Ivy appeared at dawn. She stood in the doorway, the rising sun illuminating her. Henry Howard, fifth Earl of Warwickshire, stood up and went to her. A woman of common birth, she was the keeper of his heart. He took her hand and pressed a kiss onto it.
“Will you marry me, Ivy?” He squeezed her fingers. “Make an honest man of me and bring legitimacy to our children?”
“I will.”
Tears shimmered in her eyes but one fell down his cheek first. Tucking her hand onto his arm, he strode from the chamber leaving his blue-blood marriage behind.
“Get back in that bed, Anne.”
His wife scowled at him. Brodick sent her a stern look in return.
“I am going to my mother’s wedding, Brodick.”
And nothing was going to stop her. “For every time that I have heard the word bastard flung at me, I will crawl to church if I have to, Brodick.” Her entire body ached but she kept moving. She suddenly frowned.
“But I need some money to bribe the clergymen since I haven’t been churched yet. They won’t let me into the sanctuary.”
Brodick scowled. “This country has traditions that are insane.”
Anne grinned. “I suppose it is a good thing we plan to live in Scotland.”
He didn’t look amused by her words. “’Tis a good thing that all yer countrymen will be getting a Scots king. No allowing ye into church just because ye had a babe? What is the point of marriage, might I ask ye?”
Anne flinched when she bent over to pick up her shoes. Her husband swept her off her feet a moment later, placing her back on the foot of the bed. Brodick lowered his large body to one knee and slid her shoe into place himself.
“Och well, I can see why ye need to be there.”
He didn’t sound very contrite. But he placed the second shoe on her foot and helped her into her loose grown and surcoat.
“But no dancing.”
He turned to pick up their son. Brodick refused to allow the infant or herself out of his sight unless Druce or Cullen was with her. The man was keeping his promise to have her guarded but it wasn’t something she could become angry over. He did not trust Warwickshire and its staff. She could not blame him.
She took solace in his presence, enjoying every second of it. The burdens of life would steal him away soon enough. For now she would cling to his arm and watch her mother’s wedding. Ivy made the most beautiful bride Anne had ever seen. The reason was simple.
She was in love.
Be it curse or blessing, Anne did not know. But she suffered the same affliction, cheerfully following in her mother’s example. Brodick held her heart and if fate was kind, she would never cease loving him.
Never.
Be sure to catch WATCH OVER ME by Lucy Monroe, available now from Brava…
“Dr. Ericson”
Lana adjusted the angle on the microscope. Yes. Right there. Perfect. “Amazing.”
“Lana.”
She reached out blindly for the stylus to her handheld. Got it. She stared taking notes on the screen without looking away from the microscope.
“Dr. Ericson!!!”
Lana jumped, bumping her cheekbone on the microscope’s eyepiece before falling backward, hitting a wall that hadn’t been there when she’d come into work that morning.
Strong hands set her firmly on her feet as she realized the wall was warm and made of flesh and muscle. Lots and lots of muscle.
Stumbling back a step, she looked up and then up some more. The dark-haired hottie in front of her was as tall as her colleague, Beau Ruston. Or close to it anyway. She fumbled with her glasses, sliding them on her nose. They didn’t help. Reading glasses for the computer, they only served to make her feel more disoriented.
She squinted, then remembered and pulled the glasses off again, letting them dangle by their chain around her neck. “Um, hello? Did I know you were visiting my lab?”
She was fairly certain she hadn’t. She forgot appointments sometimes. Okay, often, but she always remembered eventually. And this man hadn’t made an appointment with her. She was sure of it. He didn’t look like a scientist either.
Not that all scientists were as unremarkable as she was in the looks department, but this man was another species entirely.
He looked dangerous and sexy. Enough so that he would definitely replace chemical formulas in her dreams at night. His black hair was a little too long and looked like he’d run his fingers through it, not a comb. That was just so bad boy. She had a secret weakness for bad boys.
Even bigger than the secret weakness she’d harbored for Beau Ruston before he’d met Elle.
She had posters of James Dean and Matt Dillon on the wall of her bedroom and had seen Rebel Without a Cause a whopping thirty-six times.