“I believed myself to have passed the window of opportunity when I might have found happiness. I had resigned myself to it.”
“You have not,” Alexander said. “When we have each fulfilled our promises to each other, I would ask another one of you.”
He lifted his head, shifting his body so that he lay next to her. She turned to her side, lifting herself onto one elbow and looking at him from a couple of inches away. Their bodies still lay in close contact, side by side. He was acutely aware of his loins pressing against her own.
This is both torture and heaven itself. Pleasure and the pain of the effort to restrain myself.
“What would you ask of me?” Violet asked.
“Marry me,” Alexander replied simply. “No fancy language or poetry. No extravagant displays of love that only a Duke could afford. Just a man asking a woman to be with him for the rest of his life.”
Alexander thought that Violet should laugh and push him away for the absurdity of the question. She had every right to do so after a proposal from a man she barely knew. A man who was such a blackguard that he attempted to seduce her at every opportunity. But the question could not remain unasked within him. It needed to come out. And he could only ask it in one way. A simple, uncomplicated way. That was the man he was and he could be no other.
Despite all the tutoring and the lessons, I am still just a boy from the streets of Glesga. That has been my reality for far longer than a Dukedom has. I will not hide my true self. From others, perhaps. But not her.
Violet’s eyes seemed huge, wide, and as blue as the sky.
“Yes,” she said, answering as simply as he had asked.
Alexander’s smile was long and slow in coming but bright when it appeared. He kissed her, relishing the taste of her, crushing her body against his. His passion was mirrored and matched by her own. Once again, he felt as though he stood on a precipice, walking a thin line between propriety and wantonness. He reminded himself how sweet it would be to make love to Violet when she was his wife. Violet shuddered against him, giving a small moan.
“What is it?” he asked.
“I have just thought how exquisite it will be to lay in your arms as your wife. To…join with you the way I want to.”
Alexander smiled at hearing his own thoughts reflected back at him, though more eloquently. Noise from outside reached them again. The distant sound of horses. Alexander realized that the rain had stopped. He did not know how long ago that had happened. It occurred to him that, freed from the weather’s onslaught, there may be other park users about to pass by their cozy corner.
“We should go before we are discovered,” he said.
Violet agreed. He helped her to her feet, brushing at straw that clung to her dress and her hair. Then he paid attention to himself. Anyone who saw them would think they had been rolling about in hay. There was no way to adequately disguise it. It was Violet who came up with the solution. She hurried to the end of the stables and picked up a wooden trough that had been placed just outside. It had filled with rainwater.
“At least this way it will look more like we have been drenched in a shower than on the ground in a stable,” she said. “Come along.”
Alexander joined her, taking the trough from her and lifting it high over their heads. Violet closed her eyes and hunched her shoulders.
“Now,” she yelped.
Alexander tipped the trough up over both of them, water sluicing out. Most of the straw was washed away. Looking at Violet, Alexander could not help but laugh at how bedraggled she looked.
“Anyone who sees us is going to think we’ve fallen into the Serpentine!” he exclaimed.
“Which is a better story than what really happened,” Violet said, shivering.
“You are simply remarkable, Violet,” Alexander said. “Come on. If we strike out in this direction we will come to the Knights Bridge and that is the most direct route back to my house. We can keep to trees for a good bit of the way but someone is bound to see us.”
“I fell into the river. You dived in to rescue me,” Violet said, setting off in the suggested direction.
“Very chivalrous of me, I’m sure. There’s only one problem with that story,” Alexander said.
“And that is?” Violet asked.
“I cannae swim,” Alexander replied.
Violet burst into laughter, throwing back her head. Alexander grinned, enjoying the sight of her releasing the iron-hard control she seemed to have on herself the rest of the time. The real Violet, underneath the person obsessed with the rules of the Ton and all its intricate customs, the Violet he believed himself to be falling in love with, that Violet was a free spirit. He was glad that it was his company that seemed to be freeing that spirit, unlocking it.
I will get you the information you desire, my love. Ambrose will not beat me on that score any more than I will let him beat me in Parliament. I will win battle and war.
The rain had been severe enough to clear the park and the streets around it. Carriage drivers looked at the two bedraggled people emerging from Hyde Park with some curiosity but there were precious few fellow pedestrians visible. The walk to number 17 Brompton Row was short and uneventful. Soon, they were safely indoors with a servant dispatched to fetch towels and make a fire.
