“I... I have a request.”
“I’ve already said there isn’t time, love.”
She bit back a smile. “I would like you to keep our... our—”
She couldn’t say it.
“Are the words you seekwild, passionate love?” he asked.
“I was going to saybetrothal.” She reined her horse beside him. In her mind, she repeated the sentence.
“But is that what actually happened?” she asked. “Are we betrothed?” Her heart pounded.
“What happened was the most illicit, wettest betrothal of all time,” he said. “With the greatest lack of jewelry or paperwork. I apologize, but I am not sorry. I’ll correct the jewelry and the filings when we reach London. But yes, if you can abide it, that was the Jason Beckett version of a betrothal.”
Isobel felt herself nod. Hearing the words again made her breathless. She looked at the blue-green lights hanging in the sky. The aurora borealis looked dull compared to their love and their impending marriage.Thatwas the supernatural phenomenon.Thatwas the miracle.
“Right,” she said, kicking her horse into a cantor. “My request, then, is that we... we not discuss it with anyone? Not yet?”
“What?” He kneed his horse forward.
“It’s just—when we see your cousin, or when we make landfall in London. If we could simply... keep it... kind of like a secret? For a time?”
“Why?” he ground out. His anger was clear.
“Well, because I want you to settle into your role as duke without... without having to explain your relationship withme. Without having to accommodate me and show me about and introduce me. Without the burden of a fiancée.”
“You believe that when I am immersed in the so-called real world I will reconsider my offer. You believe,” he clipped, “that I’ll discover what a poor fit you may be, and keeping it secret allows me to disentangle?”
It was exactly what she believed, but she had no wish to quarrel with him. The night had been too perfect.
“The transition from spy to duke,” she explained, “will involve stewards, and advisers, and weeks of reading and property tours. You will be inundated with family. Your life will be turned upside down for a time. Please indulge me in this: go home. Get settled. Make some accounting for your reticence all these months. And then, if everything goes smoothly, we will announce it.”
He exhaled. He was frustrated, unhappy.
“No matter how reasonable your family,” she said, “they will be alarmed by the presence of a—of me. If we sweep in from foreign shores after this wild adventure—after having worked so very closely together—I’ll not only seem like the most unexpected bride of the decade, I’ll look calculating and... and seductress-y as well. It will look like I enchanted you while we sailed about the Atlantic Ocean, rescuing cousins.”
“But that is what you’ve done,” he teased.
“Incontrast,” she pressed, “if we allow some time to pass, if I have time to settle in as well and establish my new travel agency, I’ll have a better idea how I’ll operate it while also serving as your duchess—”
“Syon Hall is just miles from Hammersmith,” he cut in.
She cleared her throat. “If I settle in, and you settle in, and time passes,thenyou may introduce me to your family. They’ll meet me simply as a translator who advised you on this mission. There’ll be no need to mention that I’m the girl who introduced you to... to—”
“Bathing in a heated pool?”
“Yes,” she breathed.
“But when will I know that you’re ready?” he asked. “Whencan I introduce you?”
Isobel shrugged. “It’s impossible to put a date on it, isn’t it? Until we are home and we see what life will be like for us both?”
“Impossible,” he repeated bitterly. “Is it really ‘impossible’?”
“You will know when you’re ready,” she said.
He swore and kicked his horse into a gallop.
