Her brow furrowed but only for a moment. “Your pocket! Your right pocket—what are you carrying in there, pray? More sticky berries?”
With a hitch in his breathing, Nicholas recalled exactly what nestled inside his pocket. His bandaged left palm recalled as well. “I intended to give it to you last night. Had every plan to—but…”
“But my blasted father intervened.”
“And never will again,” he vowed.
“Well then…” Her excitement was palatable. “If not berries, then what?”
“I was touched by how you admired the Nativity pieces, how you saw them with your fingers. I wanted to give you…” He floundered, the precise words distant from his lips.
“A Nativity scene?” she asked in confusion.
“Nothing so elaborate.” Attempting to maneuver his handmade gift out of the opening—and past the sash he’d stuffed in there earlier—while snuggling his lover-to-be only muddled his tongue further. “’Tis a token of my regard. A trifling token? Regard? No…that’s not the right of it. ’Tis a representation of… Representation? Nay, not that either!” He swore. Swore again when the seam of his pocket ripped, but he finally placed the rudimentary carving into her safekeeping. “Blast! I’m sounding like a puffed-up prig. It’s a symbol, one that conveys my lo—”
She stopped his ramblings with a hand to his mouth—this time her accuracy was impeccable. Her eyes glittered brightly, her smile so wide he couldn’t believe his fortune…that this beautiful, fey creature who’d taught him so much just with her presence would be his helpmeet, his partner throughout life. The mother of his children.
“Aye?” he mumbled beneath her fingertips.
Her other hand, he saw, now lay completely still upon his gift, after an eager exploration to determine its shape. “A heart…you gave me your heart!”
He kissed her fingers and brought her hand down so he could place it atop that very organ. “Aye, and it only took me four attempts to make the thing. Four attempts and it’s still skewed to London and back. If only I’d had more time—”
“None needed! I love this one.” She flipped over the lopsided heart and traced its outline with her thumb then flung herself against his chest. Her arms a vise about his neck, her lips at his ear, she vowed, “It’s absolutely perfect! Perfect. As are you.”
He hauled her body even closer. “Oh aye—foible-ridden Nicky’s perfect.”
“For me you are.”
And he was.
Chapter Nine
The Festivities Take an Intimate Turn
A few weeks later…
“I like what you’ve done here,” Nicholas told his new wife when he found her sitting at her dressing table on their first full night at Frostwood Hall.
Her sable hair was brushed to a silky sheen, her hands strangling the handle of a boar’s-hair brush so tightly it was a wonder it didn’t squeal.
He knew the flush on her cheeks didn’t have a damn thing to do with the nip in the air but had everything to do with them spending the night together as husband and wife.
Indeed, the room little resembled the dragon’s lair he recalled from childhood, Isabella’s belongings giving it a homey atmosphere he would have found inviting any other time.
But not tonight.
He came up behind her and placed his hands lightly on her shoulders, rubbed his thumbs delicately on the skin of her nape. “Like what you’ve done with the pictures especially.”
Framed miniatures graced a far side of the circular table, one of Althea and one of Isabella’s mother, both faces gazing contentedly from the painted portraits.
She tensed beneath his touch and released the hairbrush with a clatter. But the mirror reflected the peaceful smile curving her lips when she stretched one arm to locate then trace the base of each frame. “Lizzie’s idea. She told me they’d be watching over me whether I could see them or not.”
Lizzie. The maid who had taken such care of his beloved at Redford Manor. After speaking to Ed, Nicholas had enticed her away, even sent her ahead to prepare the rooms and corridors, granting Lizzie authority to direct the other servants in the placement of furniture and anything else she thought might prove helpful in giving Isabella as much freedom as possible. Smart decision, that.
He’d been making a lot of those since meeting his beautiful, nervous-as-hell bride little more than a month ago. “I think she has the right of it. But come now…”
With a touch so gentle it wouldn’t break a bubble, he encouraged Isabella to stand and turned her to face him. A fine trembling had taken hold of her limbs. “Well, my lady, are you quite ready to spend your first night in your new home?”