The very words she'd craved to hear him say rushed through her like the dizzy whirl of strong whiskey.
"I've loved you all my life. I never thought I could presume to tell you, let alone ask you to marry me. But now," he reached to enfold her, "I can. I will. I want you to become my duchess."
Love him. Marry him.She gasped. No other words could give her such joy. And such despair. Honored to think that Alastair could consider her, she was horrified that she could not accept.
Now she had to recite the reasons she couldn't marry him. And they now were more potent than before he'd left for Waterloo. "I can't, Alastair. Honored as I am, I can't."
He tried to speak, faltered. "You refuse me?"
"I must." She took a step back. "I am still without dowry. But worse, I am still the daughter of a family whose name is sullied."
"I don't care!"
"I do. I won't bring you down. Not when you need to be celebrated. Revered."
"Stop it. As a duke, I'll have more than enough reverence to go around!"
"It will be yours. And I have no right to share it." She stiffened. "If I was not worthy of you when you were Viscount Lowell, I am certainly not worthy of you now that you are Duke of Kingston."
His umber eyes went wide with shock. "You cannot say that."
With certainty, she said, "I do. If I'd helped Revenuers to secure the smugglers and their agent, I hoped to cast a bit of glory on our family name. But I failed at that."
"Darling, even if you saw them again, even if word went out that it was you who identified them, your life would be at risk from the men who shield him and take their profits from him."
"I can't win a reputation that way," she said with bitterness. "What's left? To enjoy the blight of charity."
"Bee, do stop."
"Aunt Gertrude and Griff support us." She indicated her gown. "Everything we have is given. It's generous, kind, but it does nothing to commend us. It shames us more. 'Look at them. Those poor, unfortunate Craymore girls.'" She crossed her arms across her chest. "I shudder at the thought."
"You're wrong about theton."
"Am I? Watch them here this week. They'll condemn us."
"The sins of your father are not yours."
"When we have no home, no money, only the courtesy of Miss this or Miss that, yes, his sins are ours."
He grew angry, his face bright red, as he took her hands. "I don't care about them, Bee."
"I'm sad to say, I do." She loosed her hands and left him where he stood.
Chapter 4
At the table she took her place between two men she cared naught for. Her lips stung from Alastair's kisses. Her heart ached from her refusal to marry him.
He loved her.
Was she mad to refuse him?
No. No. But right. To marry him in her current state was unthinkable. People would laugh at him for such a choice—and at her for reaching above her station. She loved him too much to hurt him so. He'd been hurt enough. Still bore the scars outside and in.
But if Bee thought she'd escape him at supper, she was wrong. Aunt Gertrude's dining table was huge and her two newest arrivals were put to either hand. Like Prinny at his Pavilion, Aunt sat in the very middle of her long table. On her right sat her step-son Griff, the fourth earl of Marsden. Alastair, the new duke of Kingston, took the chair to her left.
From her seat five down the table, Bee had a clear view of him. Somber, he spoke little. But to his left sat Marjorie's friend, Lady Elizabeth Kent. An Incomparable with perfect ivory complexion, Eliza had been out for three years. Surprisingly still unwed, she had influential connections, a sizable dowry and a widowed father whom, it was said, she ignored. Her presence here away from him during Christmas put truth to that statement. But one other quality she had was a flirtatious nature. Tonight she set her sparkling green eyes on the prize of the new duke in her midst—and he let her amuse him.
How could he? How could he!
