Chapter Six #2
Byron crossed his arms as she began to pace. “I have a violinist in the garden. And flowers. Cherry blossoms. Those trees are deceptively high, you know. The branches are hell to cut. I almost lost a thumb. If we can just go out there—”
“I’m sure everything is lovely.” Digging her palm into her breastbone, she took a deep breath. “But I don’t want to go outside. Not yet. Not until I tell you this.”
“You’ve finally found my flask.”
She stopped mid-step to roll her eyes at him. “This is serious, Byron.”
“I can see that, Jacqueline,” he said quietly. “But I can assure you that nothing you have to tell me in here is going to change what I have planned out there. Nothing. Do you hear me? So if we can skip—”
“I’m an orphan,” she blurted.
“I assumed as much, given that Lord and Lady Kentwood are your guardians.” He canted his head. “Jacqueline, what’s this all about? Because if you don’t want to marry me, you can just say it, I’ll collect my cherry blossoms, and be on my way. You needn’t make up an excuse.”
“It isn’t an excuse! It’s . . . my past. It’s me.
I’m not . . . I wasn’t . . .” She helplessly spread her arms out to the side.
“I wasn’t born into this life. My father was a degenerate gambler.
I think. If he was even who my mother said he was.
She could have just made up a name and no one would have known the difference.
No one would have cared. No one did care about her, or him, or me.
I was born in the slums of St Giles. I was illiterate until the age of fourteen.
Or fifteen. Or thirteen. I don’t even know how old I am.
If not for Kitty, I’d still be in the slums. I’m not a lady, Byron.
I never was. I never will be. And I . . .
I’m not sure if you know that. I’m not sure if you want that. ”
He studied her in silence for a minute.
The longest minute of her entire life.
Then slowly, purposefully, he lowered himself onto bended knee and held out his hand.
“This would have been better with the violin and cherry blossoms, but I’ll make the best of it.
I love you, Jacqueline. I would say that your past doesn’t matter, but that wouldn’t be true, because it does.
It matters immensely, as it helped shape you into the wild, captivating, infuriating woman that you are.
The woman that I’ve fallen madly in love with.
The woman I refuse to live without. Marry me. ”
She’d heard it said that right before you died, all of your memories replayed in your mind.
To the best of her knowledge, no one had ever mentioned it happening during a marriage proposal.
But in a blur of sight and sound, she saw herself as a child, her stomach tight with hunger and the bowl in front of her scraped clean of gruel.
She was a girl disguised as a boy, her attention drawn to a fancy blonde lady sitting on a bench with a sparkling bauble on her wrist. She was a young woman, her tongue twisting around her r’s as she struggled to improve her speech.
She was an adult, gazing down into the dark-brown eyes of the man who had stolen the one thing she’d spent her entire life guarding so fiercely.
Her heart.
“If you were a baron. Or even a viscount. But a duke. You had to be a duke. And I’m not made to be a duchess, Byron. I’m simply not.”
Those dark brown eyes narrowed. “You were made to be my duchess, Jacqueline.”
“People will talk!” she cried.
“As if that’s stopped you from doing anything before.”
“Kitty will never let me hear the end of it.”
“She’ll be happy that you’re happy.”
“I don’t want to host balls and plan tea parties.” Her nose wrinkled. “I’d rather scoop out my eyeball with a dull spoon.”
The corners of Byron’s mouth twitched. “As beautiful as you’d look with an eyepatch, if you don’t want to have a ball, then we won’t.
We’ll travel the world together instead.
There’s so much to see, Jacqueline. And I want to see it all with you.
But my calf is beginning to cramp, so if you could make up your mind, I would greatly appreciate it. ”
She bit her lip. Then she took his hand. “I do love you, Byron. Even if you are a duke.”
“I’m going to take that incredibly romantic reply as a yes to my proposal,” he said dryly before he stood up and pulled her into his arms for a kiss. The room spun as he twirled her around before he kissed her again, and would have gone on kissing her had she not broken free.
“Wait!” she exclaimed.
“If you’re changing your mind already—”
“It’s not that. I have your flask.” Dashing out of the room, she raced up the stairs and returned breathless a moment later with the flask. But when she held it out to him, Byron frowned and refused to take it.
“I don’t need it anymore.”
“Why not?” she demanded, driving her heel into the carpet. “This is what you’ve been badgering me about since we met!”
“Because I have you,” he said simply, and the flask fell forgotten to the floor when he took her into his arms.
The End