'My uncles...' she murmured finally, as she tried to remember that she was a respectable businesswoman and shouldn’t be kissing on company time. She had already heard one irascible old customer stomp past with a mutter about 'promiscuous, long-haired louts'!
‘I have seen them already, I confess,' he whispered into the tiny, sweet-tasting hollow behind her ear. 'They are not averse to the novel idea of living in a chateau, especially one crammed with books, and perhaps you might care to run your business from there—Grandpère has many international connections that could be valuable to you. There is plenty of room, chérie, for I don’t intend for you to fill all the rooms with children...'
'But the sooner we start the sooner we'll be finished,' she teased him, eyes dancing, and as he bent to kiss her again a vagrant thought floated up through her consciousness.
'Jack...you don’t think that it's odd that Uncle Miles and Uncle Seymour never mentioned how well they got on with your grandfather? They let me think he might be an ogre!'
'Hmm?' His mouth wandered down the line of her jaw.
'Or that your grandfather never said why he didn’t answer all those calls and letters, even though he must have realised they were important...'
'Hmm...'
'Or that he didn’t turn a hair when I finally told him about the necklace... or seem to worry about how such an awful mistake could happen in the first place...' He nipped her throat and she gasped. 'And don’t you think it's funny that your grandfather should have said that about me having "finally found my way" there when he didn’t even know that I was coming—?'
'Beth?'
'Yes?' Her eyes widened at his impatient growl.
'No more detective work, please; the last case you handled was a disaster! The conspiracy theory might have some merit but, personally, chérie, I'd prefer to believe in the enchanting whims of fate and the beautifully wayward arrows of love. Not all the matchmaking relatives in the world would have persuaded me to marry the wrong woman...'
'Whereas I am very pleased to be marrying the wrong man!' stated Elizabeth firmly, and proceeded to prove it.