“Possibly.”
“Well, then, it’s my turn to speak and this time, Rafe Harcrest, you will listen.” she said, pointing a slim finger at him. “You are the most arrogant, overbearing man I have ever met. You sweep into my life and turn everything upside down. And then, to top it off, you never, never, let me have the last word. When I gave you those titles…”
“The titles are?—”
Alix hushed him with a finger to his lips. “Giving you those titles was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. The de La Brou lands meant everything to my father. He was always telling me about how our ancestors had fought and died for those lands. The mortar, he’d say, was mixed with more de La Brou blood than water.”
She shook her head. “I knew he was disappointed that I was not a son. He never said those words to me precisely, but when my mother had done something to annoy him, he’d rant about what weak and useless vessels women were. Then he’d turn to me and say since I couldn’t protect the de La Brou heritage with my wits or the strength of my arms, the least I could do was to preserve it through my body with an heir.”
Rafe nodded for her to continue.
“After my betrothal fell through, I don’t know why he didn’t arrange another for me. Probably he thought he had plenty of time, that he’d live forever. He refused to consider death the same way he refused to consider the consequences of the overthrow of the king.”
“When the troubles started, I began to think there was more I could do to protect Valcour, more than just marrying and having babies. At first I tried to keep my father informed of what was happening inFrance and in the village. I hoped it might rouse him to action.”
She frowned. “And then, when I heard that the mob was coming, I stole the titles from his desk. I suppose it sounds ridiculous, but I felt like the guardian of my family’s past and future. Those papers were what kept me going when I was trying to escape France.” Her hands curled unconsciously around her waist as if the papers were still sewn into her stays. “They were like a sacred trust.”
She paused, struggling for words and Rafe resisted the urge to enfold her in his arms. “And then I met you, and you were like one of those knights who comes charging up, defeats the dragon, and carries the lady off. Only I didn’t want to be carried off. I wanted to, I don’t know, do everything on my own and make my father proud.” She looked up at him, the pain drawn on her face as if with a thin knife. “As if I could prove that a woman had something more to offer than her body. And there you were...”
“So eager for your body,” he breathed.
“Yes,” she admitted softly, “I do seem unnaturally conscious of your body and mine when we are together.”
Rafe smiled.
“But there was more,” she continued firmly, “you were so ready to fix everything, to change my name and my life...”
“I wanted to give you a chance to put the nightmare behind you, to start over.”
“I know,” Alix said, “but starting over seemed like abandoning my father and Valcour.”
Rafe’s reached out a hand and swept a tousled strand of hair from her face. Alix looked up at him.
“When I left you and found my mother, I thought I’d feel... I don’t know... triumphant, fulfilled. But all I felt was lost and empty. And my mother.” Alix again struggled for words. “She was glad that I had escaped, but thetitles...” She paused. “She looked upon them as ghosts from the past. She was insistent that we not look back, that we concentrate on moving forward and building a new life. For the first time, she said, we had a chance to make our own choices. We didn’t have to look to a man to decide every detail of our lives, from what we should wear to whom we should marry.”
Alix looked at him, her eyes clear. “During the time we were apart, I thought a lot about what my mother said. I tried to see myself in different lights, as your wife, as Major Harris’s wife, or Lord Minton’s, or no one’s at all.”
Rafe stiffened and she saw his fingers clench the edge of the desk. This was hard, she thought, but she knew that she needed to finish what she’d come to say. “When Lamartine showed up...”
“Lamartine will never hurt you again, sweetheart, I promise,” he cut in, all the while a voice inside his head reassuring himself that if she chose to stay with him out of fear, he would accept even that to have her with him always.
“I’m not afraid of Lamartine,” Alix insisted. “It’s just when he broke into my room, I realized what he’d become in pursuit of those titles. Even if he’d gotten away with them and claimed the estates, what would he have had?” She answered her own question, a note of bitterness creeping into her voice. ‘Trappings, empty trappings.”
Her tone softened. “When I didn’t hear from you for days, and I thought he might have killed you, too, I realized I’d very nearly made the same choice.”
“So that’s why you came across town dressed like a footman?”
“I wasn’t going to wait another day. I wasn’t going to waste any more time. I want to be with you Rafe, now, in December, for always.” She traced a hand along his neck,feeling the bristles of his beard rasp against her fingertips, amazed, as always, by the thousand tiny differences between men and women. “All these conventions that make us noble lords and ladies, that bind us up into a pretty package, counting the number of dances we can share, the amount of time we can speak, and the chaperones.”
She took his face between her hands. “I wanted you to know before we areofficiallymarried, that you aren’t browbeating me into this.”
“And?” he prompted, understanding her answer, but wanting to hear the words.
“I’m making my own choice, Lord Moreham, being your wife is whatIwant.”
“I couldn’t browbeat you if I tried, Alix,” Rafe kissed her softly. “Though I will admit I may have tried a little.”
“A little?” she arched a knowing eyebrow at him.
