Dorset blinked. “You do?” he repeated, certain he had misheard.
And if he had not, well then,by God, he wanted the words. He needed her declaration. He had to know she felt the same maddening, vexing, foolish, reckless, wonderful emotion galloping through her heart.
She nodded, and for the first time since he had truly gotten to know Clementine here at Fangfoss Manor, she appeared truly vulnerable. Hesitant. The shell of perfection she had crafted around herself had cracked. Beneath it was simply the woman she was.
Not the matchmaker.
Not the lady he had spent the last few years resenting from afar.
No, indeed.
She was something altogether different. Something rare and wonderful. And he was damn well going to make her his.
As long as she agreed to be his wife, that was.
Which she had not yet.
Damn it.
“I love you too, Ambrose,” she said then, chasing his fears in the best possible manner. “I believed for so long that my heart had died with Walter, but you have shown me that is not true. My heart was not dead. It was merely in mourning, and then it was waiting. Waiting for you to bring it back to life.”
He’d come to her with no expectations. Indeed, with nary a hope she would return his feelings.
For a moment, he had no words.
So he did what came naturally.
He lowered his lips to hers and claimed them in a kiss. Her mouth was sweet and soft and responsive as ever. She kissed him back, opening without him needing to coax her, the velvety tip of her tongue sliding sinuously against his. He could not resist cupping her cheek with his hand. Her skin was smooth and warm and vital.
How strange to think that he had imagined, before attending this house party, that he would be content to forever play the rogue. That he would charm and seduce his way through life, flitting from bed to bed, his heart forever incapable of loving again.
Odder still to think the transformation could have been brought about by the woman whose lips he currently devoured.
Life, Dorset had discovered, unfolded in inexplicable ways. Who was he to question happiness, now that it was within his reach? Indeed, now that it—nay,she—was in his arms? He was merely Ambrose Montgomery, the Marquess of Dorset. No one at all to question the conflagration within him. Nor the love.
He kissed the corners of her lips, first one and then the other. Kissed her upper lip where the Cupid’s bow drove him to distraction. Sucked on the fullness of the lower, nipping it with his teeth, then soothing the sting with his tongue. He kissed a path along her jaw, all the way to her ear.
He kissed the whorl, inhaling the sweet scent of her hair. “Will you marry me, Clementine? Will you be my marchioness?”
“Yes.” Her sigh hummed with contentment. “I will marry you, Ambrose.”
He would have kissed her again had not a knock sounded on her door.
They parted hastily, Clementine’s cheeks blushing a fetching shade of pink. He was briefly mesmerized by the sight of her.
Mine, he thought, feeling a bit delirious at the prospect.
This woman will be mine.
“My dear Lady Clementine,” trilled a female voice from the hall. “It is Lady Fangfoss.”
Clementine’s eyes went wide as they met his. “Miss Julia?” she squeaked, alarm in her voice.
“Lady Fangfoss,” their hostess corrected, quite predictably.
Perhaps it was bad of Dorset, an inner devil of sorts, but he could not help but to find it massively entertaining that the countess’s former charges could not seem to keep themselves from referring to her as her maiden name. It would not have proven nearly as amusing had not the dear lady immediately gotten prickly about the change in her status and chastised them.
Clementine cleared her throat. Little Fergus blinked from her lap, then came to an alert state quickly, stretching before leaping to the Axminster and scampering away to hide beneath a table.
