A Seasonal Pursuit (Regency Christmas Brides #1)

Epilogue

EPILOGUE

“I love this cottage. I mean it, this is exactly the sort of cottage I had hoped you would inherit.”

Rose rolled her eyes heavenward as her new husband raced about Beechwood Lodge, exploring every nook and cranny. They had just arrived as part of their wedding trip, and it was the first time either of them was seeing the place. Aunt Edith had been true to her word and given Rose the cottage and stipend for it as a wedding present and encouraged her to make a trip to see it while she and Webb were enjoying some time in the Lake District during their wedding trip.

Given that they had waited until spring for the wedding, it had been easy enough to adjust their plans.

Webb, evidently, was loving that adjustment now.

Rose stripped her gloves off and laid them on the narrow table in the hall, shaking her head.

“Would madam like some tea or refreshment now that you’ve arrived?” inquired the kindly, soft-spoken housekeeper she’d met barely five minutes ago.

“Not yet, Mrs. Hackett. Thank you.”

Mrs. Hackett nodded, still smiling. “I shall oversee the movement of your trunks, then. Will your ladyship be requiring a separate chamber from his lordship?”

Rose had to smile at that, her cheeks warming with the now familiar heat that dwelling on her husband’s nightly attentions brought her. “No, we will share. Thank you, Mrs. Hackett.”

The housekeeper seemed to laugh very softly, if knowingly, and left her in the hall.

Rose removed her bonnet and shook her hair, half of it tumbling from its pins. She did not often miss that maid she’d used at Fairview, but when her hair did things like this, she tended to.

“Rosie! Rosie, you have to see—well, well, well…”

Rose turned to the stairs with a scolding look, knowing that tone of her husband’s all too well by now. “Stop.”

Webb’s smile was sly and his shrug slow. “Stop what? I am only appreciating my beautiful wife, and when her hair looks like that, I want to appreciate her more.”

Against her wishes, a delicious shiver of anticipation started down Rose’s spine. And if the quirk to Webb’s smile was any indication, he knew it, too.

She had to do something, or she’d find herself impossibly distracted for the rest of the day and into the night.

“What do I have to see, Webb?” Rose asked in as prim a voice as she could muster.

That, amazingly enough, seemed to shake him. He hurried down the rest of the stairs. “The stables! I know you said there were stables, but they are gorgeous, Rose! Can we go see them?”

He was so childlike in his enthusiasm for this place, it was as though Pierce were there with them. And seeing such a lightness in Webb was absolutely impossible to ignore, his requests impossible to deny.

“Yes, let’s go,” Rose decided at once. “In fact, let’s ride.”

Webb grinned brightly, shrugging out of his coat and tugging off his cravat, tossing both onto the table beside her bonnet and gloves. “Absolutely. How many acres do we have?”

Her heart swelled at the word we , and Rose beamed at him, holding out her hand. “Thirty.”

Webb took her hand and brought it to his lips as he undid the top button of his linen shirt. “Lovely. Let’s stay here forever.”

“We left the children in Yorkshire with your mother,” Rose said with a laugh as they exited the cottage and walked towards the stables. “We’ll need to get back to them eventually.”

“Then let’s stay here a month,” came his unconcerned reply. “Or have the children brought here. Let’s forget Downing House and the title and Yorkshire.”

Rose laughed harder, rubbing her fingers against his fondly. “You idiot. We cannot do any of that.”

Webb pulled her into his arms and kissed her, swallowing the remnants of her laughter. He cradled her face and captured her lips again and again, reigniting her hunger for him that had yet to abate in the slightest. Each kiss they shared reminded her yet again of the bliss that now filled her life and her heart, the passion she had learned she was capable of, the incomparable delight that Webb filled her days and nights with, and the sheer insanity that any of it had even come to pass.

“I love you,” Rose sighed when Webb’s mouth moved to her jaw, her fingers tangling in his hair.

“That’s because I am kissing you senseless,” he murmured as his lips dusted across her skin.

Rose chuckled once. “True. Not that I am complaining, but why?”

He groaned and kissed her throat pointedly. “Because you laughed. And I have a beastly attraction to your laugh.”

It was the most ridiculous thing she had ever heard, but she pulled his head slightly away to stare directly into his dark and captivating eyes .

“What?” he asked, his intent clear.

Rose raised her brow. “We are going to the stables. Then we are going for a ride, and we are going to race.”

His eyes took on a new light of interest. “Are we?”

She nodded slowly. “And whoever wins gets to decide how long we stay here. And what we do.”

“I see,” Webb replied as he slowly drummed his hands along her waist. “Then I only have one thing to figure out.”

“Which is?”

Her husband leaned in, his brow brushing hers just as his lips moved to her ear. “If it would be more fun to win or to lose…” And then he was off and running towards the stable, his laughter echoing on the air.

Rose moaned at the unfair ploy, knowing she would have done the same thing if she’d thought of it, and turned to chase after him. “I’ll get you for this, Webb Rixton!”

His only response was a series of more laughter, and Rose sighed at hearing it.

She had a beastly attraction to his laughter, too.

Win or lose, the future was bright, indeed.