The Duchess Wager by Katherine Grant

Author:Katherine Grant [Grant, Katherine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: historical romance, regency romance, regency romance in england, beta hero, feminist romance
Publisher: Katie Flanagan
Published: 2020-08-22T00:07:39+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

Riding alone on Roona was usually Fitz’s favorite way of working out his next moves in Parliament. There was something about fresh country air, the comfort of a horse, and no one else around that let his mind work with more clarity. He’d planned the great compromise of 1808 riding from his ducal seat to London. He’d plotted how to pass the County Asylums Act while riding through the Sherwood Forest.

Now he had countless moves to plan. With the Prince of Wales lined up as the official Regent, there was tension in the air, and tension meant Fitz could get things done. He wanted to start with the domestic, little ways to protect the average Englishman without bucking tradition, such as setting standards for apothecaries and adding more protections for the boy chimneysweeps, who too often got stuck in chimneys. He needed to line up the correct votes in the House of Lords, find allies in the House of Commons, and convince Prinny to support it.

Yet Fitz couldn’t seem to stop thinking about Margot. That morning, she had thrown him a little smile as she climbed into the carriage. He would have missed it if he had blinked. Now he replayed it, adding a twinkle to her eye, a lick of her lip, wondering when she would smile at him again. He rode not six feet ahead of the carriage, yet Margot might as well have been in London. He yearned for their next stop, just to step close to her again.

He shook himself, alarmed at the desperation in his thoughts. Yesterday, she had marched around the house without a word to him about their victory, then shut herself in the carriage without so much as a glare. Then he had chewed over the moments between them, worrying that he had so offended her that she should frost him out.

But today, he was in the clear. They’d straightened everything out and even kissed to seal the deal. What a kiss, too, standing dangerously on the threshold, where anyone might have seen them. Margot had been so earnest, throwing her lips against his, taking from him exactly what she needed. Fitz’s paramours were usually seasoned mistresses who followed their own set of rules as faithfully as the debutantes at Almack’s. He wasn’t accustomed to a woman who simply said what was on her mind and asked for what she wanted.

Fitz took a deep breath of winter air to clear his mind again. This was why he didn’t need to be thinking about Margot: they would simply sort out what happened next together, the two of them. Yet still his thoughts circled back to her smile, her lips, her beautiful, supple body. Fitz blamed the northern cold, which was too frigid for thinking important thoughts. The temperature flirted with freezing, though the sun shone warmly enough to heat his shoulders and melt the snow hanging on the tree branches. He had to rub his hands together periodically to keep his fingers from freezing stiff.

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