“I should have been able to help him.” His voice caught, and in the moonlight, Lydia watched as a single tear rolled down his cheek. She caught it with her thumb and pressed a soft kiss against his jaw.
And Jeremy just kept walking. He might have truly been prepared to carry her all the way to Mayfair had his driver not been watching for him. He finally dipped her feet to the ground as the familiar coach slowed to a stop beside them.
“Excellent to see you safe and sound, my lady.” The driver spoke from his box while a manservant pulled down the step. “To Cork Street, my lord?”
“Yes,” Jeremy answered.
The last time she and Jeremy had ridden in this carriage had been only one night before. So much had changed in the matter of a single day.
Lydia settled onto the bench and Jeremy climbed in behind her, but then she moved naturally into his arms as the carriage jerked into motion.
“Did you mean it?” he asked in a gravelly voice.
“Of course.” There was no need to clarify what he was referring to. He’d received the letter. “I never stopped loving you, and I never will.”
She’d always heard it was foolish to express her feelings so easily, but she was learning that life was too tenuous to play games.
“I don’t deserve you.” He squeezed her against him. “I never stopped loving you either. I just didn’t know how… I couldn’t ask you?—”
“You did what you had to, and I love you more now than I did before. I’m only sorry you’ve had to deal with this alone.”
“But I hurt you.”
“You thought you were protecting me.” She now understood why he’d pushed her away. It reminded her of how Ollie had tried to convince her to turn away when she’d found him in the warehouse yard. “Everything happens for a reason. There’s no way of knowing how many lives will be saved now because of you. You are a hero.”
Jeremy shook his head and scoffed.
“Oh, no.” He needed to see what others saw. “You may have gone into this thinking only to clear Arthur’s name, but you’ve come out having accomplished an incredible feat. No one else was willing to take on Farley’s gang until you did.”
Jeremy stared at her, looking both baffled and a little awed. “You almost have me believing that. I don’t deserve you, Lydia.”
“Oh, but you do.” They were meant for one another in every way. The sooner he accepted this, the sooner the two of them could go on with their lives—together.
Jeremy buried his face in her hair. “Marry me?”
The question wasn’t at all what she’d been expecting just then, and these were not at all the circumstances in which she’d imagined he would ask but…
This was Jeremy.
“You aren’t just asking this because my brother has returned to town?”
He released her and shuffled through his pockets. When he located what he was looking for, he dangled a small velvet pouch in front of her. She’d seen such a pouch recently, when Blackheart had purchased some jewelry for his new duchess.
Lydia held her breath while Jeremy untied the drawstring and reached inside, plucking out?—
“I bought this yesterday. Shortly after the completion of the sale.” Lydia gasped when she caught sight of a sparkling diamond set in a circle of gold, clutched between his thumb and finger. It reflected every single star that twinkled through the window. “I meant to propose to you today at the warehouse. But then, with everything that happened… I know this isn't very romantic or at all proper, but?—”
Lydia cut him off by pressing her mouth to his. When their lips parted on a sigh, she opened her eyes and met his gaze. “You’re all I’ve ever wanted. Of course I’ll marry you.”
EPILOGUE
Jeremy entered the drawing room where the Duke of Blackheart stood with his back to him, staring out the window. Simon Cockfield had been one of his closest friends for most of his life. They had both been their fathers’ heirs—and became the heads of their respective families at very young ages. But before that, they’d spent the summers together pretending to be pirates, running back and forth between their fathers’ lands, screaming like banshees. They had been confidants. Schoolmates. And then as adults, they’d offered one another support.
As Blackheart had today, showing up in Jeremy’s time of need, bringing additional manpower. And he had not poured salt into his wound either, though he very well could have, knowing the truth now, about Arthur.
Jeremy ran a hand through his hair. “I need to thank you.”
Blackheart turned his head, meeting Jeremy’s gaze. “You’d have done the same for me.”
