Ophelia’s eyes filled with tears, and she glanced around at the servants until they fell silent.
Then he drew in a deep breath. “Ophelia Shaw, you would make me the happiest man in all of England if you would consent to be my wife and duchess. Mother of my children, mistress of Sherringford…forever.”
Her small hand slipped into his, and she nodded, dislodging the tears that had turned her eyes glassy bright. “I would be honored.”
He pressed ardent kisses to her knuckles, then stood to wipe her tears away from her cheeks with the pads of his thumbs. “I am in love with you,” he told her, not caring who heard him speak. Most likely, no one would believe he could love anyone. Only Ophelia would need to believe him. Her opinion was the only one that had ever mattered.
“And I love you, too,” she promised. “So very much.”
The servants start to whisper excitedly, and then one of them started a slow clap. Soon all the servants had joined in and were talking about them making such an unexpected match. It seemed his decision had their approval.
Ophelia held on to his arms as she practically bounced in front of him. “Oh, Harry! You are so full of happy surprises.”
“Be careful,” he warned, tightening his hold on her in case she overbalanced on her wooden foot.
“That was the most memorable proposal in the history of forever. No one will ever dare claim you’re not a romantic man at heart when they hear about this.”
He pulled her close and pressed his forehead to hers. “I’m only ever romantic when I think of you. I’ll send money to Miriam for the babe, extra for the midwife and wet nurse, too.”
“Thank you, Harry.” She wrapped her arms tightly about his neck, and he lifted her off her feet. “You are the sweetest, most generous man in the entire world.”
Harry held her tight against him, little caring that the servants were still watching him with a mixture of surprise and, likely, horror. Ophelia was popular with the servants. He was decidedly not. He bent close to her ear. “You do realize you are the only person who sees me that way.”
She laughed. “Oh, I know I’m the most fortunate of women to have seen your best side.”
“You are my best side,” he countered, nuzzling her neck until a sudden thought occurred to him. He had to lay down some ground rules about their life together. “The cousins are not coming to live with us.”
Ophelia wriggled, and he set her on her feet with the same care he’d always shown her. She lifted a hand to his face and smoothed his hair back from his eyes. He closed them, enjoying the caress, then felt the tickle of her touch flutter across his eyelashes again. “Yes, Harry.”
“I absolutely forbid it,” he said, as he pressed his cheek firmly against her tiny palm. He liked her touching him and considered how easy it might be to lure her to some out-of-the-way corner to talk in greater privacy. Although they could make a decision about their home anywhere or anytime. Even in bed. That thought cheered him immensely. “They’ll expect you to entertain them. I want you all to myself.”
She pouted a little. “You have me, Harry.”
He sighed at the happy thought. They were to marry; they’d made love like lust-crazed fiends. There was no chance she’d jilt him. So what was the harm in offering a compromise now if it made her happy in the long run? He wanted this to be a good marriage for both of them. He was certainly no prize. She undoubtedly would have the chore of smoothing out his rough side and placating people who thought they’d been insulted by him for the rest of their marriage.
“Fine. They can come for the wedding and Christmas, but just this one year. You’ll have the sole responsibility for organizing everything. I’ll leave everything to you and the servants. I don’t want to hear a word about them until they get here.”
“Thank you.” She laughed again and then played with a button on his waistcoat. She winkled her adorable little nose. “You’ll hardly know they’re on the estate, I promise.”
He grunted. “I thought that about you once.”
Ophelia laughed and turned away. When she requested tea for two in her private apartment and dismissed the servants with a wave of her hand, Ophelia was instantly obeyed. But he couldn’t help noticing the servants left smiling rather than rushing off, as they did with him.
At least in choosing her for his duchess, he’d done something right for the good of everyone at Sherringford.
Ophelia beckoned Harry to join her with a cheeky smile that instantly made his cock thicken.
Harry tripped along behind her. A proper courtship would typically involve separations and meetings and chaperones. But they already lived in the same home, more or less alone.
“Shut the door, Harry.”
He obliged and then couldn’t help but laugh out loud. Ophelia knew more about proper courtships than he ever could. If she didn’t trouble herself, observe the rules, damned if he’d even try.
“What’s so funny?”
“You. And me.” He grinned. “Do you have any idea how I’ve tortured myself over you?”
“I’ve some, but Harry, the torture might just be beginning for both of us.” She sat herself down, patting the space beside her. “There’s a real danger we’re going to be interrupted when the tea arrives.”
Harry hurried to her side and leaned in to steal a kiss. His hand fell to her knee, and he slid it along her thigh. “Then I’d better make every moment alone with you count.”
“We both will,” she whispered, caressing the front of his trousers.
