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“I love you, my heart,” she heard him say before the door closed behind her
Though she wasn’t happy that theafternoon of her life had ended in an ugly scene, she’d rets The hazy idea Molly’s long-ago description had given her of love resembled the reality of her experience with Will only as a penny drawing by an itinerant artist compared to the finished oil of adetails and brilliant renderingit almost impossible to believe both portrayed the same subject
She would ain in an instant if a hundred von Strossens glowered at her afterwards
Knowing the glow of awe and pleasure wouldn’t last forever, Allegrato herself, she poured water into a basin and gently cleansed the sensitized flesh Will had worshipped with his hands and tongue, a tingle of arousal stirring in her again at the memories He’d dehtful, kind, tender But he’d proven that today on a different, physical level beyond anything she had ever experienced or iined
Will was a wonder Her wonder How proud she was to love him, to have been claimed by him!
Grandfather would not see it that way, she knew She would regret leaving San Gregillio and the lavish, if so, love of her fahter after all Like Lady Grace, she would abandon opulence and status without a backward glance to follow the man she loved
After finishing her ablutions, Allegra pulled her battered trunk from the back of her wardrobe She expected Grandfather would send her away before dawn to their curious guests witness her banishment While she waited for Will to send her word, she folded and packed the owns she’d possessed when she first arrived
Will would be devising sorandfather were angry enough to blacken their naht take him some ti her back to Brook, the bride of his heart andhoped
She placed a hand on her flat stomach and smiled Before their first child was born, she trusted
A gust of wind rattled the shutters She looked up to see that the sky had clouded over aathered in her stomach
Things were done differently in Italy, she knew, recalling the elaborate entourage of duennas, rooms that had shadowed her every step What if, instead of si her away, the duke prevented Will fro her? What if, by law or tradition, Grandfather had the right to exact revenge upon the ht he even now be planning to harm Will?
The idea was so alarra abandoned forthwith any notion of patiently waiting here until suown, she left her room
She thought first to seek out Will in his chamber—but she didn’t knohich room was his The two servants she encountered quickly turned and walked in the opposite direction when they spied her, for which she couldn’t blaiven her the inforht anyway
Fro the foyer She beckoned urgently, then ran to meet him
Looking haggard and shaken, the valet bowed low “My ies, miss—that is, Duchessa ’Tis uard while you and the ht return, I watched the road to the barns I never dreauests to sniff his blasted night-scented jash—”
“’Tis done now, so there’s nothing to gain by repining,” Allegra interrupted “Where is your master?”
“The duke sent for hio”
Fear, greater now that she’d had tiht in her throat “Will he be h-harmed?”
Barrows shook his head ives hi scold If he should have hiured—”
“Don’t even think it” Allegra cut hi!”
Picking up her skirts, she hurried down the hallway into the anteroo to the duke’s office and library
She stopped short on the threshold when she spotted Will staring out the , his back to her
“Will!” she cried, running over to him “I’ve been so worried! I don’t know the law here, but ’tis entirely possible Grandfather ainst you Don’t see hied him fiercely “I cannot bear to be parted from you!”
“No, ,” Will said, his smile tender as he detached her to kiss each hand, her forehead and then her lips “We shall not run away like housebreakers who have roused the dogs I wronged your grandfather by seducing you under his roof It’s only right that I stand before him and accept the chastisement I’ve earned”