The journal fell from her trembling hands to the floor, but she paid it no heed. All she could see was the man before her becoming blurry and indistinct through the tears clouding her vision.
“Oh, Lucien,” she said on a choked half-sob of love and regret. “I cannot marry you, and you know it. I would embarrass you horribly.”
His arms came around her then, firm and strong and reassuring. He pressed her head to his chest, just above the beautiful thudding of his heart. “You will only embarrass me if you refuse my suit a second time, my love.”
Her arms were around his lean waist, and she breathed in his scent, musk and citrus, beloved. How would she ever let him go?
“You are not thinking clearly,” she told him.
“On the contrary,” his voice rumbled beneath her ear. “I have never been so clear-headed.”
“I wear trousers,” she reminded him.
“I love those trousers,” he countered. “Your limbs and your rump look deliciously fetching in them.”
“I have no notion of your societal rules and customs.”
He kissed the crown of her head. “I consider that part of your charm.”
“I cuss.”
“So do I.” There was a smile in his voice.
“I am an orphan who has spent her entire life roaming, with no true home of her own,” she tried.
“And I am the man who wants to be your home at last.” His voice was solemn.
Something inside her shifted. Gave way.
“You cannot mean that,” she said, too afraid to hope. Terrified of the love she felt for him. Of the possibility she could actually have this man as her own. That she could be his wife.
“I have never meant anything more. Look at me, Hazel.”
She tipped back her head, meeting his gaze. “Lucien.”
He kissed her. Slowly. Sweetly. Nothing more than a gentle feathering of his lips over hers. “I love you. I admire you. I respect you. And I need you by my side. Stay with me, Hazel. Be the duchess of my heart.”
Nothing else mattered when she was in his arms. Her fears, her doubts, all fell away. Because she loved him, and he loved her, and this time, he had asked her to marry him with his whole heart. He had braved his own fears to ask for her hand.
And there was only one answer she could give him.
“Yes,” she said, smiling through her tears.
Epilogue
Lucien watched hiswife as she spun about in the entry hall of the building he had brought her to view that afternoon. She was not wearing her trousers today, for her burgeoning belly had rendered them too uncomfortable by her standards. She had bemoaned the retiring of them, and so had he, but she assured him she would wear trousers for him once more after the babe was born. With or without her divided skirts, she was so lovely, she made him ache.
He still could scarcely fathom she was his. That she loved him. That their child grew within her womb. He allowed himself a moment of simply savoring the sight of her, before recalling the reason for their visit.
“What do you think of it?” he asked. “Will it suffice?”
“The building appears to be sound,” she said, “but I confess I do not understand your sudden interest in purchasing edifices.”
Smiling, he moved toward her, drawn to her warmth. “You told me you wished to begin a school for lady detectives, did you not?”
Though she had continued to act as his partner in the League, the discovery she was with child had necessitated a change of occupation for her. He had not forced the matter; Hazel had made the decision herself, but he was grateful for it. He had no wish to spend his days worrying over the safety of his wife and his unborn babe.
But in the absence of her work as an agent, she had struggled to find her new purpose, until she had finally settled upon the notion of opening a school for young ladies interested in becoming detectives, just as she had. In typical Hazel fashion, she had already thrown herself into the task of locating lady detectives who could offer training to her students. As with anything she set her mind to accomplish, Lucien had no doubt Hazel’s lady detective school would not just succeed, but thrive.
