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Kathani hadn’t known it could be this easy.
When she was growing up, her appa had read her story after story while she cowered from storms; tales of good triumphing over evil, gruelling journeys to epic ends, star-crossed lovers torn apart by fate but who’d clawed their way to happy endings despite it all. They’d left her spell-bound, utterly convinced that she was destined for greatness. And if she’d learned anything from Milan Sharma, it was that nothing great ever came easily.
Later, when she’d lost her father, half her mother, and every single dream she’d carefully woven, she realised that she was right. Nothing would ever be easy again. Not because she had some cosmic quest or great love waiting for her on the other side, but because the universe was as uncaring as she was insignificant. She had her family and her duties and she would see it all through - no matter the cost.
Much later, when she gains a vexing husband and a brood of siblings, each more chaotic than the next, she learns that she was completely, utterly, embarrassingly, gloriously wrong.
It’s like this;
She knocks at his study door. She enters without waiting for his beckoning. He is already in the midst of calling her in, his beautiful mouth forming the words, eyes smiling for her like she’s in his arms already.
“I can come back later,” she tells him, noting the tall pile of documents stacked on his desk. He’d made love to her while she was seated atop it just this morning. He looks at her like he’s planning on doing it again. Insatiable, beloved man.
“You will do no such thing.” The words are pointed but his face is open and soft. He waits on her every word. She grins at him, sharp, in a way he has never been able to resist.
“Are you giving me orders, my lord?”
He raises an eyebrow. “Are you listening to me, my lady?”
She considers him. He looks delicious like this. He always does, but there’s something about seeing him at the end of the day, his stubble coming in, sleeves rolled up to his forearms, hair a glorious, riotous mess. She wants to devour him. She thinks she will.
“Only because it pleases me to do so.”
“It is my only aim in life, to please you.” He says it like it’s a joke. She is not fooled.
“I could leave if you’d rather–”
“No,” he says, “stay, please .”
And how can she resist? Why should she resist?
She makes her way toward him, luxuriating in the way his heavy gaze sticks to her. It’s tempting, the notion that she could just fall into him and he would catch her. That she can devour him right here and be devoured in turn. But that can all wait.
“Do you need help, my love?”
He doesn’t hesitate to accept her assistance anymore, not like he used to. But still, tonight he just shakes his head. “Just come here. Let me hold you for a while.”
She’s always held by him, she thinks, in one way or the other. She goes easily.
And it’s like this;
“I cannot fathom why you would insist on going. After everything you've told me about her?”
They’ve had this argument before. This one’s not like the others. He isn’t teasing her, he isn’t fighting to keep up with her with a silly, besotted smile on his face. Anthony is genuinely upset with her. Not angry, not that. She’s hurt him.
It’s the worst she remembers feeling in a long time.
Still, she can’t give in. She just doesn’t know how to explain why.
“So you do listen to me sometimes. That's wonderful to hear.”
He huffs a frustrated breath. “Please do not play coy with me. Lady Cowper distresses you. She is not worth a single thought in your head, let alone your presence at one of her deuced balls.”
He is right. She knows he’s right. But – “I cannot let her see me cower. She cannot think that she has had any effect on me.”
She shouldn’t let what the loathsome woman has been saying disturb her so. It’s nothing she’s not heard before. She swooped in to seduce her sister’s jilted fiance, she caused the jilting in the first place. Her father was a mere clerk, her mother unknown in any capacity to the ton, her circumstances strange, her countenance too direct. She is never cowed and that is a bad thing. That is the gist of it. It is ironic. If she simpered more, if she stayed out of their way, they wouldn’t speak like that behind her back. No, not to her face, never to her face. She outranks them, if not in social standing, then in wealth, in her connections.
She knows they're merely jealous, that everyone sees the way Anthony loves her and can't understand how intolerably happy they are in each other's company. She knows this. But she cannot stand the idea of losing to these awful people, that anyone could fault Anthony’s choice of wife or see his family harmed in any way by her weakness.
She is sick with worry by the time she gathers the courage to look her husband in the eye.
He looks thoughtful, past understanding. She knows his brain is working to find a solution to the non-existent problem she’s managed to talk herself into having. She loves him so much, she can hardly breathe for it.
“She is nothing,” he finally says, voice decisive. A viscount through and through.
She sighs. “Anthony–”
“No.” He takes her hand and holds her gaze. “She means nothing. The only reason she merits a single thought at present is that she’s somehow managed to convince the best woman in the world that her opinions hold any value at all.”
Kate is utterly at his mercy, unable to hide how pleased she is, how completely he’s torn down her defenses. “You are the most ridiculous man in England.”
He shrugs. “I am also right. You can prove your point if you want. God knows your stubbornness is one of my favourite things about you.” She snorts. “You can attend this blasted ball while that vapid, empty woman chatters on about you to hide from her miserable life and I will hold your hand through it all.”
She hesitates and then nods. “I could do that.”
“Or,” he continues, “You can forget about the ball altogether. She will be forced to confront her own insignificance while I pleasure you for hours on end.” He raises an eyebrow, the insufferable man. “What will it be?”
Really, when he puts it like that, was there ever a choice?
It’s like this;
He cries when he sees her draped in red on their wedding day; doesn't blink at his siblings' merciless teasing, taking his revenge when he kisses her out of her mind in front of them all. He grabs an additional scone every morning whenever they break their fast together because she always wants another, but won’t ever take more for herself. He saves her a seat on every settee, at every table, in the tiniest of nooks where she nestles into his side without a word. He learns how to make her chai, and carries a pouch of spices with him so she never has to go without. He corresponds with her mama and sister regularly because he understands how deeply she loves them and how much she needs him to be loved by them. He misses her when he’s out on business, when she’s out to run errands, when they’re in different rooms of the same house. He pretends to be vexed by their dog because it makes her laugh and fattens him up with treats when he thinks she’s not watching. He buys the florist out of tulips every month; pays exorbitant, unjustifiable amounts of money for them when they’re not in season. He reads to her while it storms, he reads to her when she's bored, he reads to her because she likes listening to his lovely voice. He rises early in the morning with her, loses races to her, and does it all again the next day, and the next day, and the next.
She never thought it could be this easy. But he loves her. And to love him back? Really, there is nothing easier.