by Maren Smith
“No worries, Florrie luv.” Hugging her fiercely close, he buried his answering smile in her hair. “I can live—and react appropriately—with that.”
Epilogue
“Three shillings,” the clerk at Pickering Kenyon and Company said, as he wrote up the receipt.
Flora blinked. “Really? That’s all? Even if it takes a while before I want it delivered?”
Now it was the clerk’s turn to be surprised. “You… don’t think three shillings is enough?”
“It bloody well is to me,” Draven grumbled. Fishing the coins from his pocket, he slapped them down on the counter.
Taking them, looking at her, the clerk finished filling in his paperwork.
Fingering the strings of her purse, the pretty blue one he’d bought for her at a secondhand store and which matched her favorite blue and white pinstriped gown. She even had a bustle. A genuine Victorian bustle, which two hours after her very first time wearing it, she could honestly say she was done being infatuated with. The cussed thing was far more uncomfortable than any recreation she’d ever worn. But she loved the way it made her look and it did provide Draven with a few extra seconds of inconvenience whenever he felt compelled to take her across his knee.
As far as the war between man and bustle went, man won every time, but still… she looked great. Of course, then the spanking started and she stopped caring about looks and started caring more about self-preservation. She’d been with Draven for six months now and his hand was not getting any softer.
“And the missive?” the clerk asked, his paperwork finished.
“Are you sure about this?” Draven asked as she opened her purse to pull out the envelope he had helped her both fold and seal just that morning.
“Do you still want to marry me?” she countered, and not for the first time. She knew he suspected the two questions were somehow connected, but she was determined to take the explanation to her grave.
“Unless you’ve changed your mind,” he drawled.
“I have not.”
“Then pass it over and get yourself to the church, woman.” He didn’t swat her here in the lobby of the solicitors, but she could hear the threat of it looming unspoken in his voice and all the right parts of her came tingling to life at the thought. It was hard to imagine how six months ago she’d been standing in her museum, lamenting both her single status and the lack of intimacy that her devotion to her job had wrought.
Well, she didn’t for a second regret any of it—the single status, the lonely nights, the devotion. The locket.
Funny, how the happiness of the future was so often built upon the miseries of the past. Hooking her arm in Draven’s, Flora cheerfully let herself be led out.
“Wait,” the clerk called. “Mrs. Grey. Madame, you’ve forgot your receipt!”
She walked out without looking back. She wasn’t worried. The locket would find its way to her. After all, it already had once before.
The End
If you liked this book, you might also like:
Her Vampire Master
