His arms shook with the effort of holding his weight, so he collapsed on the bed beside her. For a time, they didn’t say anything, just allowed their breathing to return to normal.
“Well…”Alyssa sighed and Travell glanced at her. “That was a rather nice present.”
He couldn’t help himself. He laughed, and it wasn’t just a light chuckle. It was a freeing rumble that came up out of his chest and burst forth. He reached out and pulled Alyssa against him. “I’m more than willing to oblige, my lady, whether it’s on your twenty-fifth birthday, or your fifty-fifth.”
***
Alyssa didn’t mean to allow his words to dim the glow still burning within her, but she couldn’t help butwonder if they would still be together thirty years later. Thus far, they had embarked on a whirlwind affair, and while Travell had mentioned marriage any number of times and even called her his future wife when they’d left Ticehurst, she waseagerfor him to broach the subject again.
Until then, she was content snuggling against him, breathing in his wonderful male scent and running her hand through the crisp hair on his chest.
“So do you have any requests for the rest of your birthday?”
Marry me.She wanted to say, but instead, she shrugged. “I’m not sure.”
He shook his head, easily reading through her lies. “I doubt that’s true. Surely there’ssomething.” When she remained silent, he murmured, “I see you aren’t going to make this easy on me.”
Amid her groan of protest he disentangled himself from her.When she was greeted with the sight of his firm backside as he walked across the room,though,she decided she wasn’t quite so upset that he’d left her.
However, when he picked something up from the top of his dressing table and brought it back to her, she found that she was rather curious what was so important that it couldn’t wait until later. Preferablymuchlater.
He held up the neatly folded sheet between his thumb and forefinger. “Do you know what this is?” he asked.
She shook her head.
He sighed and said, “I see I’m going to have to make this a bit more clear.” With that, he dropped down on one knee beside the bed, still completely naked. “Alyssa Breyton. I’ve asked you several times to marry me and share my life, but each time, for whatever reason, you believed my intentions to be either insincere, or my affections to be lacking. I’m here now, as vulnerable as any man can be, bearing not only my body but my soul before you to tell you that there is no other woman who I can even imagine being my viscountess, my wife, and the future mother of my children. So, even with the possibility that I could get rejected yet another time, I’m asking—again—if you will marry me?”
Tears had started to trickle down her cheeks, but when she opened her mouth to speak, he held up a hand. “And if you say no, justrealizethat I will keep asking and asking until you finally say yes, because that is really the only the option that I will accept.In fact—”
She reached up and took his face between her hands. “Travell.”
When he stopped talking, those stormy blue eyes looking at her with a determination that stole her breath, she swallowed and said, “I wish there was a different way to tell you my answer, because ‘yes’ just doesn’t seem like a strong enough word. But other than definitely, positively, surely, willingly, and any other adjective I can think of that might express, without fail, and beyond a doubt, that I have always beenyours, there is nothing else thatIcan say.”
As he stared at her, a grin formed on his face. “So that’s a yes, then?”
She laughed and kissed him soundly on the lips, murmuring, “Yes, you stubborn man.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Travell was quite sure he was grinning like an idiot by the time he headed downstairs sometime later with Alyssa at his side.Theyfound Triana and Gabriel in the parlor and, standing hand in hand, shared their happy news. His sister’s squeal of joy almost brought down the roof. She hugged Alyssa,and Travellheard her whisper, “It was the gown, wasn’t it?”
Alyssa’s face flamed, making Travell’s lips twitch as herblush spokevolumes, if not the fact they had been conspicuously absent for the past three hours.
His brother-in-law was a bit more circumspect as he walked over and clapped him on the back. “It’s about time you joined the matrimonial club, old man,” he teased. “And you couldn’t have chosen a better woman to settle down with.”
Travell turned toward his future wife and smiled lightly. She caught his gaze, those mischievous green eyes that had tormented him for years dancing with happiness now. “You’re right about that.” He tore himself back to the present and said, “Do you have any idea where my mother is?”
The duke gestured toward the doors. “She was heading to the gardens the last I knew.”
When it appeared that Triana would be monopolizing Alyssa for a time, Travell decided to head out and speak to his mother. There were some delicate matters that he’d been meaning to speak to her about anyway, and his upcoming nuptials would be the perfect excuse to seek her out.
He walked outside to a slight chill in the air. Fallen leaves crunched beneath his boots as he headed toward the side of the manor that led to an expansive hedge row and several rose bushes that were dormant, just waiting for spring to come back around.
Travell found his mother seated on a scrolled bench in the midst of the graveled pathways, which intersected around a trellis. Lady Trenton’s back was to him, her stiff back ramrod straight, but as he drew near, she said, “What brings you out here, Travell?”
He smiled, for she had always had the uncanny ability to tell when he approached her. Whether it was a mother’s intuition, or he had a certain step she recognized, it had been the same since he’d been a boy in short pants.
He sat down on the bench next to her and said simply, “I’m getting married.”
