Sarah frowned and then did what Gavin had anticipated she would do. She hid behind her character. “Thank you, Mr. Goodwell. You do me great honor—”
“Sarah, I am not acting. I know that once you walk off this stage, then we will be done and I cannot let you do that, not without telling you what I truly feel. I’m no poet. I have no flowery speech. I’m not gifted with words the way you are. I’ve never spoken of love to any other woman before you. In truth, I believed love was a myth. It was for other people, not dukes. You have taught me different. Now, I am not embarrassed to say I need you. I don’t want my days to go on without you. Please, Sarah, I am on bended knee,” he said, kneeling in front of her. “I love you and am offering all I have to you. Please, marry me.”
The theater was dead quiet.
Everyone, including Gavin, waited for her answer.
She looked down at him and he could read the struggle in her eyes. She did love him. He knew that.
But instead of giving him the answer he wanted, she whispered, “I can’t marry you, Gavin. Don’t you understand? I mustn’t.”
Nothing had been more wrenching to her soul than to turn Gavin down.
He was the noblest, most gallant of men. He’d protected her from Rovington and his henchmen . . . and he’d taught her to trust again. He’d made her believe this thing called love did exist and it was grander than her imagination could ever have pictured.
And now, she must refuse him.
Not just Gavin but everyone in the theater, even the actors in the wings, had wanted her to say yes. He wanted her, the bastard daughter of a fallen woman. Gavin’s love had lifted her to heights she could not have anticipated and she knew she loved him too much to accept.
“I can’t give you children,” she said, explaining not just to him but to all who listened. “I love you too much to deny you something you want, something you need.” She pulled her hand from his. “I’m not worthy of you.”
She would have run then. She took a step but he was upon her, his arms around her. Tears burned her eyes.
She struggled against him. She dared not look at him, but he held her close and whispered in her ear, “Children mean nothing to me if I can’t have you.”
Sarah ceased resisting.
“Do you hear me, love?” he said, the sound of his voice humming through her body. “You are the one I choose. I was meant to love you, Sarah.”
Tears streamed down her face. She couldn’t stop them. “You could discover you are wrong, that children are more important,” she said, praying he meant what he said.
“Sarah, there are no guarantees that if I married someone else that I’d have sons with her or even a son. It is one of the risks of life. However, I do know, with complete certainty, that I love you. You make my life interesting. In truth I was a bit of a bore until I met you. Staid and tedious. I don’t want to go back to being that man. Save me, Sarah. Marry me.”
How could she resist?
He was right, he did need her.
And she wanted him. He’d won past her defenses. He’d claimed her heart and there would be no other.
Her answer was to throw her arms around his neck. “Yes,” she said. “Yes and yes, and yes.”
He lifted her up, swung her around—and the audience came to its feet with approving applause. Gavin kissed her then, right there on the stage—and the cheers grew louder.
Sarah knew that no one in the theater tonight would forget this performance. She never would.
His arm around her, Gavin waved at the crowd and both he and Sarah basked in the goodwill.
“Even my mother and great-aunt are clapping,” Gavin said in Sarah’s ear.
“We shall see how they feel in the morning,” she said.
He laughed and then promised, “It doesn’t matter how they will feel. I love you now, I will love you on the morrow, I will love you forever.”
And then, to the audience’s cheers, he kissed her again before the curtain closed.
