Something Old, Rebecca Connolly [ebook reader for laptop TXT] 📗

the wingback chair of the drawing room in their London house, craning his neck and eliciting a few cracks. “The next time that your sister returns from a long venture away, might we ask that she celebrate such things at a more convenient location?”

The idea of Rosalind being accommodating was as laughable as the idea that London was an inconvenient location for her celebration. “We were the ones in Cornwall, Thomas. I think you’d find we were the ones lacking a convenient location.”

He only shrugged. “Possibly, but if Riverton knew what Cornwall could offer, I have no doubt he’d jump at the chance to join in it.”

“He may,” Lily allowed, the idea giving her smile more delight. “I cannot be so certain. Is the captain interested in resigning his commission and taking up a life of business?”

“Well, I will certainly be offering him as much of a part as he likes,” Thomas said easily, slouching in the chair and crossing his ankles before the fire. “Provided his mother can be prevailed upon to let him out of her sight at any time ever again.”

“No one mocks the Rivertons,” Lily reminded her husband with a playfully scolding look.

Thomas returned the look with one of his own, and Lily laughed at the sight of it. The universally held tenets of London Society, where the illustrious Riverton family was concerned, clearly had no sway with him. There were several, and they were vast, but from Lily’s experience, the actual Riverton family had a surprisingly easy nature about them, without airs or elevation.

When Rosalind and Captain Riverton had wed quickly before their departure to the West Indies, there had been barely time for a family luncheon, but certainly not any kind of celebration. Yet that very next evening after their ship had departed, an invitation had come from the Rivertons, inviting Lily’s family to dine with them.

What had followed had been a simple, unremarkable, warm family dinner, and it had been the most comfortable evening Lily had passed in her husband’s company in many years.

Until recently, of course.

“Our family connection does not negate the level of respect owed to them,” Lily reminded him, still laughing. “Even if you and Lord Sheffield did rather enjoy each other’s company.”

“You adored Lady Sheffield just as much,” Thomas pointed out. “And Lady Riverton. And the children, I might add. By some views, we now are the Rivertons.”

Lily tossed her head back on a laugh, clapping her hands. “We are not!”

“Rosalind is,” Thomas insisted. “And she is your sister. Therefore, you are a Riverton. I am your husband, and therefore a Riverton.”

“Oh, I give up.” Lily shook her head, sighing heavily. “You are incorrigible.” She headed for a chair opposite him near the fire.

“Where are you going?”

Lily paused, looking at him in bewilderment. “To sit down…?”

He tilted his head, smiling as though she had done something particularly adorable. “Come sit here.”

She eyed his chair dubiously, refusing to acknowledge his suggestion in the words. “There’s hardly room.”

He uncrossed his ankles and opened his arms. “Lily. Come sit here. Please?”

Her knees unlocked at the single word of inquiry, the faintest hint of uncertainty in it, and her reluctance evaporated. It would not be the most comfortable form of taking her ease after a journey, but they had promised each other that they would not go back, that they would keep the love and familiarity they had found in Cornwall.

And in Cornwall, she certainly would have gone to sit with him.

Smiling shyly, heart thudding anxiously within her, she changed direction and went to the chair where he sat. She awkwardly sat on his knees, curling her legs up and leaning her head against him. His arms were quick to come around her and secure her there. Somehow, she slipped her arms around his neck and found herself quite at ease, settling into him as though they had always sat together like this.

Yet they never had.

For a long moment, they sat in silence, holding each other and relaxing by the fire, as a loving couple might have done for years throughout their marriage, perhaps at any level of class in the world. At this moment, they might have been any couple in England or anywhere else, comfortable with each other and without barriers, secrets, or pride. Simply content to be. And to be together.

“I did not expect this to be as comfortable as it is,” Lily admitted softly, growing almost sleepy in his arms.

“Neither did I,” he confessed, his hand sliding along her hip in long, soothing motions. “I’ll admit to having imagined us sitting just like this for several years now, but I expected an amount of accepted sacrifice in doing so.” He stared into the fire, shaking his head slowly. “I’m not feeling any kind of sacrifice at the moment. Are you?”

“No.” She closed her eyes, deepening her breath as though she would sleep there upon him. “No, it is no sacrifice. You are remarkably cozy.”

He chuckled then, the sound rippling through his chest and into her. “Are you telling me that I am not the fittest of men?”

Lily snickered, kissing his shoulder through layers of clothing. “Not at all. Only that I am grateful you are not a gaunt or emaciated figure of a man. It would be remarkably difficult to sit here like this if you were.”

“Hmm.” He hugged her close, his lips finding her brow gently. “I do aim to please you, sweetheart. However I can.”

“I know,” she murmured, surprising herself. With everything they had been through, the pain of their first few years of marriage, of how the marriage had come about in the first place, could she say that she knew he wished to please her?

The moment she considered the question, she knew it was true. Now that they had shared their innermost thoughts and feelings for the other, now that they understood each other in ways they had never managed before, she knew that he thought of her, cared about her, wanted to bring her happiness