Chapter 11 #2
“What was that?” she asked, her tone guarded. “That you require a new carriage or that your town house needs to be fitted for electricity? That you must have a new wardrobe?”
“No.” He looked deeply into her eyes, willing her to believe him. “That I’ve fallen in love with you.”
Her lips parted, and she stared at him in silent shock.
It was as he had suspected, then. She had overheard part of his conversation with Aunt Helene, who had been far too concerned about Addy being an heiress.
He reached for her hands, gratified when she didn’t immediately snatch them away, and continued.
“What you heard wasn’t wrong. I am woefully impoverished.
My estates are in dire need of funds and repair.
The carpets are threadbare, I’ve had to sell off priceless paintings to pay the creditors, and my sisters have been wearing outmoded gowns for three years.
I spent more than I could afford on tuition for the Académie Clairemont in the hope that they might acquire the éclat necessary to secure good husbands and futures for themselves. We know how that ended.”
Addy bit her lip. “If you still hold me responsible for Lila and Letty being removed from finishing school—”
“I don’t,” he interrupted gently. “It was easy to blame you before I knew you. I was angry with my sisters and frustrated. I had no notion how to launch them in Society when they were of age, and I was mired by debt from my father and grandfather before him, weighed down by the burden of so much obligation… It was making me miserable, Addy. Until you came along. You with your dazzling smiles and ridiculous radiance, your utter lack of propriety and your stubborn defiance. And Dandy with her happy bouts and loud barks and penchant for eating ears. The both of you have made me happy for the first time in a very long time.”
Addy laughed and hiccupped at the same time, rather proving his point. She was irresistible. Utterly without artifice. And he loved her all the more for it.
“To be fair, Dandy has never eaten an ear,” Addy pointed out. “She licks them and gives the occasional nibble.”
Dandy, apparently tired of not being fawned upon or gifted cheese, barked and then began having a happy bout, racing from one end of the room to the other, sliding on the hardwood floor and slamming into plaster with her side before turning and running back again in a black blur of uninhibited motion.
“Your dog is mad,” he pointed out.
“She is merely enthusiastic,” Addy defended.
He wanted to kiss her so badly that it was an ache he felt all the way to the soles of his feet. But Lion was acutely aware of her aunt, hovering on the periphery, watching them sternly behind her gold-rimmed spectacles.
“Addy, I don’t care that you’re an heiress.
I am a poor man, but I am also a man who is determined.
I can sell off more paintings and some of the estates.
I am working with my steward to make the farms more efficient and profitable.
I will happily eschew your fortune. Your father may keep all his wealth. I don’t want it. All I want is you.”
“But you were agreeing with your aunt,” Addy protested. “I heard you. And you disapprove of me.”
“Aunt Helene, like Uncle Algernon, has good intentions, but she also loves to hear the sound of her own voice. I didn’t care to tell her the details of our private relationship, so I was merely agreeing.
When she pressed the matter, I made my feelings for you clear, however.
My greatest regret is that I didn’t tell you first. I should have done so, and I am sorry for that.
I should have told you that night, but I… ”
Bloody hell.
Lion stopped himself from finishing what he’d been about to say, casting an uneasy glance in her aunt’s direction.
The elder Miss Fox was eyeing him in a considering fashion.
“I think I will meander downstairs to take some tea. I’ll be back in half an hour.
And if anything untoward occurs while I’m gone or if you make my niece cry again, be forewarned, Your Grace.
I’ve been known to blacken a man’s eye in my day. ”
Lion didn’t think Aunt Pearl had much of a chance of doing him bodily harm, but he didn’t say so. She was protective of Addy, and that was all that mattered.
He inclined his head. “Thank you.”
She looked to her niece. “Addy, dear?”
Addy nodded. “You may go, Aunt Pearl. I’ll be fine with Li—with His Grace.”
Her aunt’s lips twitched, and she raised a brow. “Half an hour.”
She didn’t say anything else before she quietly quit the room.
Dandy, who had finished her happy bout and exhausted herself, now lolled on her side, panting.
Lion felt a surge of powerful emotion within his chest, an unrelenting sense of rightness.
This was where he was meant to be, with Addy, with Dandy. He knew it to his marrow.
“Do you mean it?” Addy asked him, stealing his attention again.
“I meant every word I said to you,” he told her fervently.
She bit her lower lip. “But especially the part where you said you love me. Do you mean that?”
“God, yes.” He lowered his head and pressed his forehead to hers. “I love you, Adelia Louise Fox. You, not your dowry. Just you.”
Dandy trotted back over to them and pawed at his leg.
Lion glanced down, amused. “And you as well, mongrel.”
“Dandy isn’t a mongrel.”
“I know.” He couldn’t hide his grin. “She’s your darling.”
“And she’s never sleeping in the stables.”
“I wouldn’t dream of making her.”
“And what about my dowry?”
“It’s yours to do with as you like. The marriage contract will be written as such, should you do me the honor of agreeing to become my duchess.”
“You truly don’t care about my father’s fortune?” she breathed.
“I’m sorry you overheard the worst part of that bloody conversation. All I can promise is that I’ll live each day of our lives proving just how much I love you.”
“And Dandy.”
He chuckled. “And Dandy.”
She squeezed his hands. “Lion?”
“Yes, darling?”
“I love you too.”
His heart soared, a joy so profound that it momentarily robbed him of speech exploding within.
He kissed her then, because he couldn’t go on another moment without knowing her lips beneath his.
She loved him. Addy loved him. He’d been too afraid to hope, moving through the last day like an automaton.
He ended the kiss, needing to hear the rest. “Will you do me the greatest honor of marrying me, Adelia Louise Fox?”
“You know, when you call me Adelia Louise, I don’t mind it nearly as much as I do when Aunt Pearl does,” she teased.
This woman.
“Addy,” he prodded.
A grin broke over her face. “Yes, I will marry you, Lionel Hawthorne.”
“Thank God.” He kissed her swiftly and released her hands, pulling her into his embrace.
When they were both breathless, he lifted his head, gazing down at the woman who had stolen his heart—his wild American hoyden, so perfect for him in every way.
“Merry Christmas,” she said softly, smiling at him.
Christmas. He hadn’t a gift for her. He hadn’t a tree. They were in London at a hotel, where neither of them had intended to be. What a mess he’d made of it all.
“I’m sorry I ruined Christmas,” he told her earnestly. “I’ll make it up to you, darling. I swear it.”
She cupped his cheek. “You didn’t ruin it, Lion. This is the best Christmas I’ve ever known.”
Dandy pawed at his leg, but he ignored her, all his attention upon her mama instead.
He kissed Addy again, smiling against her lips. “Yet.”