Marry the Man Today (38 page)

"Damn it, Elizabeth, I can't very well ignore you and still pretend I'm looking into the matter."

"Why not?"

"Because it's a waste of manpower."

"It'll just have to be that way, Ross, until the police start arresting husbands for assaulting their own wives. What if you had a sister who was being beaten by her husband?"

"I'd kill him."

"Then you'd go to jail, Ross. But if he killed your sister in a fit of anger, he would be excused because, after all, she was only his property. Don't you see the injustice? Sometimes we just have to take matters into our own hands and set things right as best we can."

Ross felt the familiar roar of outrage rising up in his chest, tried his best to blink away the stark image of Thomas lying dead on the steps of the doctor's surgery. The broken little body, bruised face, limbs at odd angles. He'd died in Jared's arms and they carried him to the surgeon's front stoop, a place where they knew he'd be found. Then they went in search of Squire Craddock, the savage bastard who had beaten him to death.

They'd come away with a handful of solid gold buttons, and a brighter, braver future.

The same future that Elizabeth was offering to Lady Wallace and the others.

No wonder he loved her so dearly, so deeply. She was his heart and his soul.

His past and his future.

But it couldn't be this way. "No more kidnappings, Elizabeth."

Her eyes flashed a rebellious emerald. "Ross,
I
—"

"But I can help." In his own way.

"How? Kill off all the husbands?" She scowled deeply, so ready to stand her ground for the defenseless. "Because that's what it'll take. When Lady Hayden-Cole sought a civilized separation from her husband, the man threatened to commit her to an asylum if she ever tried to leave him again."

"Madam, you're sitting on the lap of a man who has a vast network of power available to him."

She raised her eyebrows, only half amused. "Ross, your prowess as a lover is admirabl
e
—"

"Only admirable?"

"Staggering, then. Awesome, overwhelming. Howeve
r
—
"

He cupped her chin and brought her closer, wanting her to understand his promise. "Bring them to me, Elizabeth, and I'll see them safely to their new lives without a single threat from their husbands."

Her face filled with doubting wonder. "You can do that?"

"In the blink of an eye." He winked, smiled because he couldn't help himself.

She sniffed at him. "You didn't know where the princess was until I told you."

"But you did tell me, Elizabeth." He touched his mouth to the arc of her lips. "I'm usually not as dense, but you unbalance me."

"Then you really will help me?"

He took her hand and flattened it against his heart
,
hoping she heard it galloping there. "My word of honor, my love."

"Oh, Ross, you're m
y
—"

He didn't let her finish, certain he'd just become her hero. He kissed her instead, covered her mouth completely and made love with her tongue. Caught her sigh inside his chest, and growled with the pleasure of her squirming, riding him without when he'd rather be buried inside her.

A lift of her hips and they would be connected there. Though he would surely spend himself immediately. And often.

A risk he planned to tak
e
—

But she pulled away, her eyes bright. "I have a brilliant idea, Ross!"

"And I have a great need for you." He cupped her bottom.

"We can take Lord Tuckerton to New York to live with his dear Eugenia."

"What?" Would the woman ever stop planning great escapes. And how the devil did she know Tuckerton?

"He's miserable, Ross. We have to tell him that his grandniece is well. But we can't let him stay here in London because Lord Wallace would surely find out where she was hiding." She cupped his chin, her eyes suddenly rimming with tears. "We can't let him just waste away in a club chair at the Huntsman. That would be cruel."

And he'd noticed himself that the old man had already begun to fade, in just these few weeks. His hair white, his eyes more dull, his back more bent.

"Oh, God."

"Next week, Ross? As soon as we can, please. I have excellent contacts at all the steamship companies! And what a grand honeymoon for us!"

"We're on our honeymoon, Elizabeth, in case you hadn't noticed that I'm ready to burst for wanting you."

Elizabeth had noticed, could feel herself ready to burst, ready to give her heart and her soul to this amazing man.

"I'm not exactly what you bargained for when you married me, am I, Ross?"

"Now, there's an understatement, wife. You are a wonder." He was looking at her in a very heady way, breathing like a bull, dropping hard, steaming kisses across her bosom. "And as it happens, Lord Clarendon agrees."

"The foreign minister?"

