Page 78 of Stolen By the Duke of Stone

“I think it’s an important part,” he said at last, tilting his head so he could look at her. “You were always my duty, love.”

The endearment speared her, and she took a deep breath. “When you married me, yes. And now?”

“Now, I have duties toward you, and William, and everyone else who expects things of me now that I’m the duke. If anything, I have more duties than before. My freedoms are both greater and lesser than before. And I must ensure—if I can—that I can step up to fulfill them.”

She knew how much obligation filled his life. That was another reason he spent so much time in his study. And yet the concept couldn’t help but sting a little.

“Am I nothing but a duty?” she asked, frowning.

“You,” he said, and laughed. “Come, kiss me,” he told her. “Kiss me until I tire of it, if such a thing were possible. No more talk of nightmares.”

Jessamine placed a hand against his chest. “Come to bed instead.”

“Bed?” His brows rose, and his eyes slid across her face, turning heated. Then he frowned and looked away. “Do you know what you’re asking of me?”

“Not too much, I should hope.” She slid off his lap and tugged at his arm. “Come, Andrew. Enough about duty. Let’s look forward to better things.”

“Is there a higher power than duty?” he asked as she tugged him to her feet. “Does a man have any greater obligation than what he owes to himself and others?”

“He might, if he were to think about it sober,” Jessamine said firmly.

She led him to her bed and laid him down, helping him out of his coat and waistcoat, and tugging his boots free. Before he slept, he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close.

“I should know better,” he murmured against her hair. “Tell me this is merely duty, Jessamine.”

“Would that make you content?”

A pause, as though he was truly contemplating the idea. “Yes.”

“Then yes. This is duty.” The duty that was owed to a husband and wife, where they treated one another with affection and intimacy.

But…

Jessamine wanted what Irene had with Henry. She’d seen the way they behaved together. And although for a long time, she had worried about William, the closest she got to Andrew, the surer she was that she could have both.

William could have both. Andrew had never been given a good role model in his father, but she could help him. They could explore all the wonders that could come when one opened one’s mind to the possibility of love.

Could she love him? Did she love him?

These were all questions for the morning. For tonight, she would answer her husband’s.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Andrew woke with an aching head and the disconcerting sense that his bad dreams were lingering just a thought or two away. But right before him, closer than a thought, Jessamine lay in his arms, her hair tangled by his nose.

He froze, hard and wanting behind her. She made everything feel so impossibly easy and difficult all at once.

He had never wanted anyone the way he wanted her, and he had never been so afraid.

Oh, he’d been afraid of losing his men’s lives, and that had happened. But that was a different sort of fear. Most of the men in the army knew of the dangers of war before they set foot in France. They knew there was a chance they might not emerge alive.

But Jessamine… She was everything that was sweet and innocent. She believed that with enough faith and love, anything was possible.

For William, innocent as he was, perhaps that was true.

But how could that ever be true for Andrew? How could someone as broken as him ever contrive to deserve someone as beautiful—as wonderful—as her?

It was impossible.