Samantha laughed and pushed away from his chest. She looked up at him through enormous blue eyes glistening with tears. “I was about to eat breakfast. Would you like a bowl of oatmeal?”
“Did you make it?”
Samantha nodded.
“I would love to eat your oatmeal after you open your gift,” Rudolf said. “Sit down, and I’ll get it.”
With a smile playing on her lips, Samantha watched him step outside and lift something into his arms. He was back in an instant and, after she pushed the bowl of oatmeal aside, set the large box on the table.
“Open it.”
“It’s quite large,” Samantha said. “Did you buy something for the baby?”
“No, I bought this for you.”
“If you buy something for the baby,” Samantha corrected him, “then you are buying it for me.” She opened the lid. The box contained hundreds of hair ribbons in every color imaginable.
She looked up at him, a confused smile on her lips. “You bought me hair ribbons?”
Her heart ached when she saw him swallow a lump of emotion, and his black eyes shone with unshed tears. “I have never seen you with a hair ribbon and thought you might want a few.”
“A few?”
“Do you like them?”
“I love them. I would love anything you gave me.” Samantha reached inside and pulled out a handful of ribbons. “These are very fine hair ribbons.”
“I did not know which colors you preferred, so I bought all of them,” Rudolf told her.
“All of the ribbons in the shop?”
Rudolf nodded. “I cleaned them out and then went to the next shop. And the next and the next and the next. You have a monopoly on hair ribbons at the moment.”
Samantha burst out laughing. She rose from the chair and entwined her arms around his neck. Pulling his head down, she poured all of her love into that single kiss.
“Princess, I want you to know—”
Samantha placed a finger across his lips. “We don’t need to speak about it.”
“Yes, we do.” Rudolf lifted her hand to his lips. “I want you to know that, after I calmed down yesterday, I planned to listen to your account of that day, but you had already gone.”
“Thank you.”
“I will become angry sometimes over the next forty or fifty years,” Rudolf told her. “When I do, I want you to remind me what an arrogant, insufferable, pigheaded lout I can be.”
“I don’t think I would want to say that to you when you’re angry,” Samantha said, a smile on her lips. “Your expression is always so forbidding.”
“I tried not to love you,” Rudolf said, holding her close. “I did not want to marry you because I wanted to marry you too much. After Zara was born, Olga learned of my less-than-noble origins. She began an affair with Vladimir. I found them in my bed together. That is why I guarded my heart for so long and struggled to keep from giving my love to you.”
Samantha reached up and touched his cheek. “I loved you from the moment you forced me to dance at Emerson’s ball.”
“You will never know how grateful I am to Igor for abducting us,” Rudolf told her, making her smile. He dropped his hand to her belly. “How is my baby?”
“Hungry.”
Rudolf sat at the table, and Samantha served him a bowl filled with oatmeal. After tasting it, he exclaimed, “This is the best oatmeal I have ever eaten.”
“How much oatmeal have you eaten?”
“None.” Rudolf glanced around the cottage and said, “I am going to purchase this cottage. Every year the two of us will return for a week or two and pretend we are ordinary people.”
“That is the best offer I have ever had,” Samantha said, her eyes shining with love. “By the way, you owe me one thousand pounds and whatever Tory paid for the hackney.”
“Your sister is lucky that I am letting her live after she confessed to supervising you climbing out the window and down the tree.”
Finished with his oatmeal, Rudolf stood and offered her his hand as he had done the night they met. Samantha knew what he was asking. She placed her hand in his.
Together, they went into the tiny bedroom. Rudolf pulled her against his hard, muscular body. “Today is yours my love.”
Rudolf kissed her thoroughly while his hands unfastened her buttons. Then he slipped the gown off her shoulders and let it pool at her feet. He looked down at her leg and laughed. “I have never made love to a woman who was wearing a dagger.” He bent down and unstrapped the leather garter that held the dagger.
“My turn, Your Highness,” Samantha whispered.
He stood to let her unbutton his shirt. Sliding it off his shoulders, Samantha placed little nipping kisses across his chest.