Page 110 of Give Him a Chance

Good God, he could spend the rest of his life with this woman and he would still never truly understand her…

“It’s just…when Hovell came to see me in London—”

“Ah, yes, our good friend Obadiah,” said Lucy with a grin, her gaze flickering for a moment away from him and to the dining room door behind him. Then she returned her focus to him, and once again, it was concerned. “You’re not going back to spying, are you?”

“No! No, not at all,” Bertram said hastily, taking her hands in his and glorifying in the connection that immediately steadied him.Just tell her. “There was a letter from Hovell waiting for me and… Well, it turned out the plans for my mission had not entirely gone to…gone to…”

“Plan?” added Lucy helpfully.

Bertram smiled ruefully. “Just so. It seems that if you had not been there in that courtroom, facing down that judge and demanding the end to transportation… Well. It is very likely no one would have rescued me.”

Lucy’s brow furrowed. “I don’t understand.”

“The plan was always that Hovell would come and rescue me before I was actually shipped out,” Bertram said slowly, a shiver running through him at the very thought. “But his message had been mislaid. No one was coming to save me. Without you, I would have been halfway to Australia right now.”

The expression on Lucy’s face was one of absolute horror. “No.”

“I’m afraid so,” said Bertram, his own stomach twisting in dread at what could have been.

No one would have believed him. Who would believe a convicted criminal who would clearly have been lying in an attempt to escape the condemnation of transportation?

“You saved me,” he said quietly, lifting a hand to push a curl back behind Lucy’s ear and marveling at the fact that he was to be given the honor of being this woman’s husband for the rest of his life. “You saved me, Lucy.”

The kiss was gentle, and earnest, and needed in that moment. Bertram had to be close to her, had to know she was there, that he had not dreamed her—though she was far more than he could ever have hoped.

Lucy clung to him as though he were still about to be dragged away to be transported, and when the kiss ended, she held on to his lapels tightly as she said fiercely, “Well, then, all the more reason—I mean, we cannot have anyone having to face that! It’s barbaric!”

“It absolutely is,” Bertram agreed gravely.

“And to think that you—I could have lost you,” she whispered, her large eyes searching his own as though reminding herself that he really did stand there.

His pulse skipped a beat at the sight of her affection. “You see, this is one of the many reasons I love you. Your heart for others.”

“Right now, all my heart wants to do is take you upstairs,” Lucy murmured.

“Lucy!” Bertram hissed, glancing both at the drawing room door and the dining room door. “You can’t go about saying things like that!”

But there was a glitter of mischief in her eyes he could not help but adore, and there was also a corresponding stirring in hisdownstairs region that was begging him to take her at her word and take her upstairs.

“My mother won’t miss me for another twenty minutes or so. I often sit with Papa and Percy when they smoke and we don’t have any visitors,” Lucy whispered, her eyes dancing with far more than mischief now.

Bertram tried to be responsible. “Well, the men are expecting their brandy, and—”

“Oh, brandy,” Lucy said with a roll of her eyes. “Give me one moment—stand over there, will you?”

Utterly speechless as she carefully maneuvered him to stand directly behind the dining room door, Bertram could only watch as Lucy blithely picked up the brandy decanter, opened the dining room door, and stuck her head in.

“Mama and I thought you might want the brandy,” came her voice, slightly muffled on the other side of the door.

“Ah, we sent Moray out for that,” came the voice of Lord Lindow. “Where the dickens has he got to?”

“I think he’s going upstairs for a lie down,” came the easy words of Lady Lucy Chance, such innocence in them that even Bertram had to admit, he was impressed. “All the excitement, you know.”

“Oh, well, it’s been a wild few days,” were the words of Percy. “Hand over that decanter, Papa, I’m gasping.”

Lucy exited the dining room, shut the door behind her, and grinned. “There.”

“I… You… What…?” breathed Bertram, hardly able to believe his eyes.