“So, is that a yes, then?”
Dorothy giggled as she grabbed his head to kiss him again.
“It’s a yes.”
Epilogue
Dorothy couldn’t stop herself from yawning. Across from her, Lucas laughed.
“You’re tired already. It’s not even dark.”
“It has been a long day,” Dorothy reminded him. “It’s not every day that I get married.”
“I know.” Lucas winked. “I hope you’ve got enough strength for the wedding night.”
Dorothy felt her face getting warm. That just made Lucas laugh more.
“You’re not going to be shy with me now, are you? We’ve been to bed before.”
“It is different now, Lucas. We’re married.”
“And I can get to see you naked as much as I want.” Lucas moved from his seat to sit beside her, putting his arms around her to draw her close. “And I want to make the most of it.”
Dorothy was still groaning as Lucas kissed her, his hands clasping her more freely than before. When they had kissed after being proclaimed husband and wife, their kiss had been sweet and chaste. Not what Dorothy wanted at all.
This kiss, though … it was something else, and Dorothy wanted more of it.
Lucas slowly released her with a groan, adjusting his breeches as he held her against his side.
“We might want to wait until we’re not rocking around in here,” he muttered. “I just hope we stop soon.”
Dorothy had to fight back a giggle. Even though they had been intimate already, Lucas was so impatient. It was rather amusing.
And arousing. That Dorothy had not expected.
Maybe it was because they hadn’t been able to get a private moment ever since Lucas proposed to her. Since then, after going through explaining to her parents that she was in love with Lucas and wanted to be his wife – and telling Gabriel that she couldn’t marry him – there was always someone with them.
It was like nobody trusted them to behave themselves. Even Frederica wouldn’t let them have a brief moment alone, although she did watch them with a knowing smirk.
Then again, given what they had done, they had every right not to trust either of them.
But three weeks of being unable to touch Lucas as she wanted or kiss him as she desired? That had felt like torture. Dorothy was just glad that it was over.
And becoming Lady Dashwood hadn’t been as scary as she thought a year ago.
Of all the people for her to fall in love with and marry, Dorothy never expected it to be the man her parents had arranged for her to marry. He would have been the last person to be considered, given how he had behaved during their engagement previously.
But it had now happened, and Dorothy couldn’t be any happier. Lucas had apologised repeatedly for how he had acted before, and Dorothy had plans to make him grovel for a while once they got to his estate.
Their estate, she reminded herself. It was their estate now. And Dorothy was going to make the most of their solitude.
“I’m glad we weren’t held up longer than planned,” Lucas went on as the carriage bounced around. “I thought our mothers weren’t going to stop talking.”
“They were doing it a bit too much, weren’t they?” Dorothy shook her head. “Honestly, if Mother doesn’t calm down, she will end up in hysterics.”
“At least she would be doing it with a smile on her face.”
Lady Bedford, especially, had been delighted that her daughter was finally getting married. She had been in a high state of delight ever since she understood that Dorothy and Lucas were engaged.