Cross the Ocean (34 page)

Blake rose from his chair, turned Gert around and knelt before her. He smiled up at her. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Gertrude said. She sat back and lost her smile. “At this rate we’re going to have a dozen children.”

Blake touched her cheek. “Do you mind?”

She shrugged. “No.” She smiled with a gleam in her eye. “Not as long as we can keep doing the fun part.”

Blake chuckled. “The fun part?”

“I know what I’m like when I’m expecting. At least for the first four or five months. But getting that way gets better every time.”

Blake cocked his head. “There are things in life that only get better with time. Like a fine wine. We’re an excellent vintage by now.”

“You’re still a pompous idiot,” Gertrude said and slapped him on the shoulder.

“And you, Mrs. Sanders, need to lay down. If I remember correctly, an afternoon nap does wonders for your disposition.”

Gertrude accepted his arm, while Blake carried Geoffrey up the steps to her old bedroom. Her eyes closed instantly. Blake kissed her forehead and his son’s cheek and tiptoed out of the room.

* * * *

When Blake and Gert announced they were going to make a permanent home in the States, Mrs.

Wickham had declared she must come along. Her son and daughter-in-law had been talking of moving there any way, she told Blake. “They can settle near us or maybe work for Mr. Hastings. And anyway I’ve helped raise three of your children. You’ll not deny me to raise the next. Will you, Your Grace?”

Gertrude had said yes and hugged her, as long as Mrs. Wickham called her by her first name. Briggs had declared himself indispensable to the next Duke of Wexford and indeed had no interest in living in the wilderness. He would stay in England, thank you very much and make sure William stayed out of trouble.

Blake had shaken his head that day and wondered when all of his servants had become so willful. But he taught William and Briggs as well about the account books and the Wexford investments. The two of them argued constantly and Blake was glad to leave them to settle their own tiffs. William was the right person to lead the Wexfords in the next generation and Briggs would dog his heels every step of the way.

So Mrs. Wickham made her home with him and Gertrude, her children and grandson Malcolm nearby.

She declared housework and cooking was not beneath her, if it gave her son a chance to do better in the world. He was a wood worker by trade and as far as Blake could tell was becoming more successful every day. Malcolm though reminded Blake too much of Donald and sometimes he wished Mrs.

Wickham hadn’t come for that reason. Donald spent time with his mother and Angus McDonald, with his brother William, his sister Melinda, her husband and that growing brood. Leaving little time to spend with Blake and Gertrude. But he was coming this spring, escorted by Anthony and Elizabeth and Blake thought the day could not arrive soon enough.

* * * *

“I must write Benson and Mary Alice to come down from Chicago when Tony and Elizabeth visit,” Gert said. She was curled on Blake’s shoulder and he absently ran his fingers through her hair.

“Can’t they stay with Fred?”

Gert looked up at her husband in the moonlight. “I imagine someone will have to stay there. We don’t have the room for everyone.”

“Let it be them, then, my dear. Benson’s wife’s voice cuts through my head like a knife,” Blake said.

Gert giggled and snuggled closer. “I’ll never in all my days forget Benson’s face when Mary Alice asked if he was her Prince Charming.”

“And in that lovely plaid shirt of his,” Blake said and laughed.

Gert reached up and ran her fingers through the hair growing gray at Blake’s temples. “I loved you so much that day you defended me to Esmerelda Bunchley.”

Blake rolled Gert on her back in one swift motion. “Don’t speak of Esmerelda, right now, dear. Her picture in my head does nothing for my stamina. And I’m getting to be an old man.” Blake kissed her then and ran his hands down her face to her bare shoulders. He looped his tongue around the shell of her ear as his hand skimmed the edge of her breast pressed tight against his chest. He growled in her ear. “I want you more than I thought it possible for a man to want a woman.”

Gertrude arched her neck and ran her hands over Blake’s back and down the corded muscles of his arms. “I don’t worry as much as I used to about you having a mistress.”

Blake stilled above her and held her face in his hands. “Besides the fact I want no woman but you, explain to me exactly when I’m to find time to have a mistress. Your uncle has me riding fences. Your children have me on the floor as their own personal pony and Mrs. Wickham has taken to make me drive her to see Fred nearly every day.” He kissed her hard and unyielding. “And you keep me chained to your magnificent body in this bed.”

Gert raised her hips and Blake groaned low in his throat. Thoughts were not coming as clear as usual to Gert when Blake dropped his head to her breast. “Do you think, oh dear, Blake, do you think Mrs.

Wickham has her eye on, oh,” Gert moaned.

“Enough chatter,” Blake growled. He entered her swiftly and listened to his wife’s ragged breathing.

Long, languid strokes followed. Hushed words and pleas. Exquisite torment spiraled with tempo to the plane of pleasure they sought for each other. One begged. The other complied and they lay entwined, sweat glistened and panting.

Gert tilted her head and sighed with pleasure and satisfaction, glowing from her head to her toe. When her mind awoke from the pleasure in her soul she thought about what Blake had said earlier. “Do you really think Mrs. Wickham is interested in Uncle Fred?” Blake had rolled them to their sides. Her back to his front. She cuddled closer and repeated her question. A low rumble in her ear was her husband’s reply. Followed by a loud, stilted intake of breath. The Duke of Wexford was sound asleep and snoring like a freight train. As usual, Gert thought and smiled. She did her damnedest to hear that snore in her ear every night.

The End

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