And her silly heart was racing faster now, like the hooves of his mount flying over the earth on the day he had charged to her rescue.
I will not succumb, she reminded herself again.
I will not succumb.
And yet, how could she not?
* * *
Not long ago,if anyone would have told him he wouldwantto marry and be a faithful husband, that he would fall in love, that he would lose his heart so completely as he had to Lady Isolde Collingwood, he would have laughed in that person’s face. And then he would have laughed some more. If that person had been a man, he likely would have planted him a facer for the outrage.
Yet, here he sat, patiently wooing the woman he was going to marry in less than a day’s time. The woman who proudly donned some of the most hideous dresses he had ever beheld and whose heart had been battered and bruised, whose family was as eccentric as they were inviting and caring. The woman who had drunkenly kissed him at a ball when he had been determined to enjoy an assignation with another, and who had instead changed his world.
The woman heloved.
He was not going to lose her. This, he vowed. He had almost lost her twice.
There would be no chance for a third.
“Glorious,” she was saying to him now, as if the word in relation to herself were ridiculous. “Truly, my lord. You need not ply me with your wiles. I am well aware that I am not glorious in the slightest. ’Twas you who reminded me how terrible I am at choosing gowns, after all, and how dreadful I am at kissing.”
He winced at the reminder of his stupid bloody words. If he could have bitten his tongue then, he would have done. Would have bit it until blood filled his mouth, and he never would have said such rot to her.
“I was an unforgivable boor that day,” he said, meaning it fervently. “I will happily spend the rest of my life making amends for my stupidity.”
“How?” she wanted to know, her lips pursing.
God help him, but the urge to kiss her was stronger than his need for another breath. He wanted her so badly that it was a demand, prickling beneath his skin, carrying him through each hour of every day, propelling him until the moment she would become his in truth. Would he breathe easier tomorrow, knowing she was his wife? He doubted it. He would not know any peace until he could convince her she was wrong about the conclusions she had made after seeing him in the hall that night with Beatrice.
He held up the volume of poetry he had brought along, which he had liberated from one of the shelves in the library. “I will begin by reading you a poem.”
“A poem?”
She sounded unimpressed, and he could not blame her. He could not recall ever having read poetry to a lady to court her. But then again, the last lady he had courted had been Beatrice, and that had been a lifetime ago. He could no longer remember what he had done, and even if he could, he had no wish to pay Izzy an insult by repeating what had come before with another.
“Reserve your judgment,” he advised. “You haven’t heard it yet.”
“I have never cared for poetry.”
He was undeterred. “This is a lovely volume. I selected it myself.” He cracked it open and turned to the first verses before she could offer further argument, reading aloud. “The title of the first poem isOn Love. Let us see what it is about, shall we?”
“We need not,” she objected weakly.
“We shall,” he determined, ignoring her and proceeding in a robust voice as he imagined all poetry was meant to be read. “What a gentle, swelling tumescence is that fair emotion, rising like the thick essence of a man’s devotion, when it crests the mossy grotto of his lover’s lair and he plunges deeply into the downy thicket of hair… Bloody hell. This is a bawdy book.”
It was not a particularly new book, either. A quick flip to the frontispiece revealed it had been published two decades before, which meant it must have belonged to his father.Bloody hell, indeed.
Izzy giggled. “Oh dear.”
“And a dreadful bawdy book at that, isn’t it?” he muttered.
So much for his attempts at wooing. He had rather made a muck of it. Zachary snapped the book closed.
“Did you not bother to peruse the contents before you selected it?” she wanted to know.
“No,” he admitted. “I was more concerned with arriving at an excuse to join you again than fretting over the subject material.”
“I will own, I am rather curious about the rest of the poem.”
