"How does your writing progress?" he asked.

"I can't find the words," Lucy said.

Robert smiled at her, a wicked smile that made her blush. "Do you need any help with your research?"

"It's not that sort of letter," Lucy said, reproving. She laid down her quill with a little sigh. "I am writing to Lachlan to congratulate him on Dulcibella's inheritance of the Cardross estates."

Robert threw himself down in the little armchair beside her desk. The noise he made sounded like a cross between a growl and an humph. Lucy bit her lip, trying not to smile at his grumpy expression.

When Wilfred Cardross had been found guilty of treason the month before, the king had graciously seen fit to award his estates to Dulcibella, Wilfred's closest living relative. Lachlan and his runaway bride were now richly rewarded. Fortunately at the same time the king had equally graciously canceled the fifteenth-century treaty allowing the lairds of Cardross to claim back Methven land. And since Robert now had an heir anyway, he really had very little to complain about. Even so, Lucy was tempted to tease him.

"What a pity you did not wed Dulcibella in the first place," she said innocently. "If only you had, the Cardross and the Methven land would all be yours now."

Robert's glittering blue gaze came up and fixed on her. There was a light in it that made her heart start to race.

"And whose fault was that, madam?" he demanded.

"I believe it was mine," Lucy admitted. She looked at him under her lashes. "I have said I am sorry."

"Not good enough." With one sudden movement Robert came to his feet and grabbed her, sending the chair toppling backward and the blank sheet of paper sailing to the floor. He picked her up in his arms and strode through the door to the bedroom beyond, tossing her down on the bed.

"You owe me," he murmured, his lips brushing her ear. "You owe me a very great deal."

"Robert!" Lucy squeaked as her husband started to ruthlessly relieve her of her clothes. "You cannot do this. It is broad daylight and your grandmother is downstairs and-" She stopped as Robert kissed her, a very long, very sweet kiss.

"You were saying?" he murmured as he nibbled wickedly at her throat.

I forget," Lucy said. The room was full of sunshine and her mind was full of light and she felt him move over her and into her with such infinite gentleness. She nipped his shoulder with her teeth to encourage him. He had been treating her like spun glass since he had come back to her bed, but in the past week or so she had tired of such delicate handling.

She smiled secretly to herself. When she had found she was pregnant with James she had been understandably anxious. Robert had broken with convention and scandalized society into the bargain by staying with her throughout the entire labour in order to reassure her. If she had loved him before it was nothing to how much she loved him now.

She pulled him closer, wrapping her legs around him and tilting her hips up and heard him groan as the gentleness took on a most satisfying edge of urgency. The pleasure caught them both and they lay entangled, the sun patterning their bodies, the only sound in the world their breathing and the faint voices of the dowager and little James's nursemaid floating up from the terrace below.

"So," Lucy said, turning her head to look at her husband, "do you think you can forgive me?"

Robert smiled. "On reflection," he said, "I think I do prefer matters as they are. I have no need of the Cardross estates. I have Methven and I have James and I have you." He kissed her. "I have all that I want in the world."

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ISBN: 9781460316511.

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