To Marry an Heiress (25 page)

“I want you in my bed,” he murmured.

“I am in your bed,” she reminded him.

He slid his finger beneath her chin and angled her face until their eyes locked. “This business of your bedchamber, my bedchamber is ludicrous. I want you in my bed every night. Even if you’ve no desire to make love. I want your scent wafting around me. I want to be able to curl around your warm body any time I wish.”

“Every night?”

“Every night.”

A smile blossomed over her face. “I think I can accommodate that request.”

Seven years later

“O
nce upon a time, in a land across the vast ocean, an Indian maiden—”

“Not that story, Father,” young James Nathaniel Sheridan interrupted, his blue eyes bright. “Tell us the story about the lady of the fields.”

“Yes, please, Father,” Edwina Devona Sheridan pleaded. “It’s my most favorite of all the legends.”

“I seem to recall telling you the story last night,” Devon reminded the two children nestled against his sides as he lay on the bed, pillows at his back. They’d been born on the same night six years earlier. Trust his wife to begin with efficiency and make up for lost time in gaining the children she’d always desired.

“But I never tire of hearing it,” Edwina said.

“Do tell it to us, Father. It’s the reason I enjoy com
ing home,” Noel chimed in. Home from school for the holiday, he was lounging on the floor, his fingers buried in Jake’s thick fur.

He was a good-sized lad, having often worked beside Devon in the fields. More alarming, however, was his recent announcement that he wished to study veterinary medicine. Devon had a feeling that the days of the idle aristocracy were rapidly vanishing.

Yet he could not help but feel a burst of pride that at fifteen his eldest son had the confidence to seek his own path in life. He would, of course, inherit the title one day, but he had no plans to sit around waiting for it to be handed to him.

Millicent looked up from her latest fashion magazine. “There’s no hope for it, Father. You might as well get on with it. You know they won’t settle in to sleep until you do.”

“Very well.” Clearing his throat, he drew James and Edwina closer. He so enjoyed this nightly family ritual.

“Once upon a time, in the land of England, there was an impoverished nobleman who woke up each morning, looked out over the land, and saw only what it would not yield. He worked the fields each day but resented each swing of the scythe.

“And then one day to his utter amazement a lady appeared in the fields. When she looked out over the grain, she saw the dreams that could be harvested with hard work. So each day she stooked the wheat that he’d cut. And as she did, she whistled. In time,
others came to the fields simply to listen to her tune of merriment.

“But they soon discovered that if they helped with the harvesting, the lady’s tunes became merrier and the harvesting went more quickly and the lord became more wealthy.

“And as he became more wealthy, so did they.

“During the harvest feast, the lord approached the lady of the fields and asked her why she’d worked day after day in his fields.

“‘Why, my lord, because I love you,’ she answered, as though he was a silly twit for being too dense to figure it out himself.”

Edwina and James giggled while Noel and Millicent grinned. Devon gazed at his smiling wife as she rocked two-year-old Gregory. The lad had already drifted off to sleep. He supposed he would have to repeat the story tomorrow night.

“Finish the story, Father,” Edwina prodded. “This is my most favorite part.”

“Ah, yes, the ending to our tale,” he murmured, looking deeply into Gina’s eyes. “Following her declaration, in the middle of the fields where the seeds of their love had been planted and taken root, he lowered his mouth to hers and she stole not only his breath but his heart.”

“And they lived happily ever after!” the children cried in unison.

Devon smiled warmly with satisfaction. “Indeed they did.”