“Yes, but Little Brookings is hardly the center of the world. Surely you’d like to go somewhere else…somewhere remote and exotic, perhaps. Is that what you’re hoping for?”
Ben shrugged. That wasn’t why he’d brought the subject up at all. Truth was, he’d merely been thinking of the most efficient method of being completely alone with her…unfortunately not something that was often possible with their unusually familiar servants constantly underfoot. But he certainly wasn’t bored. Strange, but so it was. “It’s no burden being with you, Kate, particularly when you’re in bed like you are now.”
She pulled her leg away from his wandering hands. “Ben! Be serious.”
“I am serious. I never want to be anywhere else when I’m here with you.”
“But you must. You’ve told me many times how important traveling is to you. How can you not miss it?”
He thought for a long moment, trying to stir up the feelings of wanderlust that used to call to him frequently, feelings that made his everyday surroundings dull beyond belief. He’d needed to voyage out in the world, but now…he simply couldn’t recall those feelings anymore. He definitely didn’t miss a thing. “It was important, Kate…it’s the reason I used to think that marriage was so abhorrent. I thought it’d be a prison, that it’d be the end of my freedom…that I’d never be able to go anywhere again.”
“I won’t stop you, Ben,” Kate said, her eyes wide. She was sincere, but also anxious. She didn’t think she’d survive if he left her. “You needn’t change your life completely because of me. You…you’ve allowed me to live the life I was accustomed to. You have never demanded I behave differently.”
“But perhaps I have changed. Had you thought of that? Perhaps I’m happy just as we are, right here and now. And if I ever do long to travel again, I’ll only have to think of you instead to cure me.”
“But I could come with you.”
“Oh? And what about, um…” He nodded at her round stomach.
“He could come, too,” she reassured him.
He mulled it over for a minute. Exploring the world, en famille…now that would be a new experience, and what was life about if not new experiences? It didn’t matter where he was, really, as long as she was by his side. Happiness wasn’t about a place, after all. They would be the Traveling Sinclairs: it sounded rather like a circus act. What an interesting and eccentric thought. He’d never had much respect for conventions and, thank God, neither did she. “All right. But if our son is going to take after your family, then he really had better be a she. I’ve traveled with your brother several times and he’s not much of a sailor.”
“Yes, but perhaps he’ll take after you. That’s what I’m hoping for, anyway.”
“You should be so lucky, living with such perfection twice over.”
She stuck out her tongue at him.
He reclaimed her foot and resumed his nibbling. “So where would you like to go, Kate? Your wish is my command.”
That was a question worth serious consideration. For all her occasional swagger, she’d never really been anywhere, and she’d always longed to see the rest of the world. What an odd pair they made, both thinking that marriage would necessitate the end of their freedom and independence. How wrong they’d been.
She closed her eyes as his nibbles began to move up her leg. “Surprise me.”
ISBN: 978-1-4592-2499-5
THE RAKE’S PROPOSAL
Copyright © 2006 by Sarah Lindsey
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