Riggins took my arm. "The duchess and I have a lot to catch up on. We'll meet in the library for tea in an hour. Sound good?"
Sid nodded, reluctantly. She was outnumbered.
"Very good, sir," Gibson said, directing her to the prime guestroom down the opposite hall from our suite.
The guestroom location was a matter of architecture more than convenience. The walls of the castle were thick and privacy not so much a concern.
Riggins propelled me to his room with his hand, squeezing mine. He closed the door behind him.
We stood facing each other, panting, in heat, both of us. Our gazes held. I was looking for something. The same thing I looked for every time he looked at me. If I had previously tried to mask my feelings from him, I gave up now. What was the point?
I loved him desperately. I should have told him. If that made me look desperate or scared him away, so be it. The time for game playing was over. We were having a child together. Whether we wanted to be or not, we'd always be bound to each other by it. Whether we went our separate ways or stayed together.
I voted for together. I had from the beginning. I'd thought, so many times, that he was coming around, too. Now I stared openly into his eyes, letting my heart shine in them.
He looked at me, too, with his eyes wide open so that the depths of them were pure and honest. He took my face in his strong, tender grip and tilted my face to his, leaning in until we were inches apart. "I have something to tell you. Many things to tell you. Things I should have told you a long time ago. Some of them can wait. Some of them I had my reasons for keeping to myself.
"One thing you absolutely have to know now." He leaned his forehead against mine. "I've been a stupid fool denying what's been obvious for so long." He swallowed and took a deep breath. "I love you, Haley."
My heart nearly burst. Can joy actually kill you? Can you die from happiness? The way my heart was pounding I thought it was possible, if not probable.
As I opened my mouth to respond in kind, his kiss came down on mine. One hand slid behind my head as he held my mouth captive. Not that I was in any danger of trying to escape. I kissed him back with the full force of my delirious joy and wrapped my arms and my whole self around him. As much as was possible with the baby between us.
With the heat between us, the scent of his heady cologne mingled with my perfume. Riggins had a scent all his own. Strong, masculine, confident, elegant. Other men could wear this scent, but no other man could wear it exactly like this.
I sighed with happiness to be in his arms again.
His lips slid from mine to my neck as he pulled at the hem of my maternity blouse. "Show me my baby."
I grabbed the hem from him and pulled it up over the bump. My skin was already taut and stretched firm, and growing more so by the day. The baby, the tiny traitor, had gone suddenly shy and still.
I looked down at my naked stomach. "Baby's suddenly hiding."
Riggins' eyes were dark and wide with desire. "That's not the baby I meant." His words were nearly a growl as he pulled my blouse over my head and unfastened my bra. "This is my baby. You're mine. My baby. My lover. My wife. My heart."
He caught me in his arms and carried me to the bed, threw back the covers with one arm, and laid me back on the plush, expensive sheets. He stood at the side of the bed and began unbuttoning his shirt.
I slid out of the remainder of my clothes, watching as he undressed rapidly in front of me, his clothes joining mine in a pile on the floor. I should have been shy of my awkward new shape. My body no longer felt like my own. It was a daily stranger, changing before I got used to its new form.
As Riggins' gaze took all of me in, I boldly opened my legs for him. I wanted him so badly I almost thought it was possible to come just from the caress of his loving, heated look. My dreams of late had been full of him making love to me. Wet dreams so powerful I'd almost sworn he'd come to me in the night. I woke from them unfilled and desperate. As desperate as I was for him now.
He bent to kiss me between my legs. But I was too fragile and on the edge for that. One touch of his tongue and I'd be gone, and that wasn't what I wanted. I needed a full completion. The full intimacy of him inside me.
I caught his head and pulled his face up until he gazed over the edge of my stomach at me. "No. No. Not now. I can't wait. Come up here."
He was erect and ready. He didn't need a second invitation as I pulled him up and to me.
His hips, which would normally press against mine, now rested against my swelling baby bump. I guided him until he slid into me and groaned softly.
I took his face and pulled it to mine until we were eye to eye. I had to tell him and tell him now.
"I love you," I whispered. "More than anything. I want you more than anything."
He was braced above me, trying to keep his weight off me and the baby.
I grabbed one of his hands and rested it against my belly as I put my heart and soul into my eyes and voice. "I love you, but I come with this baby. We're a set." I waved my arm around the room. "I come with this castle and this legacy. I come with everything. I'm yours. We're all yours. But we can't be separated."
"Damn it, Haley." His voice was hoarse. "Do you have to talk so damn much and steal my thunder? I'm the one who comes with this bloody castle." He drove into me, hard.
I gasped with the force of his drive and closed my eyes.
"Open your eyes, Haley. Look at me. "I'll take your package deal, but only if you take mine. Deal?"
When I opened my eyes, he was staring intently at me. His expression was set. It was clear he knew what he was saying. His soul was bare in his eyes. He'd take the package I offered, the deal he'd been handed. He'd do it all for me. I just wished he were doing it for himself, too.
I stared up at him with tears in my eyes. "You want the dukedom?"
"I want you." He moved inside me, more gently this time.
"You're not playing fair." I stroked his face. "I don't want you to resent me-"
"How could I ever resent you, duchess? You're all I ever wanted." He thrust again, harder.
This time he didn't let up. We moved together, rhythmically, letting the love between us flow. I arched up to meet him, as much as I was able with the bulk of the baby.
His skin was hot against mine. I was hyperaware of him, feeling even the fine hair of his legs rub against my bare thighs. I was open to him and vulnerable.
I clasped my legs around him and let him take me away. We were on a journey together, he and I. It was magical. And adventurous. And filled with danger, like life was. But we were one now.
The bed rocked with our passion. The ancient headboard pounded against the sturdy wall that had witnessed this act through the centuries.
Riggins let out a low, guttural grunt. I followed him on the waves of pleasure, crashing and crashing until I cried out.
When it was over, he lay next to me, cradled me in his arms, and pulled the covers over us.
Why now? I wondered. Why had he confessed his love now?
The question must have been on my face. After a moment of companionable silence, he told me everything. Everything he'd found out about Bird, everything he'd told Sid on the flight over.
"I should have told you first." He looked genuinely apologetic. "But it's Sid's life. I thought she deserved to know, especially when the opportunity was handed to me as if fate was serving it up on a platter."
I nodded, drowsy and happy in his arms. "Yes, of course she does." We'd have to get up soon.
"Red clover tea," he said suddenly.
I opened my eyes slowly, still drowsy with the afterglow of love. I leaned up on one elbow and stared at him, smiling and amused. "You want tea now? Red clover tea? I didn't think you liked tea. I don't think we have any red clover tea."
"Oh, we have plenty, believe me." He took a strand of my hair, twirled it around his fingers playfully, and laughed. "It's the key ingredient in the family blend. Duke of Witham tea is packed full of it. Have you ever heard the villagers refer to the tea as enhancing fertility?"
I shook my head, amused he believed in myths. "No. And if I did, I'd think it was nothing more than an old wives' tale." I tried not to mock him, but I couldn't keep my amusement out of my voice. I was usually the naïve one.
His expression remained totally serious. "The old wives apparently knew their herbal remedies. And so does my assistant Jennifer. She's something of an amateur herbalist. She tasted the tea and immediately tasted the red clover.