Rules for Heiresses by Amalie Howard
Epilogue
Ravenna descended the steps of the terrace leading down to the sandy beach overlooking the azure waters of the Caribbean Sea. A balmy island breeze caressed her skin, the faint smell of citrus teasing her nostrils. She was glad she and Courtland had elected to return for a few months every year. While most of their time was spent in London during the season, and sometimes for part of the little season, the rest of the months were split equally between Kettering and Antigua.
After the debacle with Sommers in London, with Stinson’s testimony of the foiled plot and the location of the warehouse containing the man’s illegal goods, Sommers had been arrested for attempted murder, thievery, and smuggling, and summarily deported. Waterstone had received the queen’s own commendation.
In the aftermath, Ravenna and Courtland had remained in London for the better part of that first year, while he got his affairs in order. Bingham had finally awakened and corroborated Courtland’s status as duke, which had helped to strengthen his position. In his role as Duke of Ashvale, Courtland had been very vocal in championing bills that made for better living conditions and wages for free peoples in the British colonies.
He’d also used the time in London to get to know his family, including Bronwyn and Florence. Courtland’s and Stinson’s relationship, however, had needed effort and care to repair. When Stinson had asked to be part of the family business, Courtland had put him through his paces as a lowly deckhand for months. To everyone’s surprise, he’d borne the drudging work without complaint. Ravenna had always felt that it’d been a sort of penance—Stinson’s way of showing his brother that he was sorry, instead of just saying it.
Her husband had never said anything, but she knew it’d meant something to him.
With a man like him, actions always did speak louder than words.
In due course, Courtland had relented and pulled Stinson into his shipping businesses and railway investments. Stinson had inherited their father’s knack for numbers, and he’d proved to be an invaluable asset. Though it had taken her husband some time to truly trust his brother, eventually he had. As for Stinson’s love child, eventually the truth had come out when his mistress had admitted her infidelity with none other than the Marquess of Dalwood. It helped when the child looked exactly like his sire. Stinson was off the hook, but for some reason, he still sent money for the care of the boy.
Lady Borne, however, had been another story. She was much too hardened in her views to see things differently. Not everyone wanted to listen or learn, or change. Ingrained bias could not be dismantled so easily, and while Bronwyn was determined to keep trying with her mother, Courtland saw no reason to keep the marchioness in their lives. Her burdens and her choices were hers to bear.
Digging her bare toes into the crumbly sand with a delicious sigh, Ravenna lifted her arms and turned her face up to the sun. Her mother would shriek to high heavens that she needed a parasol, but Ravenna loved leaving the trappings of London behind. The joy was worth every second of a burned nose and a few freckles.
“Praying to the sun gods?” Her husband’s lips tickled her hair as a pair of sun-browned forearms wrapped around her curved belly. He rubbed the small bump gently. “How’s baby doing today? Still causing havoc?”
Ravenna leaned back into his lean frame. “Honestly, I don’t remember it being this bad the last time.”
“It was,” he reminded her. “You simply put it out of your mind the moment you saw our beautiful girl.”
On cue, a screaming toddler raced toward them, followed by a hapless nurse who looked like she was on her last reserves. Ravenna swallowed her smile. At nearly two, Isla was a handful and a half, always curious, always daring, and always getting into everything. If there was trouble, she’d proved that she was more than capable of finding it. She grabbed her daughter and kissed her nose, grimacing at the dusting of sand covering her skin. “You need a bath.”
“No bath! Come see, come see!”
“What is it, my teeny mermaid princess?” Courtland said after plopping a kiss on Ravenna’s head and collecting the tiny bundle of chubby arms and legs. He made her squeal with delight as he tossed her high into the air. “Come see what?”
“Shells!”
He propped her up on one shoulder, and Ravenna marveled at the similarities between them. Born with a head of inky-black hair, Isla had also inherited her father’s dark eyes, and even with her button nose and cherub lips, they were like two peas in a pod. Her mischievous and rebellious nature, though, Courtland had insisted was all Ravenna’s.
“I was never so willful,” she’d insisted after discovering Isla in the pantry covered in sticky jam.
Courtland had shot her a wry look. “You forget who chased after you all day long in Kettering. Trust me, you were worse.”
“I think you’re going addlebrained in your old age.”
He’d shown her just how old he was by flinging her over his shoulder and carting her to bed, whereupon she’d been thoroughly convinced of his youthful prowess. A fond smile slid over her lips. That virility was probably the reason that baby number two was so swiftly on the way. Ravenna rubbed her fingers over the protruding swell, humming softly underneath her breath.
Their first baby had been a bit of a surprise, but when her breasts doubled in size and her bedroom appetites increased indecently, Sarani had been the one to discreetly suggest that she might be with child. And so Isla had arrived and promptly charmed everyone within arm’s reach into submission. At first, Ravenna had been worried, given her husband’s earlier assertions about children, but Courtland had fallen irrevocably in love the minute her tiny fingers had curled around his.
The duke’s laughter drifted back toward her as their daughter pointed out a pink and white shell with fringed edging that was bigger than her head. He crouched down beside his pint-sized princess to investigate. At the sight of the linen trousers stretching tight over the flexed muscles of his thick legs and firm behind, Ravenna’s mouth went instantly dry.
