“James, shouldn’t we go down? The carriages have been arriving for the last hour.”
“That’s my family showing up for this momentous occasion. With luck, yours won’t find the house.”
She twisted a lock of his golden hair about her finger and gently tugged. “You aren’t still going to be difficult, are you?”
“I’m never difficult, love. You just haven’t convinced me yet to forgive your brothers.”
Her eyes flared, then flared some more when he rolled over on the bed, putting her beneath him again. Her temper wanted to flare, too, but when James rested between her thighs, anger was the farthest thing from her mind.
Still, she reminded him, “You invited them here.”
“I invited them, but it’s Tony’s house. He can bloody well kick them out.”
“James!”
“So convince me.”
The horrid man was grinning at her, and she couldn’t help grinning back. “You’re impossible. I never should have said that you’d enjoy this.”
“But you did…and I am.”
She giggled as his lips trailed along her neck, then down to capture the peak of one already pebbled nipple. But then she gasped as her desire ignited fully, pulled from her with the suction of his mouth. Her hands moved down over his back, loving the feel of him, all of him, everywhere.
“James…James, tell me again.”
“I love you, my darling girl.”
“When?”
“When what?”
“When did you know?”
His mouth came back to hers for a long, deeply stirring kiss before he replied, “I’ve always known m’dear. Why do you think I married you?”
Carefully, hating to mention it at a moment like this, she reminded him, “You were forced to marry me.”
One kiss, one grin, and he said, “I forced your family to force me, George. There is a difference.”
“You did what?”
“Now, love—”
“James Malory—”
“Well, what the bloody hell else could I do?” he asked indignantly. “I’d sworn I’d never get leg-shackled. The whole bloody world knew it. So I couldn’t forswear myself and actually ask you, now could I? But I remembered how that bounder my darling niece calls husband got himself wed, and I figured what’s good enough for him would do me as well.”
“I don’t believe I’m hearing this. All deliberate? They beat you senseless! Had you counted on that?”
“The price one pays to get what he wants.”
Hearing that, the heat went right out of her, the angry heat, that is. The other kind was coming back.
But she shook her head at him. “You amaze me. I always suspected you were a madman.”
“Just a determined man, love. But I was bloody well amazed myself. I don’t know how you did it, but you crawled into my heart and wouldn’t get out. I’m learning to accept your presence there, however.”
“Oh, you are, are you? It’s not too crowded?”
“There’s room for a few offspring to join you there.” He grinned at her.
And that got him a kiss, until she recalled, “So why did you have to confess to being the Hawke? They were already determined that you would marry me.”
“Are you forgetting they’d recognized me?”
“I could have convinced them they were mistaken if you’d kept your mouth shut,” she huffed.
He shrugged. “It seemed only reasonable to get it out of the way, George, rather than let it cause unpleasantness later, after we’d settled into married bliss.”
“Is that what you call this,” she asked softly. “Married bliss?”
“Well, I’m bloody well feeling blissful at the moment.” She gasped when he suddenly entered her. There was a deep chuckle before he added, “What about you?”
“You may…depend upon it.”
When they entered the parlor a while later, it was to find Malorys squared off against Andersons, each on opposite sides of the room, and her poor brothers were most definitely outnumbered, for the entire Malory clan had shown up this time. And it wasn’t hard to guess that James’s family was united in their loyalty to him. There wouldn’t be any overtures made until he let them know the feud was ended, and all he’d told Anthony earlier, when he’d carried her up to their room was to expect unpleasant company for dinner, which of course that rogue understood perfectly to mean her brothers were coming.
But her husband’s frowning countenance as he stared at the five Anderson men didn’t bode well for getting this group together. Georgina was having none of that.
She used the same trick that had worked on Warren that morning to get him to listen to her and jabbed her elbow into her husband’s ribs. “Love me, love my family,” she warned him, sweetly, of course.
He smiled down at her as he tucked her arm more firmly under his so she couldn’t do any more jabbing. “Beg to differ, George. Love you, tolerate your family.” But then he sighed. “Oh, bloody hell,” and began making introductions.
“They’re all eligible, you say?” Regina asked her shortly thereafter. “We’ll have to do something about that.”
Georgina grinned, deciding she wouldn’t warn her brothers that there was a matchmaker in the room, but she did point out, “They’re not going to be here that long, Regan.”
“Bloody hell, would you listen to that?” Anthony remarked in passing to Jason. “She’s picked up his bad habits.”
“What bad habits?” Georgina demanded of James’s brothers, ready to defend her husband.
But they hadn’t stopped, and Regina, with a giggle, told her. “My name. They’ll never agree on what to call me. But it’s not nearly so bad anymore. They used to almost come to blows over it.”
