“Please do not,” she said.
“Would you be embarrassed?” he asked her.
“Horribly,” she said. “Nicholas!” She covered her mouth with one hand.
“You goose,” he said again. “Did you really believe I had suddenly developed a case of cold feet by bumbling on about not having spoken with your father? Just after telling you I love you? Ah, Win. Will you marry me? Do you want me to go down on one knee even though I am an old man in his thirties and may never get up again?”
She lowered her hand, her eyes riveted to his face. “Oh, I do,” she said. “Will you? But are you quite sure?”
He ignored the last question, went down on one knee before the couch, and possessed himself of her left hand.
“Win,” he said, “will you do me the great honor of marrying me, even though we are an ill-assorted couple and any connection between us would seem to be an impossibility? Entirely because I love you with all my heart and wish to devote the rest of my life to making you happy?”
She tipped her head to one side and regarded him with a slight frown on her face. Being Winifred Cunningham, of course she could not be expected to give him the obvious answer.
“I do not know how to be a cavalry colonel’s wife,” she said. “I cannot be at all what your colleagues and friends will expect of your wife. Perhaps we ought to talk more about this before you regret it in the morning.”
“BeforeIregret it,” he said. “Willyouregret it?”
“Only if you do,” she said.
“Here we go again,” he said. “Will you regret it? Will you?Can we just take a leap of faith here, Win? That is all life is, you know, for we can never predict the future. But I do know that whatever the future holds, I want you at my side. As my wife. I am kneeling on my bad leg, by the way. Any moment now it is going to be hopelessly cramped.Willyou marry me?”
She drew her hand from his and cupped his face with both hands.
“You poor wounded thing,” she said. “Yes, I will, Nicholas, though I am consumed with terror even as I say the words. But I do know that I cannot, I absolutely cannot, say goodbye to you on Monday, knowing that I will never see you again. My heart would break. I would endure that if you did not love me and had not offered for me, but I know that if I said no now, I would regret all mylife that I was afraid to take the risk. I will love you always with everything that is me. I will live to make you happy. Despite all our incompatibilities, I will—”
“No,” he said. “Wewill, Win. There would be nothing one-sided in our marriage commitment. I daresay all marriages face difficulties as two lives attempt to meld into one. We will do it together. We will each work to make the other happy and, in the process, make ourselves happy too.”
He was well aware of the sentimentality of his words. But the thing was that hemeantthem with all his heart. Helovedher. And, God help him, she loved him despite his age and the cruelty of his mouth—and his slightly lame leg.
They were smiling at each other then, his face in her hands, his hands braced on the edge of the sofa on either side of her. And she closed the gap between their mouths and kissed him, right on his cruel lips.
He surged to his feet, ignoring the twinge in his knee, swept her up into his arms, and seated himself with her cradled on his lap.
And he was conscious of feeling utterly at peace and happy, with the unlikeliest woman he could ever have dreamed of cuddled up against him, warm and relaxed beneath the lap robe he had rearranged about her, her head on his shoulder. And she was with the unlikeliest man—a soldier with a career and a history in battle that was unthinkable to her.
He kissed her again, parting her lips with his own and sliding his tongue into her mouth. Warm and sweet and inviting. And trusting.
Her arm was about his neck, the fingers of one hand threaded through his hair.
“Happy?” he murmured against her mouth.
“Oh, yes,” she said. “Happy.”
“And before you can ask,” he said, “so am I.”
“Mmm.” She sighed. “Kiss me again, Nicholas.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said.
Chapter Twenty-One
If she was sleeping, Winifred thought, she really, really did not want to wake up.
She was not asleep, however, though she was sitting on his lap, warm and cozy beneath the small blanket, her head on his shoulder, her eyes closed. Her lips were tingling. They felt deliciously as though they might be swollen. She could feel him with every part of her, his solid, hard, man’s body, his shoulder broad and firm beneath her cheek, his arm about her, holding her close, the other hand on her knee. She could feel his body heat and smell the faint musk of his cologne. She could hear his quiet breathing. She could taste him. His tongue had explored her mouth, slowly, almost lazily, until it had aroused aches and longings that had had her tightening her arm about his neck and moaning slightly with the feeling that a fire had been lit inside her. That was when he had ended the kiss somewhat abruptly and settled her head on his shoulder.
“We had better save the rest for our wedding night,” he had said, his voice a bit breathless and not quite steady. “God, but I want you.”
