“Your Grace, I do not need to stay on if you wish me to go. Only, I haven’t a shilling to my name. I don’t know where I would go or what I would do. I haven’t even the funds to get to London. It shames me so much to beg for your assistance.”
“Harriet,” he said with a soft growl, raking a hand through his hair. “Do not ever beg me for anything again.”
“Oh.” She now looked as though he had stabbed her through the heart. “You are that angry with me?”
Angry? What had he just said to make her think so?
Bollocks.
Do not ever beg me for anything again.
She had taken those words as a rejection of her when he’d meant the opposite. “No. No, I am not angry with you at all. You never need never beg me for anything, Harriet…never need beg me because…” He sighed. “Because I will gladly give you all that is mine to give.”
She stared at him, obviously confused. “What do you mean?”
He let out a breath. “I am in love with you, Harriet. My secret, incognito princess from an unknown realm. I am completely and thoroughly in love with you, and have been ever since I set eyes on you in my courtyard the day my guests arrived.”
Her mouth gaped open, but as his words penetrated, she smiled as only she knew how to smile and leave him breathless.
He took her hand in his. “What shall I do about this situation, Harry?”
She said nothing, just stared at him and looked as though she was about to cry again.
Oh, gad.
Did she think he was asking her to be his mistress?
Good work, Max.
Leave it to him to make a bollocks of his marriage proposal.
He gave her hand a light squeeze. “I do not want you to leave, my lovely Harriet. In fact, I’d like you to stay with me forever and be my wife.”
She gasped. “What?”
“I wish you to marry me.”
“Marry you?”
He grinned. “Yes, and perhaps I ought to thank Beatrice for showing me the importance of grabbing happiness when it is offered. Why should I followtonrules and be miserable just to please lords and ladies who do not care a fig about me? So, I intend to follow my own rules and offer for the one lady who makes my heart swell with joy, who beat me handily at scrubbing floors, and who has the kindest, most generous nature. Is this not a perfect foundation for a marriage?”
“Scrubbing floors is a must,” she said with a gentle laugh as she used her handkerchief to dry her tears.
And then she cast him another of her sunbeam smiles that was bright enough to light up the entire chapel.
“What’s your answer, Harry? Do you think you could love me?”
She laughed. “Dear heaven. Since we are making our confessions, then I shall tell you mine. I have been in love with you since before I ever met you. However, I did have a moment of panic when I saw a stunningly handsome fellow striding toward me from the stable as I stood in your courtyard and felt I could fall in love withhim. Then it turned out he wasyou, so I was quite relieved that I was no fickle miss.”
He shook his head and laughed.
“I do love you so very much, Your Grace.”
“Max,” he said with insistence. “Surely, you can now call me Max.”
“All right…Max.” She let out a soft sigh. “I tried hard not to admit my feelings. Dukes do not marry schoolteachers.”
“Well, this one does. Will you have me, Harriet?”
