He had married Lady Violet West to save himself by affording himself some additional time and leverage to clear his name, it was true. But now, in this moment, he did not give a damn about his freedom. Not if remaining free meant he would also lose her. She mattered more than anything, and he knew it with a devastating, breathtaking certainty.
Too late, perhaps. He had been too mutton-headed to see what was before him, what he had. Too stubborn and foolish to see loving Violet would be worth any risk.
For the very first time, he understood—completely and without reservation—why his father had risked his reputation and public scrutiny, why he had allowed himself to become a laughingstock amongst his peers by wedding his servant. Because his mother had been worth the gamble.
Lovewas worth the gamble.
And Violet was worth it. Worth every risk.
“I am not going anywhere. Your brother can bloody well drag me off to prison as he likes.” He sank to his knees. “Here I am, humbling myself before you. Please, Vi. I do not even require your forgiveness, though I promise to do my utmost to work to earn it. All I want is you back where you belong.”
“And where is that?” she asked, her expressive countenance for once going frigid and still. Unreadable.
He gazed up into her beautiful, beloved face, daring her to look away. Daring her to slam the door in his face. “At my side. You are my wife, my duchess.”
She inhaled sharply, as if he had caused her pain. “I am your pawn. I heard you say the words myself. Pray, do not expect me to believe so much has changed between the moment you referred to me with such cold unfeeling and now.”
He clenched his jaw so hard his molars ached, needing somehow to punish himself. He had been wrong and stupid, and he had hurt this fierce woman who had never done anything other than champion him and selflessly offer to aid him. “I wanted to believe you were my pawn. I wanted it to be all you were to me.”
“You could have spared me the misery of making that discovery on my own,” she said, her voice cutting. “You could have been completely honest with me. You did not have to attempt to get me with child to enhance your chance of remaining free.”
“I did not make love to you for that purpose.”
“Indeed?” Her cheeks flushed red. Anger this time, not embarrassment, and she was still glorious in her dudgeon, but he rather wished he was not the source of her fury. “That is certainly what it sounded like to me when I overheard what you said in Mr. Ludlow’s study.”
She may already be carrying my child.
His own stupid words returned to him.
But he had not meant them in the way she had understood them, and the distinction was an important one. If he accomplished nothing else this night as he laid himself low before her on his knees, he wanted her to know he had never made love to her for any reason other than he wanted her more than he wanted his next breath. He had made love to her because she was the most alluring, beautiful woman he had ever known, and because there was a fire burning endlessly inside him for her. A fire which could not be doused.
Because she was his, and he was hers, and together they were incendiary.
He took a deep breath and made his confession. “I made love to you because I desire you. Because you are the first thing I think of in the morning when I wake, and you are the last thing I think of before I sleep. Because you are beautiful and good and kind and strong. Because I have never wanted any other woman the way I want you, and because I have never loved another, but I love you.”
There.
He had said everything he meant to say. Everything he should have said that morning. And all of it was true. Torn from the deepest, darkest part of him, a part he had not even realized existed. And he was horrified to realize somehow, in the act of imparting his soliloquy, tears had welled in his eyes. Fat, horrible, humiliating tears.
Griffin Lynton, the tenth Duke of Strathmore, did not cry. Had not cried over his mother’s grave.
Except, he was. The tears were falling. Rolling down his cheeks, overflowing. He swiped at them, hating himself for this weakness she brought out in him. Hating that he had not simply been honest with himself, and with her, before it had been too late, and he had sent her running back to her brother.
“I…” Violet began to speak, but her words trailed off. And then her hands, previously buried in her skirts, were on his face. Touching him with a gentleness he had not expected. She caught his tears with the soft pads of her fingers, wiping them away. “You are weeping, Strathmore.”
He swallowed against a tide of emotion, ran his tongue over his lower lip, salty with the taste of his own repentance. “Yes.”
“Why?” she whispered.
“Because I hurt you, and that pains me more than anything.” He met her gaze, willing her to look deep enough to read the intensity and the honesty he was giving her now. “Because if anyone should hurt, it should be me, Vi.”
“I told you not to call me that,” she said, but her hands were still trailing over his face, flitting over his cheekbones and his jaw as if she were attempting to commit his face to memory through touch alone.
And so she had told him, but he had ignored her. Because he wanted her to remember who they were to each other. He needed her to remember that.
“You are mine,” he told her firmly. “And I am yours. Tell me otherwise, tell me you want me gone, and I will go.”
She closed her eyes for a moment, and then her hands left his face. “Stand.” Her fingers found his, interlocking, and she tugged. “I do not want you on your knees for me any longer.”