He nibbled her neck, and she arched up toward him for more. She took his hand and placed it on her breast, and he pinched her nipple through the fabric of her gown, eliciting the most erotic moan he’d heard from her yet.
They’d have to stop when the servants came, but even those small inconveniences didn’t diminish his current state.
Harry was happy, perhaps for the first time in his whole life. He was free to love Ophelia the way he wanted to. The way he needed to. He didn’t have to change himself to be considered lovable.
Ophelia began to slide sideways, drawing him with her until they were both lying down, him atop her. If this was a glimpse of his future, he would happily court Ophelia every day of his life.
She wiggled some more, and he was suddenly wedged between her spread thighs. He raised himself up to stare at her flushed face, lips plump from his kisses. She was already his perfect match, his love, his life, in every way that could ever possibly matter—especially when it came to passion. He wiggled his hips just to hear her moan. “Should I show you my love again, Ophelia?”
Ophelia’s answering smile was decidedly wicked. “Always, Harry, and then it’s my turn to love you just as much.”
Epilogue
Two months later
Harry lifted Ophelia down from the carriage in front of the village church in a terrible temper. There was absolutely no reason for him to attend church services on Sundays, but one reproving glance from his duchess, and he resigned himself to never having another Sunday morning to himself again.
He wouldn’t dream of allowing Ophelia to attend without him. The vicar had once had a soft spot for her. No man would come between them if he could help it. So, he found himself following Ophelia to Sunday services, all about the countryside, too, visiting his neighbors, and that was the best part of being a husband, in his opinion. He no longer had an excuse to spend his days alone, and he did not want to go back to the way things had once been, either.
He’d been lonely. Not that he’d ever put a name on what he’d felt before Ophelia had loved him.
Ophelia strode along beside him easily now, since the purchase of a new and properly fitted boot. The new contraption was one of a dozen he’d had made for her, all lined with the softest of sheepskins and far more forgiving padding than she’d ever enjoyed.
They argued. Often. Ophelia no longer simply endured his moods in silence. It was sometimes almost a pleasure to be taken to task for his surliness. Making l
ove after a particularly heated discussion kept them both sated and only ever brought them closer.
He let her lead him into the church and stood back while she greeted the other parishioners. They were not here to speak to him, anyway. Harry had no illusions that marriage to a good woman had made him more popular. She had a mind of her own, and he wanted it to stay that way. She continued to deploy “yes, Harry” to great effect when there was a cause dear to her heart.
Harry led the way to their usual seats, helped Ophelia to hers, and sat in silence as the unexceptional Mr. Drayton spoke of kindness to others, the reward of faith, and the sin of pride.
Harry supposed that the last one was meant for him. He had been quite unabashedly smug when he’d married Ophelia last month. Mr. Drayton had conducted the service, at Ophelia’s insistence. She had felt that to have asked anyone else to do the job of marrying them would reflect poorly on the man’s reputation. No one but the three of them knew of Drayton’s proposal, anyway. Besides, the only alternative was to go to London and be married by special license there. Although expedient, another London trip held no appeal for Harry. He had everything he wanted right there at home.
So he had given in to her request to accommodate Mr. Drayton’s pride and bore out another reading of the banns with more patience than he had the first time.
His newfound serenity might have something to do with how often he shared Ophelia’s bed. They were rather well-matched in passion. Ophelia enjoyed intimacy in a way few women ever admit to. Nothing he wanted was denied. Everything she desired was his pleasure to grant.
He closed his eyes as the vicar droned on, imagining what fun might be had between the sheets that night when he took his wife to bed again. He had solved the entire problem of the house’s many flights of stairs by moving himself downstairs to her. It had taken the servants a week to put things in order, but he now had no reason whatsoever to be far from Ophelia ever again.
They had adjoining bedchambers. They spent almost every night of their marriage together in one of them, or occasionally both.
Ophelia’s elbow prodded him, and he opened his eyes to find the vicar glaring at him severely. He wondered briefly just how long he’d been woolgathering that time, and smiled. The other parishioners were looking at them, too, so he assumed he might have even snored. Too bad. He was a duke, and he would only ever have to answer to Ophelia.
“Excellent sermon,” he murmured, without regret that he’d missed almost every word spoken of it. His soul did not need saving anymore. Ophelia had it tucked away somewhere about her for safekeeping.
“Indeed.”
Ophelia would have stayed awake through the whole of Drayton’s droning on. She was a much better person than Harry ever wanted to be.
Harry escorted his wife down the aisle and out into the bright sunshine. Mr. and Mrs. Nash waved at them from a distance, then laughed when he stifled a yawn.
