Moonlight pooled on the plump white pillows heaped at the head of her bed, revealing the long-stemmed rose that lay across them. With a smile, Gussy went to retrieve it.
Jed hadn’t missed a single night—not even this one, when he’d surely been too busy fending off the exclamations of her family to sneak up to her bedroom with a flower! She stroked its delicate red petals against her cheek.
“It was Godfrey,” Jed said from the shadows.
Although she flinched, she wasn’t truly surprised that he was here. “April claims that Godfrey’s a Cupid in disguise. Silly me. I didn’t believe her.”
He rose from the slipper chair and knelt on the bed, reaching for her. “He made me bribe him to leave a flower on your pillow each night, but I knew that beneath that gruff exterior he really wanted to do it.”
Gussy touched Jed’s chin with the rose. She swept it down the side of his throat. He successfully slid his arm around her waist and pulled her onto the bed so they were kneeling face-to-face. “I was hoping you’d continue your striptease,” he commented, fingering the lace scallops on the edges of her bra.
She shivered. “Here? Within reach of Thwaite’s radar ears? Under Grandmother’s discerning nose? Beneath Great-grandfather’s very own roof?”
“If they catch us, I’ll just have to make an honest woman of you.”
“You’re already committed to doing that” She laughed, hugging him tight. “Oh, Jed. I almost said no!” Crushed rose petals drifted across the bed. “I was so set on saying no to Andrews that it took me a moment to realize that it was you who proposed.”
“Yeah.” He made a grrring sound in her ear. “For a second there, I thought I was going to have egg on my face.”
She covered his face with kisses. “Never. Never.”
“Do you think we’ll have to elope?”
“Well, my parents seemed pleased, and Great-grandfather never goes back on his word, so since I did accept your proposal at his direction…”
“We should be okay, then. I’ve got a feeling that even your grandmother will come around when she remembers what it’s like being in love.” He nudged aside Gussy’s string of pearls and kissed a path across her collarbone. “It’ll help that my lineage is so respectable you can trace it back to the Mayflower.”
Gussy drew back. “Really?”
“There was a Kelley in steerage.”
“Really?” She laughed. “You’re teasing me.”
“Didn’t you wonder how I got an invitation to the yacht-club dance? See, my father is the commodore of the Marblehead, Mass., yacht club, and he called the commodore of a Bar Harbor yacht club, who knows the commodore of—”
“This changes things.” Gussy made a solemn face. “I’m not sure that. I want to marry someone so respectable and well connected—” She broke off with a giggle, putting her hands to his backside and squeezing lustfully. “I liked that you were the opposite of Andrews, so rugged and sexy and physical…Now, well, I just don’t know anymore.”
“I can still take you out to the garden and roll you around in the flower beds.”
“Hmm.” She licked her lips. “Will you sneak into my bedroom in a sweaty T-shirt and ripped jeans?”
“I won’t even take off my muddy work boots.”
“Will you promise never to remove your tattoo?”
“It’s permanent, sweetheart.”
“And will you mind if I get one myself?”
He dipped his nose into her cleavage, sliding the tip of his tongue against the soft curve of one breast. “Right here?”
Gussy smiled gently. “I want a heart. A heart that says—”
“No?”
“A heart that says Jed.” Her eyes gleamed with love. “And it will last forever.”
eISBN: 978-14592-7436-5
THE AMOROUS HEIRESS
Copyright © 1997 by Carrie Antilla
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The Amorous Heiress Page 17