I swallowed hard. As I’d feared. His visit was a knife twisting in an old wound. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“That is what Emily St. Aubert said to Valancourt, and yet he persisted.” His smile softened. His thumb brushed a bit of dust from my cheek.
“Lucas,” I breathed, reveling in his touch, angling for more of his fingers on my skin.
“Your brother said to give you time, but I cannot bear another day.”
My brows furrowed. “My brother said?” I sat up ramrod straight. “Lucas, are you playing some sort of game with me?”
He leaned back with a pure and unbridled expression, like he enjoyed looking up at me. “No game, my love. But I would like to clarify a thing or two. To start, I have been here for three days, meeting with your brother in secret, until he agreed to let me see you. Which happened just this morning during our fencing match—I see where you learned your great lunging skills—when I won the required fifteen hits over him. Your sister-in-law judged fairly, I might add, if he wishes to debate the matter later.”
I wondered if Amelia had said anything at all, and what. “You’ve been here forthreedays?”
He told me about Maggie and his mother, then handed me a page from the paper dated a week ago today. “I won’t offer you a recounting of the first few days of chatter on the subject of Lord Reynolds and me. But we posted this in response.”
I read down the page. My heart hung on the words:friendship grew into something more, anddoes not profess to be a perfect man,but endeavors to love and be loyal to his dearest friend,expecting that the world around him does the same.
He rubbed his jaw. “I did not admit to any wrongdoing, which might seem cowardly, but now everyone will know the truth about what happened that day. Why I did what I did. Which leads me to my second clarification. If you had any doubts at all, Georgiana”—he pushed up on his elbows and lifted a hand to my jaw, tracing the sensitive spot by myear—“you should know by now that I love you. And it is blasted painful to be parted from you. I cannot bear it another day.” He thumbed my bottom lip. “There is no one like you in the world.”
He reached into his jacket and withdrew a little leather box. He opened it and pulled out a ring.
His grandmother’s ring.
I couldn’t breathe.
He held it between his first finger and thumb. “This ring is imbued with a legacy that goes back generations in my family, and my hope was that it would serve as a reminder to its wearer of that legacy for many generations to come.”
“Your father’s legacy.”
He shook his head. “My father’s legacy was restoring the dukedom. He did well, and I am and will always be proud to call him my father. Proud of his accomplishments and grateful. I finished the work he started, and I hope he’s pleased.” He frowned, eyes downcast, and swallowed.
I reached out and cradled his face with my hand. He leaned into my touch, then turned and placed a slow, soft kiss in the center of my palm.
My heart melted and burned and cried out his name.
“But the dukedom is mine now.” He met my gaze with firm determination. “It is time I work toward myownlegacy. It’s time to think about whatIwant to leave behind, and who I want to share it with. That someone is you.”
Emotion welled behind my eyes. Still, after everything? It was far too good to be true. Far too lovely and perfect.Hewas too perfect.
“You’ll say there’s someone better, more prepared or moreaccomplished than you, and you might be right. Perhaps there are a dozen women more suited for the dukedom than you. But no one could make me feel in a lifetime how you make me feel in a single moment. I want my legacy to be tied with yours.” Gently, he took my hand and slid his grandmother’s ring onto my finger. “I want to make a life with you. Grow old with you. We’ll face whatever comes together, as one family, mine and yours. Marry me, Georgiana, and I swear I will make it the best life you could ever dream—”
I leaned into him and kissed him soundly. He fell back on the hay and cradled my neck, keeping me exactly where he wanted me. His thumb traced my jawline, fingers lightly grazing down my neck, my arm.
When his hands met my waist, they drew me up, and gently lifted, then tossed me back against the hay. He climbed over me, his hair lined with straw, eyes hazed and wild. “Yes?” he breathed against my mouth, entwining his legs with mine. “Is that a yes?”
I wove my fingers under his parted jacket, up his waistcoat, beneath his doubly knotted cravat, and he tensed under my touch. “Yes,” he answered for me, grinning and breathless. “That was a yes. That wasevenings in the library, yes.Late mornings, taking tea in your bed, yes.”
I pulled his cravat down until his lips took mine.
He kissed me like we had all the time in the world. Like we could exist on just this. Like nothing else in the world mattered but us.
His fingers swept across my side, my ribs. He pulled back, just barely, to look down at me. To see me.
It was the most wonderful feeling in all the world, to be seen by this beautiful man. “Say something,” he begged.
I love you, I wanted to say.More than anything. “You, Lucas Kennerly, Duke of Marlow, are better than the best book. The most honorable, most exceptional of men. And, still, I left you. You must understandwhy.”
“I know why, you little ninny,” he whispered, his eyes filled with emotion. He kissed the corners of my mouth. “You think you will ruin me, but I am telling you, it will be quite the opposite.” He buried his face in the curve of my neck, tickling the space by my shoulder with his kisses. He made me forget why loving him was a bad idea. I bit my lip hard, trying desperately not to dissolve into the wave of joy that beckoned, and dug my fingers into the nape of his neck.
