Chapter Thirteen
Blade paced thelibrary for what must have been the hundredth time. He had been awaiting Felicity for a small eternity, practicing in his mind everything he would say. Planning all his methods of persuasion. Praying his eccentric family would not ruin his chances at convincing her to marry him.
He raked his fingers through his hair as he turned on his heel and commenced a new row of pacing.Hell, before this was through, he was going to have worn a hole through the damned Aubusson. Mayhap he would have no hair left on his head either, having pulled it all out.
Where the devil was she?
Why had she not arrived?
The mistletoe hung low from the rafters of the second level of the library mocked him, its white berries waiting to be plucked. Felicity was supposed to meet him there.
Shehadto meet him there.
The door to the library opened.
She stood on the threshold, her expression pained, until her gaze settled upon him. He was moving toward her before he even comprehended it, drawn to her as ever. She was his, damn it. He just had to make her see the rightness of them being together.
“Felicity.” He stopped before her, reminding himself he needed to act the gentleman.
He bowed.
“Blade?” Her brow was furrowed. “What are you doing here?”
Christ.That was not the reaction he had been hoping for.
He straightened. “Waiting for you.”
“You are the perfect gentleman?” she asked, lips parting.
He wanted to kiss her senseless. To toss her over his shoulder and carry her away from everyone and everything.
“I’m neither a gentleman nor perfect,” he answered, flashing her a grin, the one he knew showed his dimple. “But I am the man who loves you.”
Her hazel eyes went wide. “You…what?”
“I love you, Felicity.” It was deuced difficult to make his confession past the knot rising in his throat, but he managed the words.
Had to. No choice. This was not a game of vingt-et-un. This was the rest of his life. If he wanted to win the lady, there was no bluffing.
“You love me?”
She looked as if she were about to call for her smelling salts.
“I think I fell in love with you the moment I saw your arse.” His grin deepened.
“Blade,” she chastised, her cheeks turning that utterly charming shade of pink he adored.
Adored?
Hell, yes.
It was a word he never would have used before. But it was a word that went quite well with the way he felt about the woman before him. The woman who mothered a lost kitten and planned to sacrifice her future for the sisters she loved. The woman who was bold and brave, who looked past his faults and saw him as a man instead of a lowborn bastard from the rookeries.
The woman he wanted to make his wife.
“What?” he teased her with feigned innocence. “I was referring to the day you were poking about beneath my bed, trying to rescue your kitten. Not last night.”
Predictably—and deliciously—her color heightened. “You did not see my bottom last night.”
