Page 84 of The Hidden Heart

“I—well, it is a…a formal occasion.”

“What is?” Jessica sighed. “Please, Richard, just tell me. If you do not wish me to be here anymore, simply say so. I understand. But I cannot take all this introduction.”

“Not be here?” he repeated blankly. “What do you mean?”

Jessica frowned. “I mean, if you do not wish me to remain as Gabriela’s governess. If you want me to leave the house.”

He looked at her, a faint smile playing on his lips. “Miss Maitland, you are difficult to the end, I see. Yes, it is true that I do not wish you to remain as Gabriela’s governess.”

Jessica looked down quickly, unable to meet his eyes anymore. The pain in her chest was so searing it took a moment for his next words to register in her mind.

“However,” he went on, “I do not want you to leave the house. Now or at any other time. Jessica…I am asking you to marry me.”

Her head snapped up. “What!”

“I am asking you to marry me. To be the Duchess of Cleybourne.”

Jessica was glad she was sitting down already, for she thought her knees would have given out. “But…but…you can’t!”

“I can’t?” he repeated. “And why can I not, I’d like to know?”

“Well, it—it’s absurd. I am not your equal in station.”

“What nonsense. You come from a perfectly good family. And, anyway, I don’t know why it should make a difference to you if it doesn’t to me.”

“I am a governess.”

“It is not your fault you fell upon hard times,” he pointed out. “It is scarcely as if you had spent the past few years as a bird-of-paradise.”

“But a duke does not marry a governess.”

“Ah, but a duke does if he wants to. That is the best thing about being a duke, you see. I can marry exactly whom I choose. Who is going to reprimand me for it?”

“But, Richard, my father. The scandal. It would cast a cloud on your name.”

“My dear girl,” Richard said, standing up and reaching down to pull Jessica to her feet. “I am honored—and, I must admit, somewhat surprised—to find you so concerned about the Cleybourne name. However, I have to tell you that I do not think one scandal ten years ago—caused by your father, not you—would cast an enormous shadow on my family or title. And if it did, I don’t care. I don’t love my name. It doesn’t make me quiver with longing as you do, nor does my heart speed up whenever I see my coat of arms, as it does when I see you. I love you, Jessica. I want to marry you.”

“Richard…” Jessica looked at him, torn, unable to say anything. Everything within her cried out to accept, yet she knew that it was not right.

“Well, I have discovered how to render you speechless, I see. I suppose that is something.”

“But, Richard—you—I cannot replace Caroline. You still love her.”

“I’m not asking you to replace Caroline. Frankly, except in your beauty, you are nothing like her. You are not her. I am not looking for her. It is you I want. You are the one who keeps me awake at night, wanting you. You are the one who aggravates me so I want to shout. And you are the one who has brought me back to life. I was a shell when you came here. I was wallowing in my own misery, unable to pull myself out of the swamp I was in. Then you came in, and you—you brought light back into the house. Into my life. Oh, I sound like a moonling, I know, a lovesick calf of a boy, but that is how you make me feel.

“Yes, I loved Caroline. I still love her, in a way. But that does not mean that I don’t love you. I love you in an entirely different way. Caroline was a beautiful woman and I was a young man. I fell head-over-heels in love with her. I thought she was perfection. But the sad truth is that I didn’t even know her. I loved the woman I thought she was, but I don’t think that was really her at all. I thought we shared a love, but she never really loved me. At the end she was desperate to leave me. I couldn’t let go of the ideal I had of her. That was what I was trying to keep, not Caroline. My dream of her and my daughter. It wasn’t real.”

He took Jessica by the shoulders and pulled her to him, kissing her for a long, long time. When at last he pulled away, she was breathless.

“That is real. You are real. I know you. I don’t have to wonder if you are as I think or not. You will tell me exactly what you are and what you think, as well as precisely what you find wrong with me.”

Jessica could not keep from chuckling. “I thought that was why you disliked me.”

“It is. It is also why I love you to distraction. Jessica, end my torture. Tell me that you will marry me.” He paused and looked at her, then added a trifle uncertainly, “Do you…not love me?”

“Oh, no!” Jessica cried out, flinging her arms around his neck. “I do love you. I love you so much I was willing to stay here as your mistress!”

“I think I would prefer it if you stayed here as my wife,” he told her.