And then Harry noticed Ophelia yawning, too. “We should go.”
Ophelia threaded her arm a bit tighter through his. “I think that a very good idea.”
Once in the closed carriage, she snuggled into his side. He liked this side of marriage, too. Ophelia seemed to need to be close to him as much as he wanted to be close to her. He still grew aroused by her presence, though now he didn’t bother to hide his admiration of her beauty…or his erection.
She rubbed his leg. “You snored again during the service.”
Ah, so that explained the vicar’s glare. “What can I say? I’m a newly married man with a beautiful wife to blame for keeping me up all night. Isn’t it enough that I gave another handsome contribution to the collection plate for his orphans?”
“You were very generous.” Ophelia’s hand slid higher, halting not far away from his groin. “Do you think we will ever tire of each other?”
He lifted her onto his lap, so she straddled him and then darkened the carriage, so they had privacy. “I can’t imagine I will.”
“Paul did,” she confessed, pulling her skirts out of the way while he unbuttoned the fall of his trousers. Ophelia hardly ever mentioned her first husband, and when she did, it was always a sensitive topic.
He released his cock and settled the tip at her entrance. “I should have met you first.”
Ophelia sank down on his length with a soft sigh. “I’m a wicked woman. I thought of doing this all through that boring sermon.”
Harry grasped her hips firmly and guided her up and down until they were both panting. He caught her face in one hand, slowing her movements. “I might not say this right, but I am grateful that Paul died. If he hadn’t, I might never have been as happy as I am now. I love the wicked woman that you are. I spent the whole sermon planning to make love to you tonight. I’m glad you didn’t make me wait until after dinner.”
She grabbed him by the hair and turned his head aside. Her teeth nibbled just beneath his ear, and then she whispered, “So, we are as bad as each other?”
“No, we are perfectly right for each other. Let me show you again.” He caught her lips with his and kissed her thoroughly, allowing her to move against him at her own pace and with the sway of the carriage. Today she was quick to find her release, and he followed soon after, biting down on her gown to smother the sound of his shout.
Moderating his outbursts was the only sacrifice he’d had to make in marrying Ophelia. Everything else seemed to just fall into place as if they were fated to be together.
Ophelia had once promised that there was one perfect bride who could love him just the way he was. He hadn’t thought she’d meant herself at the time…but to his knowledge, it was the only thing she’d ever been mistaken about when it came to love.
* * *
Thank You For Reading!
I hope you’ve enjoyed the story!
If you’re an avid reader of all things steamy and Regency Historical Romance, join for my mailing list to hear about new books as they release.
You can like or follow me on Facebook and Twitter to interact and get updates as they happen.
Plus you can also check out my website for sneak peeks at upcoming books and catch up on the latest writing news on the blog.
Want to be the first to know about ebook sales?
Follow me on Bookbub
* * *
Need more Steamy Regency Romance?
Explore all my series! You’ll find lots of steamy historical romances listed below:
DISTINGUISHED ROGUES SERIES
Chills
Broken
Charity
An Accidental Affair
Keepsake
An Improper Proposal
Reason to Wed
The Trouble with Love
Married by Moonlight
Lord of Sin
The Duke’s Heart
Romancing the Earl
One Enchanted Christmas
Desire by Design
His Perfect Bride
Pleasures of the Night
WILD RANDALLS SERIES
Engaging the Enemy
Forsaking the Prize
Guarding the Spoils
Hunting the Hero
SAINTS AND SINNERS SERIES
The Duke and I
A Gentleman’s Vow
An Earl of Her Own
The Lady Tamed
REBEL HEARTS SERIES
The Wedding Affair
An Affair of Honor
The Christmas Affair
An Affair so Right
MISS MAYHEM SERIES
Miss Watson’s First Scandal
Miss George’s Second Chance
Miss Radley’s Third Dare
Miss Merton’s Last Hope
If that’s not enough, there are a number of single titles - short story and novella length - romances too!
See Heather’s full book list on the website…
Coming next….
PLEASURES OF THE NIGHT
Distinguished Rogues, book 16
Learn more about Pleasures of the Night here!
About Heather
USA Today Bestselling Author Heather Boyd believes every character she creates deserves their own happily-ever-after—no matter how much trouble she puts them through. With that goal in mind, she writes steamy romances that skirt the boundaries of propriety to keep readers enthralled until the wee hours of the morning. Heather has published over 40 regency romance novels and shorter works full of daring seductions and distinguished rogues. She lives north of Sydney, Australia, with her trio of rogues and pair of four-legged overlords.
Let’s be friends! Find Heather at:
Heather-Boyd.com
His Perfect Bride Page 9
