“Love?” he finished for her.
A sudden spark of fear flared through him. Was it possible he’d come all this way only to lose her?
It wouldn’t happen. He wouldn’t allow it.
She would believe in their love.
“Here is what I know about Isabel Galante. You have nerve, tenacity, and intelligence. When you enter a competition, you play to win. Family is first, even other people’s family, and you will defend it until your last breath.” He stepped closer. “I love your unflinching green eyes. I love your lush, red lips, particularly when they wrap around my—”
Her eyes went round with shock. “Lord Percival!”
Her chastisement only emboldened him. “And your face, Isabel, it’s the loveliest I’ve ever beheld. The way it transforms when you cry out in rapture.”
“You really shouldn’t speak such words on the street.”
“I don’t simply love these things about you. I love that they combine to formyou, my addiction.”
“Youraddiction,” she repeated. He could see the word didn’t sit well with her.
“Before you, I thought an addiction was all wickedness, and I did everything in my power to stifle it. But you helped me see it is how I use my nature that matters. Let me love you. Let me keep yousafe, for the rest of our lives. Since you entered my life, I’m a better man. But if you feel what was between us was purely physical and no love can exist, then I shall walk away from you, a better man.”
She closed the distance until they were separated by only a thin sliver of air, its molecules pulsing with the energy specific to them. “I would die.”
There it was, conjured up by three small words. All their desire. All their love. The two mixed together, inextricable.
“Lord Percival Bretagne, I shall love you to my dying breath.”
The earth could have stopped spinning on its axis for all Percy knew, for all he cared, for all he saw in her direct green gaze. Nothing else mattered.
Percy reached one hand around to the small of her back and the other to the downy nape of her neck. He angled his face, and his lips met hers in a tentative touch, a light press of his skin upon hers, her sweet scent of sunshine and honeysuckle wrapping him in her warmth. It was a moment he could live inside for all eternity.
Then her arms wrapped around his neck, and her kiss demanded more. A kiss that ravished and devoured and elicited a few randy whistles from the odd passerby.
Percy didn’t give a fig. Isabel was his.
He wanted everyone to know.
Reluctantly, he broke the kiss, both of them breathless. “Now, go and pack a bag. Five minutes before I follow.”
A shocked, breathless laugh escaped her. “You wish to elope?”
“I’ve always thought the phrase,married by anvil priest, held a certain panache.”
Her smile faltered. “What about my family?”
“On the journey over, your father and I had time to talk about pasts and futures.”
That nervy light entered her eye, the one he loved. “You asked him for my hand. Presumptuous.”
“I wasn’t taking any chances.”
Her head canted to the side, flirtatious. “Is this the Lord Percival Bretagne I’ve heard so many whispers about?”
He tucked another errant tendril of hair behind her ear. Really, she had the most perfect ears. “What Lord Percival Bretagne?” he asked, distracted, yes, by her perfect ears.
“The wild one.”
Now, he was distracted by the low, sultry note in her voice. “I could tell you,” he began, desire threading through his words, “but wouldn’t you rather see for yourself?”
