she’d declined based on the same consideration.
Hester Daniels doted on her niece, but she positively melted in the presence of the small, drooling bundle that was her cousin Augusta’s firstborn.
Balfour caught Tye’s eye over the tea service. “We’ll leave them to it, shall we? They’ll be cooing and smiling at the wee lad the livelong day while grown men go hungry and cold for want for female attention.”
In truth, Tye would rather watch Hester talking nonsense to the baby in her arms. Her expression was one of such suppressed yearning, Tye could practically hear wedding bells—and naughty vocabulary whispered by firelight.
“A ramble to the burn?” Tye asked, rising. Balfour didn’t look like he had any agenda other than escaping the ladies’ presence, but Tye was learning not to underestimate the man.
“Sounds just the thing. Ladies, you will excuse us?”
His countess sent them along with a wave of her hand, while Hester, Fiona, and Lady Ariadne didn’t even look up from where they were fussing over the baby.