“Spencer.” His name escaped her lips as a plea. She did not care. To hell with her pride. She was begging him to say the words she needed to hear most. The words she had been convinced he would never give her.
“Boadicea, I love you.” He paused, his gaze plumbing the depths of hers. “I fell in love with you the moment you dared to kiss me in my library. I love your daring and your fearlessness. I love your incorrigible love of smutty books. I love that you make me laugh, that you ride better than anyone else I know, that you are bold and feisty and intelligent as hell. I love the freckles on your nose, the beauty mark next to your lips. I love your fiery hair and the way you smell so fucking good that I want to lick you everywhere like a candy. I love it when you say wicked words and when you wait for me in bed wearing nothing but stockings.”
“Spencer,” she whispered, wanting to tell him the same.
But he shook his head, intent upon his mission. “Let me finish. I love you so bloody much that it is a physical ache within me. This last week without you was hell on earth. It made me realize that I cannot live without you, that I’ve allowed my fears to rule me for far too long. It made me realize that I need to fight for you, to be a better, stronger man for you. To be the man you deserve. It will take time, Boadicea, and I cannot promise I will ever be worthy of you. But if you grant me this chance, I swear that I will do my utmost to never let you down.”
She didn’t think twice. In a blink, she moved across the carriage, lifting her skirts, straddling his lap. She caught his beloved face in her hands, gazing down at him with all the love bursting inside her. “Oh Spencer, I love you too. I love you with everything in me, more than I ever imagined possible.” She kissed his nose, unable to help herself. “I love you exactly as you are. You are all I want, all I have ever wanted without even knowing it. I loved you the moment you stole my book to read for yourself.” She grinned at the last, removing his hat to tunnel her fingers through his soft, dark hair.
His lips quirked into a smile, his hands sliding up her back in a hot brand she felt through her dress and undergarments. “I had no intention of reading it when I took it from you, minx.”
“Of course not.” She kissed his cheek, his chin, the patch of skin on his throat where he smelled of shaving soap and delicious man. Bo inhaled. “Tell me this is real. Tell me this is not a dream and I won’t wake up alone and without you.”
“It’s not a dream, love.” His fingers tangled in the hair at her nape. “I’m so sorry I tried to keep you at a distance. When I fell in love with you, I allowed the past and my fears to get the better of me. I was not honest with you about Millicent.”
She stilled, her lips pressed over the pounding of his pulse. “I know you loved her, Spencer. I am so sorry for the losses you suffered.”
“I didn’t love her.” His voice rumbled beneath her mouth. “I cared for her—ours was a match desired by our families rather than a love match. When the babe was born stillborn, something inside her altered, and she was never the same. And I—I feared that it was having the babe that caused her madness. The doctor at the asylum said he had seen other similar cases of puerperal mania. When she died, I vowed I would never again take such a risk, that I would never father another child.”
Her heart ached for him, and at last she fully understood. “Oh, my love.” She caressed his cheek, a fresh surge of tenderness rushing through her. “I do not need children to make me happy. You are all I require.”
He shook his head, gazing at her with such open adoration that her heart gave an answering pang. “There is something else, love. The day that Millicent killed herself, it was her intent to kill me. All the signs had been there. She had been raving, talking to herself, but I wanted to hope so badly that her time in the asylum had made her well.”
He stopped, seeming to gather himself.
Shock warred with horror within her. How much he had endured, more than she had ever imagined. “Dear God, Spencer. You do not need to say anything else. I understand, my love.”
“I want to tell you,” he insisted. “I would have there be no more secrets between us. No more impediments or obstacles. Millicent found me in my study. She had a pistol that belonged to my father, and she had it trained upon me. She was going to kill me. I will never understand why she did not, why she took her own life instead. But she did, and I was spared. The trauma of that day…it remained with me.
“I was like a traveler in a carriage with no destination, watching everything pass by me and too damn afraid to live again. And then you swept into my life, with your red dress and your beauty and your bawdy book and glorious impudence. You are such a force, Boadicea. You changed everything for me, and I did not know how to cope with it. It took me some time to understand that you were exactly what I needed—what Ineed—that you make me whole again, that you make me feel again, that you make me so bloody happy. All I want to do is spend the rest of my life attempting to make you as happy as you make me. All I want to do is love you. If you’ll let me.”
The carriage stopped.
Bo scarcely noticed. Tears were streaming down her cheeks by the time he had finished speaking. Tears of sadness for what he had gone through, tears of deep and abiding happiness, of gratitude and love.
Above all, love.
“Of course I will let you, my love.” She kissed him at last, and it was wild and messy and filled with passion and emotion, wet with her tears. A frenzied gnashing of tongues and teeth.
A rap on the carriage door startled them both, and they broke off the kiss, staring at each other with what she was sure were matching smiles of dazed joy.
“We are here,” he said, helping her to disentangle herself from him and move back to the opposite squab.
“We are home,” she returned, and no word had ever felt more right aside from one.
Love.
It had been years since Spencer had stepped inside Bainbridge House, and so it seemed fitting that when he did once more, it was with his beautiful wife in his arms. Heart swelling with love, he stalked past a row of gawping domestics who had been assembled for the customary introduction to their new mistress. He had sent word ahead to expect him, and his butler and housekeeper had done their diligence.
But introductions could bloody well wait.
“Your Grace,” intoned his butler, sounding uncharacteristically flummoxed.
“Not now, Leland,” he called, not even pausing in his stride. “The Duchess and I have an urgent matter to attend to.”
“Spencer,” Boadicea protested, her tone scandalized. “Put me down at once. You cannot carry me past the servants like a ruffian.”
He continued on, undeterred, finding the staircase.
