Washereal? Or had the ghost taken over his body?
“You don’t believe me. Must I kiss you again?”
She nodded, for one should be able to tell if a cold, dead thing had its lips on yours.
He drew her out of the chair and wrapped his arms around her. “Your Grace, I—”
“Be quiet, Heather.” His beautifully shaped mouth closed over hers with unexpected heat and a possessive hunger.
Her bones turned liquid, which was appropriate, since they were both soaked to the skin. There was something scorching and shocking about their wet bodies pressed together.
Sweet mercy!
What was she thinking?
She pushed out of his arms with a sob.
“Oh, my elf princess. Do not doubt that I am offering to marry you. Will you have me, Heather? Will you have me for your husband?”
“Then you are serious?”
He nodded and held his arms out to her. “Upon my oath.”
As his words sank in, every moment of strain and fear since her father’s death suddenly poured out of her. She flung herself in his arms and began to shed tears in earnest. She hadn’t dared cry since the day her father passed and she learned he had left her with nothing.
She still loved her father.
But did she not also have the right to be angry with him for leaving her so abandoned?
The duke kissed her brow. “No more tears, for I have you now, and no one will ever hurt you again.”
She looked up at him, knowing he had to care something for her or he never would have made the offer. But he was also quite honorable and probably blamed himself for being somehow responsible for the ghost. Just because the caves were on his property? How could any of this be his fault? Or was his offer prompted by pity?
“I cannot think when I am around you,” she said in a ragged whisper, no longer caring to know the exact reason. “I cannot breathe. Will you be angry if I tell you that I am in love with you? It cannot come as a surprise, since I doubt there is a woman alive who does not feel this way about you.”
“As long as you are among them,” he said with a chuckle. “I think it is time you called me Ruarke.”
She nodded. “Ruarke…Ruarke. I tried so hard to avoid you. I thought you were curt, brooding, arrogant, and I did not want to like you. But my heart had other ideas. It is awful that your every frown or scowl or obnoxious tip of your chin endeared you to me all the more.”
“Heather,” he said with a soft laugh, “I don’t know whether to loveyouall the more or feel insulted.”
She emitted a ragged breath and smiled up at him. “Please, love me. Do you think it is possible someday? For I have lost my heart to you and love you so very much.”
He kissed her softly on the mouth. “Yes, Heather. It is quite possible.”
Chapter Eight
Ruarke was notcertain how it had come to this. Marriage. Nor did he know how he would feel or how heshouldfeel now that the matter was resolved.
He was a betrothed man.
He waited for the moment of dread to hit, the realization he had made a mistake. But it never came. The decision to marry Heather Alwyn turned out to be an easy one for him, as he sensed it would be the moment he had set eyes on her.
There was a softness to the girl, a vulnerability he could so easily have used for his own selfish ends. Instead, all he wanted to do was wrap her in his arms and protect her. Make a life with her. Perhaps find the happiness that had always eluded him.
But first, they had to get rid of the ghost.
He strode downstairs after changing his clothes, and went to wait by the entry hall to meet her. She was already there, staring at the portrait of a former Duke of Arran, his granduncle, James. He watched as she drew out her locket and held it up to his portrait. “What do you see, Heather?”
