She snorted rudely. “Nothing equal about us from where I’m sitting.”
“You’re not destitute. You have funds, friends, clothes. You’ve made inroads atThe Sphere, The Gentleman’s Gazette,and evenThe Illustrated Mail.I wager that you can turn your letters into an occupation of sorts. Thinking about it, you are really rather well set up for the future.”
Eliza stuffed her bundle into its wallet and tossed the lot onto the mattress. “I reckon you’ll be glad to see the back of me…”
Mark used that moment to enter the room uninvited. He sat on the counterpane beside her, asking, “What do you want from life?”
“I want what everybody wants—to be safe, to be loved. To belong.”
It was so little to ask that he ached to make her dreams come true. “Do you not think you belong here?” He glanced around the bedroom which had been furnished comfortably. “Do you not feel safe? Do you not feel loved?”
Her blue eyes met his. Bleakness blurred her usually bright gaze. “I know you love me, Mark. I have felt it in your touch and sensed it in the nice things you do for me. I probably knew that we were in love before you did. Why do you think I’ve got to get away?”
“I haven’t the foggiest idea why you feel that you must go, only that you are free to do so. I would never dream of holding you back. I only want tohold you, Eliza.” He reached into his jacket pocket with hands made clumsy by nerves. He did not know how to propose marriage. He usually shuddered away from such sentiments, yet Eliza’s presence had cracked open his heart and shown depths that he hadn’t known he possessed.
In his world, matrimony was a business arrangement. It had been thus for Ann and Sidney, and would be so for Hilda Prevost and the rest of his colleagues’ debutante daughters. There was little reason for tenderness when dowries and alliances changed hands. A gentleman acquired a wife the way one got a house or a horse or negotiated a raise in pay.
Yet Mark felt so emotional that he nearly dropped the jeweler’s box. There was nothing businesslike in his feelings for Eliza. He was smitten with her—beyond smitten, he was in love with her.
“I too yearn to be loved and to belong. I don’t want you to go away, Eliza. I wish for you to be my wife,” he said, short of pleading. He had never begged for anything in his life. He had learned, and labored, and ascended the ladders of success, yet Mark slid from the bed and dropped to his knees before her. “I wish for the privilege of giving you a home and keeping you safe. I ask for the opportunity to make everything you’ve ever dreamed of a possibility. All I ask in return is that you marry me, Eliza, and grant me the happiness of spending my life with you.”
He removed the sapphire ring from its box, admiring the gleam of the golden band through misty eyes. The ancient stone had been polished to a sparkle, though it paled in comparison to Eliza’s shine. The intensity in her gaze gave him hope beyond hope.
“I’ve waited longer than most men to fall in love, Eliza, and meeting you has made it all the sweeter. But I don’t want to wait anymore. I cannot go a moment longer without you in my arms and in my bed, for all time.” He slid the ring onto her finger, asking once more, for good measure, “Won’t you marry me?”
She studied the sapphire for a moment, awestruck, and then pulled him into her arms. “Yes, Mark, I will marry you. I thought you weren’t going to ask me. I was afraid you’d changed your mind.”
He blinked at her, stunned. “How did you know I planned to propose?”
Laughter—and, yes, some tears—shone in her eyes when she confessed, “I felt the ring box in your pocket earlier. I’ve been waiting all evening, but when you tried to talk about my father…”
“I don’t give a damn about your father, Eliza. I’m glad you don’t want to know him. We need never speak of the fellow again, and I pray you never lose a moment’s sleep over that.”
She was relieved, he could tell. All the tension fled from her slender shoulders as she settled into his cradling embrace. “I’ll do everything I can to be a perfect wife for you.”
He balked at the idea. He wouldn’t change her for anything in the world. “Don’t be perfect, just bemine.”
Eliza grinned. “That’ll be easy enough! I’ve been yours since I jumped from your carriage and felt you pulling me back. I’ve been yours since the first moment your hand grabbed onto mine.”
He vowed to never turn her loose. He’d follow her to hell and back—to Seven Dials and home again—heedless of the danger. He’d face the wrath of a dozen dukes, and the disappointment of his fellow directors to make Eliza Summersby the happiest woman alive.
Tenderly, Mark sought her mouth with his.
His fingertips brushed her neck, pushing back her hair. He kissed her bare throat and nibbled at that soft patch of flesh above the collar of her dressing gown.
Eliza gasped at the sensation. She clung to his shoulders as his lips coursed along her pulse line, rising higher and higher until he met her slackened jaw. He held her flushed and tearstained cheeks in the palms of his hands, and then turned her face toward his.
She opened her mouth to meet his tongue, tasting, teasing, and eagerly encircling it with hers. She was shameless—as he’d known her to be. Eliza came to him with a need that matched his own, and Mark was glad. He felt honored and fortunate beyond words to have found such a woman, such a partner.
His future wife.
“I want to take you to my bed, Eliza.” Needy eyes met hers, and he knew she desired the same. Yet he had to ask. He yearned to hear her answer. “Will you join me?”
She nodded. “Yeah.”
Her one-word reply—spoken in breathless certainty by the woman he loved—sounded sweet, indeed. It was all the coaxing he needed to carry her there.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
