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Her nose wrinkled in that adorable way it always had when she was perplexed, and the tempting love mark beside her mouth practically pleaded with him to kiss it. “I didn’t realize she fancied you.”

He chuckled and tucked her close to his chest. “She doesn’t. The minx signed your name. She also vowed undying, eternal love.” He waggled his eyebrows. “She mentioned my muscled chest and irresistible eyes, too.”

“She didn’t!” Regine jerked her gaze to his before groaning in chagrin, and her sooty lashes fluttered to brush her pink cheeks. Her eyelids popped open a moment later. “Wait. How did you know it wasn’t from me?”

Eyebrow cocked, James looked askance. “I told you, I remember everything about you. It’s not your handwriting. I’d recognize yours anywhere. I still have the love letters you sent me, including, if you recall, three valentines.”

“You saved them?” Her voice had grown raspy from suppressed emotion.

He rolled a shoulder. “How could I not? They were all I had left of you.”

She fingered the silky crimson ribbon. “I saved yours, too. Heartwaite never knew, of course.” Fresh tears threatened, welling in her eyes, and she averted her gaze. “I want you to know why I married him, James.”

He wrapped his arms tighter around her and brushed his lips across her temple then her forehead. “Sweetheart, it isn’t necessary.”

She laid a palm on his chest. “Please. I need to.” Her gaze roamed his face, such earnestness there. “I need to make you understand. I never cared about his title, or money, or the things he could give me.”

James had accused her of all of those. Thrown the words like daggers, each finding a target in her unselfish heart. A wave of shame washed over him. After last night, he guessed why she’d married the duke, but she’d asked to explain, and he owed Regine that and much more. And so, with a long, resigned sigh, he settled against the sofa’s back, and after arranging her so that she lay cradled against his chest, he said, “Go on, then, love.”

The telling was short. Regine spared herself no mercy. And with every softly uttered word, his love for her blossomed more profoundly and grew impossibly deeper. “So, you sacrificed yourself for your family and to ensure that I became a solicitor.”

She met his gaze, straight on. “I did. I honestly thought it was the only way. Since then, however, I’ve wondered if I made the wrong decision. But by then, it was too late.”

“I would’ve made it work, somehow, Regine.” He firmed his embrace, almost as if by holding her to him so close he could erase the past. “I confess it wouldn’t have been easy, but I would have.”

“I couldn’t fathom how, James. And Heartwaite only gave me a week to decide. I think he knew if he allowed me longer, I’d refuse him.”

“Bloody sod.”

She shook her head. “He was kind to me. More like a doting uncle.” Her cheeks suddenly flushed bright pink, and she bit her lower lip. “He never…ah, that is. We never…”

“Never what?” Eyebrows drawn taut, he tried to discern her meaning.

Her shoulders rising and chest expanding, she inhaled then said in a rush. “We were never intimate. He couldn’t perform the act.”

“Sweet Christ on Sunday.” Of all the things she might’ve said, James would never have expected that. Eight years of frustration and anger and resentment melted away as he took her mouth in a reverent kiss.

She responded, matching every slash of his tongue, every sigh, every moan. At last, his groin pulsing from need and fearing that if they continued, he might very well take her on the sofa, and despise himself afterward, he reluctantly lifted his lips from hers.

“Marry me, Regine.” He said into her hair. “Marry me, and we can begin again.”

Joy blossomed across her face, and she gifted him with a radiant smile. “Yes.” She took his face in her hands and kissed him. “Yes. Yes. Yes.”

~*~

Bainbridges’ Valentine’s Day Ball

One week later

Regine smiled into her husband’s eyes as James whirled her around the sanded ballroom floor in perfect time to the waltz’s lilting melody. They’d been married this morning with only Juliet, James’s sisters, and their husbands in attendance.

She sent letters to Christiana and Marian, announcing her nuptials, but hadn’t invited them to the ceremony. Neither she nor James had wanted to wait to learn if they could make the journey to Town.

Regine was, in a word—or two actually—blissfully happy. Ecstatic. Fine. Three words.

Juliet had become accustomed to her spectacles, and thanks to James’s encouragement and kindly attention, she wore them like a badge of honor. Dimpling at him and Regine, her eyes sparkling with mischief and mirth, she’d made a very pretty apology for sending the valentine on Regine’s behalf.

George-Curtis had taken himself off to his country seat after a brief meeting with James and his partners at the firm. James assured her that her nemesis would harass her no more.