“If she will have me. Do you take issue with that?” The question emerged more combative than was strictly fair, but he wasn’t tolerating a speck of opposition from his family. They might as well know it from the outset.
“Considering how only minutes ago I was plotting to pluck a farmer's daughter from fields for you, you should know that I don’t,” said Mama. “Besides, Lucas—and I know you have a tendency to forget this about yourself—you are a duke, and although this marriage will likely put you beyond the pale socially for a time, you can marry whom you like.”
He deserved that. But the harmony of his family mattered to him, so he must ask another question. His mother’s answer wouldn’t change the intention of his heart, but it would provide an idea of what he would be dealing with in the years to come, if by some miracle Nell consented to be his wife. “You do like her, don’t you?”
Mama reached out and squeezed his hand. He sensed a softening. “I do. She isn’t noble born, but she has a gentility about her. I’m certain I shall come to love her in short order.” She said it so matter-of-factly Lucas didn’t doubt her. His mother might’ve been a duchess, but she possessed a heart willing to believe the best in people. “Further,” she continued, “I think you and she shall suit.”
And here it was—his mother’s blessing. He hadn’t needed it, but he’d wanted it.
Which left but one obstacle.
“Now, I must convince her.”
Of a sudden, Mama’s head canted to an awkward left angle, her eyes narrowed on a point over his shoulder. “You’ll have to catch her first.”
Lucas swung around and located what had captured her attention.
Nell—wearing her own damp clothes, marching down the driveway, fire in her step.
He was already halfway to the door when Mama called out, “Do you know what you’ll say to her?”
“No,” he admitted, stopping in his tracks. He only knew he couldn’t let her leave, not yet, but he hadn’t the faintest idea how to keep her.
Mama closed the distance between them, working and twisting the ring on her right pinky until it slid off. “This should be about her size.”
The ring she extended toward him was gold with delicate engraved roses twining around, and nothing like the more ostentatious ones populating her other fingers. He’d never known his mother to remove it.
“Your father gave me this ring very early on in our courtship,” she said, wistfulness in her voice. “Not as a formal proposal of marriage, but as a promise that what we had together was genuine and only between us. All the pomp and circumstance of a future duke marrying a marquess’s daughter would come later. This ring was a reminder of what lay between him, a man, and me, his lady love. I want this for you, Lucas. And if Miss Tait is that woman for you, then take this ring and give it to her with my blessing.”
Emotion clogging his throat, Lucas accepted the ring.
Mama smiled through tears. “Now, there are two things you must know.” She held up her forefinger. “Tell Miss Tait the truth. All of it. Leave nothing out.”
“And the other?”
A second finger joined the first. “Get on your dukely knees and grovel. It’ll be good for you.”
“How so?” He wasn’t opposed to it, but his mother had more to say.
“Every man from costermonger to King of England must understand the proper hierarchy of a happy household.” She paused a beat to give her next words their proper emphasis. “A man’s wife is forever in the right. Abide by that understanding, and you’ll find joy in your wedded life.”
Lucas gave her a swift peck on the cheek, and was out the door in three seconds. He would apologize, proclaim his love, grovel on his hands and knees, whatever it took to make Nell his.
Now that he’d found the perfect woman, he wasn’t giving up on them or their future.
* * *
Riotsof unexpressed emotion charged through Nell as she strode down the gravel driveway, her gritted teeth keeping the tears at bay.
Only just.
Though her mind had become a tangle of chaos, a single thought came through clear.
If she wasn’t very much mistaken, a duke had just told her he loved her and that she was the perfect wife for him and then had proposed marriage in front of his family. A duke, yes, but also…
Lucas.
Lucas had told her he loved her and proposed marriage.