He looked up long enough to say, "He's arranging for a royal commendation for you."

"A royal commendation!" How amazing! "But what about Jess and Cassie and Skye? They were every bit as important to the mission as I was."

"I've already informed them of their commendations, when I was looking for you at the Adams. As I would have informed you, had you stayed put."

"I obviously don't know what's good for
m
e." But she knew what was good for him.

And he must have thought so too as she closed her hands around the very hot shaft of his penis.

And then she leaned down and kissed him there, suckled and teased and fondled this big howling husband of hers until the poor man just couldn't take it anymore.

He lifted her off his thighs and, with an unerring aim and a roar of triumph, he slipped his thickness inside of her and rocked her world with his wonder.

They made love until the noonday sun was piercing through the windows, until they were breathless and starving and her limbs no longer moved. Until her eyelids drooped and her dreams came nudging up against her.

She woke sometime later with Ross looking down at her. He was stretched out above her, looking every long inch the sated wolf, cleanly shaven and smelling of soap.

"Good afternoon, wife."

"A very good afternoon." She cuddled against him, amazed at the turn her life had taken.

"By the way, love, I made two stops after I left the Adams. Before I came here to look for my runaway wife." He lifted her fingers to his lips and kissed them, then gathered her right hand inside his.

"Two stops? For what?"

"Something I neglected to do the night we were married." His eyes sparkled as he lifted her hand to show her the wedding band he'd magically put on her finger sometime while she'd been sleeping. "Call me a little slow."

"Oh, Ross!" The band glinted gold and steadfast. "I'll call you wonderful to the end of our days!"

She kissed him long and hard, catching her name in her heart as he whispered it against her mouth and her cheek and her temple until he was rolling her to the edge of the bed and climbing out.

"Where are you going?" She grabbed at his arm but missed as he lef
t
her for the wardrobe.

"Don't you want to know where else I stopped on my way here?"

"Not if it's going to keep you over there." Though he was a delicious feast for her eyes from this distance. Ta
l
l and bronze and still very nakedly aroused.

"Greedy." He returned with a smile and slipped back into bed beside her with a folded packet of what looked like legal papers.

"You went to a lawyer?"

"I had these started the morning after we were married." He handed her the packet, then laid back against the pillow with a catlike smile.

She unfolded the stiff pages. "What is it?"

"It's everything you owned before we married. I've deeded it all back to you."

"What do you mean, Ross?" She sat up and tried to make sense of the words swimming around on the pages, realizing that she couldn't read for the tears welling in her eyes.

"It's all yours again, Elizabeth. Lock, stock, and barrel." He crossed his arms over his chest, looking very pleased with himself.

"But, Ross . . . ! That's not what I want." It felt wrong. Separate from this man she loved with all her heart.

He frowned and sat up. "It's not?"

"
I love you, husband!" She shook the pages at him, shocked at the turn of her own feelings. "You said we were partners."

"We are." He looked bewildered.

"Then I'm going to take these back to that lawyer as soon as we get to London and I'm going to make it right."

"Right?"

"My name and yours. That's what belongs on each of these deeds. Us, Ross. Together. Partners."

He scratched at his head as he looked at her in complete confusion for a long, unsettling moment. And then he started to laugh. And laugh. A roaring, belly-busting laugh that had him falling back against the pillows.

Leaving her completely clueless. "Just what's so funny?"

His laughter settled and he sat up, wiping at his eyes. "God, I love you, Elizabeth!"

"And that's funny?"

His smile changed from madness to the devil's own as he reached out and gathered her into his lap.

"Something Drew told me, love." He bent her backward over his arm.

"That wives are funny?"

"That diplomacy isn't for the faint of heart." He kissed his way upward from her navel to her mouth. "And?"

"And that's what I get for not consulting all the pa
r
ties in this treaty of ours."

"But, may I say that you do make an extraordinary ambassador to my kingdom, husband." She caught h
is
handsome face between her hands. "Though I would definitely excuse you should you attempt an invasion."

"Point taken, my love." His laughter turned to a sultry growl as he carried her back against the pillows, his eyes alight with that glint she loved so well.

The man she trusted with her life, with the children they would someday have.

Because, in the end, when all was counted, it was his unconditional love that had set her heart free.