She groaned as a heated ripple of desire surged through her right to her core. Apparently, this pregnancy was going to go the way of the first. It was truly scandalous. She only had to see him or smell the man, and her entire body would go on alert, nipples pebbling beneath her shirt, thighs going damp, brain dissolving into a useless chant of want. She needed a dunk in the ocean. Perhaps that would cool her overheated body.
Courtland met her eyes over the top of Isla’s head, his teeth gleaming in his tanned face, and froze as if he could see the need etched in every line of her body. He nodded for the hovering nurse to take Isla in for her bath, then stood, shirt pulling taut over his chest, those corded forearms doing things to her libido that should be outlawed. The man was beautiful—all sinuous limbs and sculpted muscles. As he prowled toward her, Ravenna couldn’t look away if she tried. That sultry onyx gaze impaled hers, holding her prisoner.
“Don’t you do it,” he warned.
She arched a brow at his imperious warning. “Do what?”
“Run.”
Her breath hissed through her lips, muscles bunching. Ravenna whirled and ran down toward the beach, hearing him give chase behind her, his huge strides eating up the distance between them. She had no idea where she’d intended to go, but he caught her around the waist before she could even make it more than a dozen steps.
Her husband’s lips closed over her nape, his teeth grazing her damp skin and biting down just hard enough to make her whimper with need. “I told you not to run,” he said, lips traveling up her neck to her ear.
She gasped as he sucked her lobe. “You like the chase.”
“That’s true.”
He drew her into his arms, his hands finding her full, aching breast as his mouth sought her lips. “Courtland,” she gasped. “Someone will see.”
“Who will see?” He pinched her sensitive nipple, and an indelicate moan tore from her throat.
“The servants.”
“I’ve dismissed them all except for Isla’s nurse for the afternoon, and she just went inside to give Isla a bath and put her down for a nap.” He nipped at her lower lip, his tongue soothing it and then chasing into the depths of her mouth to tease hers. “We are quite alone, Duchess.”
Eyes nearly rolling back in her head, she ground herself onto the straining length of him as his delicious mouth devoured hers. It was erotic and exciting…the fact that they could be discovered at any moment. Even if the servants were gone and theirs was a private stretch of beach, they were still out in public. In the open.
Worry interspersed with pleasure warred inside her, but Courtland took the decision from her when he walked them both into the waves. And then his hands were roaming her body, touching her in places that made her gasp. When they stood waist deep in the sea, standing past the small breakers, he shifted her slightly to free his stiff length and yanked up her sodden cotton skirts. Even submerged, she was so wet it didn’t take much for him to slip into her sheath. They both groaned in unison at the tight fit and the unexpected friction of the water.
“Fuck,” he growled against her ear when she wrapped her legs around his waist.
Ravenna’s cheeks went hot. Fuck, indeed. They were in the middle of the ocean with no one around for miles and half-hidden by the water, but they were still exposed. Anyone stumbling upon them would know what they were doing, glued together as they were.
“Stop thinking and enjoy it,” he told her.
“What if someone comes?”
His smile was downright sinful as he fisted handfuls of her bottom, shifting in and out of her with three shallow thrusts that made her forget every coherent thought. “Someone is going to come, if I have anything to say about it.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Was her voice always so breathless?
He rolled his hips, making her gasp. “What did you mean?”
“Nothing, you awful man. Just move!”
He complied with a smug grin. Ravenna’s body was so sensitive that pleasure built and roared through her in a matter of strokes. She cried out, her body clenching around him, and Courtland followed with a deep thrust and a growl of his own. He wrapped his arms around her when his body slid from hers, and sank them both into the cool water, his lips sealing over her temple.
“You are stunning,” he murmured, licking the salt from her skin.
She pulled a face. “If the ton and Lady Holding could see me now. Frolicking in the sea like a wanton.”
“I quite like this side of you—a siren come to life.”
Ravenna kissed his nose, and let her body relax into the heavenly water, her cotton clothing floating about her. “Do you know you’re the only man who has ever accepted me for who I am? Everyone else always wanted to change me in some way. Mama, Rhystan, Lady Holding, everyone but you.”
“They’re fools. You’re perfect as you are.”
She stared at him, love brimming and overflowing in her heart. “You’re perfect, too, you know.”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
Ravenna grinned. “Are we quarreling, Your Grace?”
“No, no. I surrender,” he said with a mock sigh of defeat, dragging her toward him for a kiss. “Fine, suffice it to say that we’re perfect for each other, jagged edges and all.”
As she gave herself up to his tender kiss, Ravenna couldn’t agree more. They were made for each other—there was no other man in the world who could ever fit her so well. She was wild and unconventional, and he was contrary and uncommon. If there was ever a match made in the stars—a star-crossed bond between two lonely, kindred souls—this was it. She wouldn’t trade the chance of a lifetime of happiness for anything.
Not when she’d finally found the one worth staying for…her sinfully handsome, deeply infuriating, and extremely kissable island duke.