His Contract Bride (Banks Brothers Brides 1)(31)

She rolled her eyes. "You're incorrigible." Her fingers stopped their  tapping, and she lifted the lid then quickly shut it. "I'm not about to  be greeted by a bowl of gruel, am I?"

"Why should you say that?"

Regina wagged a finger at him. "I know all about you, Lord Watson. John had to learn his tricks from someone."

His lips twitched.

"Ha," she said, playfully jabbing a finger into his shoulder. "I do  believe something is afoot, and you, my lord, are the culprit."

"Open it and you'll see what's in there," he encouraged, no longer able to contain his grin. She was a skeptical one, she was.

Slowly, she lifted the wicker lid of the picnic hamper and peered inside.

"What do you see?"

"Strawberry tarts," she said excitedly.

Edward lifted his eyebrows at her. What an unusual creature he'd married. "Have you a weakness for sweets?"

"Yes, but not to worry, I'll be careful to eat them in moderation."

He waved her off. "You may eat them all, if you like."                       
       
           



       

Abandoning the hamper, Regina handed him one of the tarts. "Here."

He took it from her and held it between his fingers, waiting while she  got herself one. "Mmm," she said, sinking her teeth into it. A little of  the strawberry filling oozed out the side of the tart and settled on  the edge of her bottom lip. Pulling the tart away, her pink tongue  darted out and licked away the filling.

His mouth watered. The way she ate that confounded tart had to be the  most erotic thing he'd ever seen. He shifted so not to alert her to his  arousal.

"Forgive me," she murmured, when she was finished, her eyes wide and her  cheeks slightly pink. "I didn't mean to make a spectacle of myself."

"You're not forgiven," he said, doing his best not to grind his teeth at  the phrase he most hated to hear from her lips. He set down the tart  she'd given him and reached up to rest his hand against her cheek then  released her lower lip from her teeth's brutal hold. "It was a spectacle  I enjoyed."

She gasped; her pink cheeks growing red.

Edward reached up and wrapped his finger around a fallen tendril of her  silky hair, his other hand resting on the blanket next to hers. "I do  believe I shall have to ask Cook to serve tarts at every meal."

"You do that and you'll have a wife who looks as if she's increasing, even if she's not."

He gave a lopsided shrug. "I don't care." Then his eyes went to her abdomen. "Is there a chance?"

A shadow crossed her face. "No."

Edward covered her hand with his and gently rubbed the pad of his thumb  over her row of knuckles. "There's still plenty of time. We've only just  begun." Those final words were a promise. He forced himself to sit back  up before he gave into his baser needs and gave her a demonstration of  what he'd meant. She was a lady, after all. He couldn't ravish her  outside. "I think we'd better eat and be on our way."

***

"Which way shall we go?"

She rolled her eyes up toward the sky. "I think I should like to go the  way that will have us move at a leisurely pace and be surrounded by tall  shade trees."

"As the baroness wishes." Edward used the edge of the paddle to push off. "You're right handed, are you not?"

"Yes." What had that to do with anything?

"Then we shall go to the left. My left, that is," he said, steering the  boat to his left, her right. "You might wish to hold onto the boat right  here; it might get bumpy."

Regina needed no further warning and grasped onto both sides of the boat. "I thought you said it would be leisurely."

"It will in a moment," he said with a grunt. "First, I have to get us  there." He gritted his teeth as he made two large paddle strokes, the  muscles in his forearms flexing to quite an impressive size. He sighed  with relief. "If you look out the side, you'll see that we now have a  small current. Unfortunately, we're going against it now, but it'll help  us when we come back. Where this side of the Y and the other drops into  the other part of the creek is the most strenuous as the two smaller  fingers of the creek are dumping into the main part. But now it'll be  smooth."

Regina released her death grip on the boat and watched her husband paddle. She was quite a fortunate lady to have him.

"Do you know how to swim?"

Regina started. "Passably, I suppose. Why?"

"Don't worry, I wasn't thinking of asking you to go for a swim. It'll be  too late for that before long. I just wondered if you could."

"In that case, yes. My aunt had a pond at her cottage in Essex that I swam in when I was younger."

"As I'm sure you've guessed by now, my brothers and I used to swim in  this part of the creek." He ducked his head to avoid getting smacked in  the face by a low lying branch. "It has the small current, but it's  wider than the other parts." He pointed to a cluster of tall rocks  jutting from the shore. "That's the spot where Trouble gashed his  forehead when he thought to be sneaky and send the boat downstream  without us knowing." He shook his head. "His plan would have worked had  he not got his foot tangled in the rope."

"So then he's always had a little mischievous streak? It didn't start when he first went to Eton or when your father died?"

He shook his head. "Of course he's always caused trouble. Every boy does. His just leads him into it more often than not."

"Ah, then he must be saying his nightly prayers wrong."

Edward switched his paddle to the other side. "And how did you reach this conclusion?"

Regina twisted her lips and cocked her head to the side. "All right, you  might have to help me, but I think I've spent enough time in your  presence that I can put this in a way you'll understand."                       
       
           



       

"All right."

She ignored the way he was looking at her as if she was a simpleton. "My  objective is to prove how John finds himself in so much trouble. My  hypothesis is that he says his prayer wrong at night. My observations or  research to prove my findings is based on the fact that we had to  return to London early after he was sent down from Eton, followed by you  making two additional trips to Eton to discuss other matters he was  involved in, and now you mention the boat incident. That leads me to my  conclusion that, instead of asking the Lord to lead him not into  temptation, John asks him just to whisper where it's at."

The corners of Edward's eyes crinkled with mirth as a giant grin split  his face and his body shook with laughter. "Regina, that has to be the  best scientific proposal I've ever heard."

"Did I do it right?"

"Close enough," he said, favoring her with another grin. "Just so you  know how right you are, John didn't actually earn his nickname because  he's a menace. He's a good boy who seems to always be the one who gets  caught-no matter how much or little his involvement." He grunted and  moved his paddle to navigate around a cluster of rocks. "When we were  boys and we'd play with something we shouldn't, we'd all run when Father  came looking for us. Being the youngest, therefore, the slowest, it'd  always be John who was caught." A strained look came over his face that  seemed to have nothing to do with his paddling. "Of course, after Mother  died, it wasn't so humorous when John was caught."

Regina waited for him to tell her more, but he didn't and she didn't want to press.

A few minutes later, he pulled out his pocket watch and made a face. "I  think it's time we turn around and go back. Would you like to get out  for a few minutes and stretch your legs?"

"If you don't mind."

"Not at all." He paddled over to the shore and helped her out, then  started pulling the boat out of the water. "When there's only one  paddle, it's easier to take it out to turn it around than try to turn it  in the creek."

"I can help paddle," she offered.

"I know you can paddle. But today is for you, so I left my second paddle  at home so I wouldn't be tempted to give into an ungentlemanly urge and  allow you to." He winked at her. "John lost the second paddle last year  and I have yet to replace it."

"I think you just earned yourself a plate of Cook's infamous gruel for dinner."

Edward's eyes widened. "Damn," he muttered.

She shook her head. "I shan't count that one since I knew you were having me on. But next time, I might not be so lenient."

"Thank you for your generosity." He pulled the boat the rest of the way  out of the water. "Regina, we won't be able to stop again before we get  back so if you need to...er...attend to anything private, now would be  the time."