Georgina rolled her eyes and caught James’s long-suffering expression across the room where Thomas and Boyd were speaking to him. She smiled. Not one derogatory word had he said to four of her brothers. Warren, however, he wasn’t getting anywhere near.
Nor was Warren being very sociable with anyone. The others had surprised her though, particularly Clinton, by how well they were getting along with the hated English. And Mac would be stopping by later, she’d been told. She’d have to remember to introduce him to Nettie MacDonald. Regina wasn’t the only one who could play matchmaker.
Still later, Anthony and James stood alone, each watching their respective wives as they spoke. “Shall we betroth them?”
James choked on the sip of brandy he’d just taken, since the subject they’d been discussing was their upcoming fatherhood. “They’re not even born yet, you ass.”
“So?”
“So they could end up the same gender.”
A degree of visible disappointment accompanied a sigh from Anthony. “I suppose.”
“Besides, they’d be first cousins.”
“So?” again.
“That’s not at all the thing these days.”
“Well, how the bloody hell should I know?”
“I agree,” Nicholas said, coming up behind them. “You don’t know much.” And to James, “Nice family you’ve acquired there.”
“You would think so.”
Nicholas smiled. “That chap Warren don’t like you very much. He’s been looking daggers at you all evening.”
James said to Anthony, “Would you like the honors, or do I get the pleasure?”
Nicholas sobered, understanding perfectly that they were talking about trouncing him. “You wouldn’t dare. You’d have both your brothers on your heads, not to mention my wife.”
“I do believe, dear boy, it would be worth it,” James told him, then smiled as Nicholas wisely took himself off again.
Anthony was chuckling. “The lad does like to press his luck, don’t he?”
“I’m learning to tolerate him,” James conceded, then, “Bloody hell, I’m learning to tolerate a lot.”
Anthony laughed at that, following James’s glance to Warren Anderson. “Old Nick was right. That chap really don’t like you a’tall.”
“The feeling is entirely mutual, I do assure you.”
“Think you’ll have trouble with him?”
“Not at all. We’ll have a whole bloody ocean between us very shortly, thank God.”
“The fellow was just protecting his sister, old boy,” Anthony pointed out. “Same as you or I would have done for Melissa.”
“Are you trying to deny me the pleasure of hating him, when he’s so very hatable?”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Anthony said, then waited until James took another sip of his drink before adding, “By the by, James, did I ever tell you I love you?”
Brandy spewed across the carpet. “God, a few drinks and you get maudlin!”
“Well, did I?”
“Don’t believe so.”
“Then consider it said.”
After a long pause, he grumbled, “Then consider it returned.”
Anthony grinned. “Love the elders, too, but I don’t dare tell ’em…the shock, you know.”
James quirked a brow. “But it’s all right for me to keel over?”
“’Course it is, old man.”
“What is?” Georgina asked, joining them.
“Nothing, love. My dear brother is just being a pain in the arse…as usual.”
“No more than mine is, I imagine.”
James stiffened upon hearing that. “Has he said anything to you?”
“Of course not,” she assured him. “It’s that he’s not saying anything to anyone.” And then she sighed. “It might help, James, if you made the first—”
“Bite your tongue, George,” he said in mock horror, which wasn’t all that feigned. “I’m in the same room with him. That’s more than enough.”
“James—” she started cajolingly.
“George,” he said warningly.
“Please.”
Anthony started laughing. He knew a doomed man when he saw one. His amusement earned him one of James’s darker looks, even as James was allowing his wife to drag him across the room to her most obnoxious brother.
It still took another jab in the ribs to get him to open his mouth, and then it was only a curt “Anderson.”
“Malory” came back at him just as curtly.
At that point James started to laugh, confounding both Anderson siblings. “I suppose I’ll have to give over,” James said, still chuckling. “Since you obviously haven’t learned how to dislike a fellow in a civilized fashion.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Warren demanded.
“You’re supposed to enjoy the discord, dear boy.”
“I’d rather—”
“Warren!” Georgina snapped. “Oh, for God’s sake.”
He glowered at her a moment. Then with a look of disgust he stuck out his hand to James, who accepted that begrudged peace offering, still grinning.
“I know how that pained you, old chap, but be assured you’re leaving your sister in the hands of a man who loves the breath out of her.”
“The breath?” Georgina frowned.
James’s golden brow crooked at her, an affectation she now found more endearing than she could say. “Well, weren’t you gasping for breath in our bed just a little while ago?” he asked in all innocence.
“James!” She gasped now, her cheeks flaming that he’d say that in front of Warren, of all people.
But Warren said, his lips finally lifting just the slightest bit, “All right, Malory, you’ve made your point. Just see that you continue to make her happy, and I won’t have to come back over here to kill you.”
“Much, much better, dear boy,” James replied, chuckling. And to his wife, “He’s learning, George, damned if he ain’t.”