“Yes.” She threw her arms around his neck. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”
He crushed his mouth over hers again, his arms banding her tightly against him as if they were one. He lifted his head. “What of the duke’s question?” Emerson murmured against her lips.
“Question?”
He smiled, a sight so rare she felt it to her toes.
“I can easily afford a special license,” he said.
“Alicense?” Her voice went up two octaves.
“You have doubts.” He sounded curious, not appalled.
“No!” She raised her head. “I—” She stepped back and went to the fire, staring into the flames and rubbing her arms. “Are you sure? Don’t let Sebastian goad you into anything—”
His arms came around her from behind, tugging her into his body. His lips touched the side of her neck. “Don’t you understand? I wantyou.But I’ve no title. And there’s not even the remote possibility of obtaining one.”
She spun around and snaked her arms about his waist. “Oh, Emerson. I-I wouldn’t want you any other way than who or what you are.”
“You are certain?”
“Yes. You are all I had not thought to hope for.” She took a step back and raised her hands to his firm jaw. “It’s taken me a while, but I can honestly, and finally, admitthose matches are made for advantage and not for what truly matters.”
He stared into her eyes a long, long moment, then with a decisive nod dropped a kiss on her forehead, allowing her to…to breathe.
“All right, then. Let’s go speak to your brother.”
~~~
Apparently, the duke was taking no chances and Emerson was forced to ride carriage-bound to Canterbury, not only due to the cut in his side being vastly uncomfortable and inconvenient, but also because across from him sat none other than Rose’s brother, the duke. Ryleigh had insisted on accompanying Emerson to acquire the special license, as he said that the bishop was “not likely to turn down such a request” when the Duke of Ryleigh stood before him.
Due to the heavy London traffic, the trek dragged, and the duke, it turned out, was not one for many words.
There was an intimidating aura about him that set Emerson’s teeth on edge, the lack of control Emerson was forced to endure, knowing he was powerful in his own right. Just in a vastly different world.
“I take it you met her at Shufflebottom’s masquerade.” The duke’s gruff voice growled through the confines.
No mistaking this question. “You presume correctly.” Emerson reached desperately for a stall tactic, trying to decide how to frame his answer without telling an actual falsehood. “The truth is I found the crowd quite stifling and discovered Shufflebottom’s office to be more…breathable. In any event, moments later, she burst through the door, running from the marquis himself.”
After a long hesitation, Ryleigh said, “Why were you there? I can’t recall you ever attending societal events before.”
Ah, an easy question. “I promised my father on his deathbed to keep my brother out of trouble. Unfortunately, he’d taken up with the likes of Stockton, Collier, Gorman, and Lampert.”
A flash of white from Ryleigh’s quick smile lit the carriage before he turned an inscrutable gaze on Emerson. The duke grunted. “Complete idiots,” he said.
Emerson took that as a tacit, if grudging, approval. “Exactly.”
“Blast. I knew allowing her to attend—wearing maid’s clothes no less—was a bad idea.”
Emerson couldn’t agree more, but the memory did amuse him. “Have you met your sister? I suspect you had no notion of what she was to wear. Frankly, I don’t believe she could have been stopped, short of sending her to gaol. She isn’t one to conform easily.”
Ryleigh shook his head. “And here I always believed Rose the most sensible of all my sisters. I should have known the cause was lost when she took up with Stanford.”
“Howdidshe end up with that lackwit, er, if I may be so bold?”
“They eloped to Gretna.” The duke’s fingers flexed. “Our father was quite ill at the time, and I was on the Continent. I was summoned home. Rose was determined, as you say, to marry.If she hadn’t married at that time, she would have been forced to wait out a year of mourning after Father’s passing. I suspect it was Stanford who convinced her to run. But again, as you rightly claim, she can be most headstrong. We returned home simultaneously. By then, the deed was done and it was too late.”
If able, Emerson would bring the bastard back to life only to kill him all over. “I find Lady Stanford frustratingly independent. If she is told to do one thing, invariably she is determined to do the opposite.”
