There was a long pause and Oliver dropped his gaze away from Ezra. He stared at the floor, as if the expensive carpet was the most interesting thing in the world. When he spoke, his voice trembled. “Marriage. He couldn’t touch her if she married someone with power. Someone like…like you.”
Ezra collapsed back in the chair as the suggestion ripped through him. He’d avoided marriage all these years, unable to fathom giving his life to someone else, not in the way they deserved. Not after Beatrice. But when he thought of Anna at his side, Anna in his arms, Anna in his bed forever…it wasn’t something that made him hurt. A surprise to say the least.
“Marry her.” He let the words roll off his tongue, measuring their weight and taste.
Oliver’s nod was shaky. “If…if you think you could protect her. Love her…because she deserves to be loved.”
Ezra slowly leaned forward and covered Oliver’s hand with his own. He felt Oliver tense beneath his fingers, his gaze flitting away. “Youlove her.”
There was a pause that felt like it lasted an eternity as Oliver struggled with what to say, but then his low, rough voice said the one syllable that could change the world, that had been changing the world for thousands of years.
“Yes.” Tears filled his dark eyes, tears of despair and tears of joy. “Yes, I love her.”
* * *
Oliver
Oliver heard the words from his own lips, the ones he had fought for years not to say, not to feel. And they burned him, destroyed him. He loved her and he knew it didn’t matter, not really. Not in the end.
“And yet you would surrender her,” Ezra said, his fingers tightening against Oliver’s, offering solace and understanding. He knew what it was like, after all, to lose someone he loved. The circumstances were far different, but the end result would be the same.
“Because I love her,” Oliver whispered. “BecauseI love her, I would give up everything to see her safe and happy and taken care of. I would give my life for that.”
“To earn that from you is a glorious thing,” Ezra said softly, and for a moment they only held stares.
Oliver felt the yearning in this man. The loneliness that he hid behind the casualness of his easy command of everyone around him. But Oliver knew better. He knew Ezra needed and deserved to be loved. What was more surprising was that he wished he could give that to him. Longed to spend the time and energy it would take to dive deeply into this man’s life and soul and come out drenched in him the same way he was drenched in Anna and all the little secrets of her spirit.
Ezra’s brow wrinkled like he recognized the connection they could forge and almost…feared it. “I know I care for Anna. And I can feel how that could develop into love. I also know she has begun to care for me.”
“She has,” Oliver said with certainty. “I have watched her for too many years not to know the signs.”
“Even when they’re directed toward you?” Ezra asked.
Oliver let his eyes squeeze shut again and relived every moment he’d ever shared with Anna. From the first moment he’d met her to the moment just a short time ago when she’d looked up at him, dark eyes wide with desire and care as she pleasured him. Oh yes, she loved him. That fact might have actually made all this worse.
“Will you do it?” he choked out. “Would you marry her and protect her?”
Ezra hesitated. “Yes.”
Relief and heartbreak flooded Oliver in equal measure. There would be no place for him if Ezra followed through on his promise. He couldn’t imagine serving the house of his two former lovers, watching them fall in love and Anna forget whatever warm feelings she held for him.
Or worse yet, maintain them and feel her eyes follow him when he came into a room. That had been hard enough when he didn’t yet know her taste or the feel of her arms around him.
“Good,” he said. “You should arrange it as soon as possible. Take her to Gretna Green if you can. Just do it before the new duke can do anything to harm her. Just marry her.”
“I beg your pardon.”
Both men looked up and Oliver caught his breath. Anna stood in the doorway between the sitting room and the bedchamber, a sheet wrapped around her full curves. She was staring at them and her eyes flashed with anger. She shook her head.
“Just who the hell do you both think you are, making plans about my future without even consulting me?”
CHAPTER13
Anna
Anna’s heart pounded as she stared at her two lovers, seated close together, hands intertwined. She would have loved that image of the two men had she not overheard at least part of their schemes.
Ezra rose. “Anna, I understand now what you are fleeing from. What was driving your desperation. You cannot deny that a marriage to meisa good answer.”
