He jerked away, remembering his disfigurement. “I’m sorry, I should have warned you,” he said tightly. “Courtesy of a French soldier, my faced has been ruined and small children turn away from me, or so I’ve been informed. If I didn’t have a title and fortune, no woman would come near me.”
“Nonsense,” Sarah said as her fingertips traced gently across the scar. “I was watching from above when you arrived earlier. My first thought was to thank God that the blade missed your eyes.” She stretched up so she could slide a warm, gentle kiss across the scar. “My second thought was you are still the most attractive man I’ve ever known.”
Trying to control the way her kiss resonated through him, he said, “You lie very sweetly, Sarah, but most of the countess’s eligible young ladies can’t quite look at me without their gazes sliding away.”
“That’s because they are hen-witted,” Sarah said tartly. “For which I’m grateful, because it reduces the competition.”
He blinked in the darkness, wondering if he heard rightly. “Competition?”
She pulled away and he heard embarrassment in her voice. “It means that the women worthy of you appreciate the honorable, kind, intelligent man you are.”
“Sarah, you haven’t seen me for a dozen years! I may have changed out of all recognition.” His voice turned rueful. “If I were honorable, I wouldn’t be compromising a well-born young lady in an attic.”
“We’ve already determined that these are hardship conditions.” After a long pause, she whispered, “Perhaps it’s presumptuous of me, but I’ve always felt that I know you on a deep level. Though that may be my imagination.”
“I don’t think so, because I’ve always felt the same about you. You shaped my soul, Sarah, but it’s taken quite a battering in the years since I’ve seen you.”
Giving into impulse, he turned on the sofa and slid his arms under her and swooped her onto his lap so he could embrace her more thoroughly. She gave a small, startled sound before settling against him, her head on his shoulder and her arm around his waist. “You really are most wonderfully warm, Rafe.”
She was also warm. Soft. So perfectly, wonderfully Sarah. It felt absolutely right to have her curled up on his lap. When had he ever felt such rightness?
Not since the last time he’d seen Sarah before going off to join his regiment. This new sense of rightness started in his heart and expanded through his whole being.
Choosing his words carefully, “Sarah, the last time I saw you and we kissed, I almost asked you to marry me, but I didn’t dare. We were both so young and I was going off to war and an uncertain future. It seemed wrong to ask, but if I had proposed to you then, what would your answer have been?”
Sarah went absolutely still in his arms. In a voice touched with shadow, she replied, “I would have said yes. I had dreams of following the drum with you. But as you say, we were both so young. Too young. It was wise of you not to ask.”
Rafe took a deep breath, gathering his courage as he did when Napoleon’s Imperial Guard swept onto the field of Waterloo, determined to crush France’s enemies. But the Allies had won, and he prayed for another victory now. “Sarah. What would be your answer if I asked you to marry me now?
Chapter Eight
She jerked boltupright at his words. “I’d say you were mad, Lord Carroll! You’re just embarking on a grand new life. The fact that we were once friends…” she swallowed hard, “dear, dear friends, is no reason to ask me again now.”
He stroked her back, trying to coax her into relaxation again. “Remember that I’m Rafe, not Lord Carroll. I’m asking now because it’s now the right thing to do, and the right time to do it.”
He paused to choose his words because they might be the most important of his life. “When I learned I’d inherited and reluctantly came to the castle to see the countess, it all felt wrong. Now that I’ve found you, everything has become magically right. The inheritance, the castle and the responsibilities—with you at my side, in my bed, and sitting across from me at the breakfast table,everythingwill be right.”
She slid off his lap to sit next to him, her body still stiff. “When we first met, we were not so far apart in consequence. Now you’re a peer of the realm and I’m a servant!”
“You are well born and well educated, and every inch a lady.” He cautiously reached out and found the back of her head so he could stroke her hair. It was silky and sensual under his fingers. His hand curled gently around her delicate nape.
“But you don’t even know what I look like!” she exclaimed. “I’m not a beauty and never will be. You deserve better!”
He laughed. “Like Lady Cynthia Howard? Yes, she’s a diamond of the first water, and as cold and sharp as a diamond. I don’t even want to be under the same roof with her, much less in the same bed.”
“I grant that you can do better than Lady Cynthia…”
“That’s what I’m doing now!”
“…but there are many other suitable young women in theton.Young ladies with looks and intelligence and style.”
“As long as you look like Sarah Wesley, I require no more.” He moved his hand to her face so he could lightly trace the lines and planes of her face with his fingertips. Her wide forehead with a lock of hair falling over one side. Her charming little nose, delicate cheekbones. His touch lingered on her soft, tempting lips. “You feel exactly like my Sarah should look.”
“Rafe, I havefreckles!”she exclaimed.
“I always thought they were adorable. I’m sure they still are.”
He slipped his hand to her shoulder and gently tugged her back into kissing range. “And don’t forget that there’s this.”
