Chapter 8
He couldn't possibly wait. Three weeks of proper courtship was going to kill him. Henry stared across the breakfast table at Margaret, who was laughing at something Tessie said, and his chest tightened with wanting.
Three weeks had passed since she’d agreed to come to London—three weeks of doing everything properly.
Drives in Hyde Park. Carefully chaperoned calls in his drawing room.
Theatre visits where her laughter stayed with him long after the curtain fell.
And every day, restraint—polite, maddening restraint—while he fell deeper in love and she still held a careful distance, testing whether this could be real.
In London, they’d found a rhythm. During morning visits, they sat in his library and argued about books.
In afternoon drives, her hand rested on his arm, and they pointed out absurdities that made each other laugh.
Come to think of it, he’d laughed more with her in three weeks than in the past three years.
Every day, they shared evening dinners where her siblings chattered and he watched her smile, falling deeper in love with every passing day.
But they were never alone. Not really. Tessie, Matthew, and Anna were always there, wide-eyed chaperones who took their duties seriously when the staff didn’t follow his ducal instructions too well.
And Margaret still held back, no doubt cautious, waiting to be certain this was real.
So, he’d invited her to Rosewood Hall, his London residence.
Not the townhouse, but the one with a ballroom he was convinced he could never fill without her as his duchess.
He’d orchestrated a weekend house party with his aunts in residence, and a few select guests for propriety’s sake.
All to give her the perfect opportunity to see his new world and imagine herself in it.
To decide, finally, if she could bear to be his duchess.
They'd arrived yesterday, and his aunts had immediately declared war.
"Your Grace," Aunt Agnes said, her voice cutting through his thoughts. "Lady Pemberton asked after you yesterday. Such a charming woman. Her daughter plays the pianoforte beautifully."
Henry didn't look at his aunt, keeping his gaze on Margaret, who'd gone very still. "I'm sure she does."
“We’ve arranged a musicale for this evening. All the young ladies will be performing. I do hope you’ll attend.”
“Of course.” Because refusing would only make things worse.
Margaret’s eyes met his across the table. Understanding flickered there. And something that looked like resignation.
His jaw clenched.
After breakfast, he tried to corner her in the library, but Aunt Agnes appeared within minutes, suggesting Margaret might like to see the rose garden.
He tried again at luncheon, but the room was full of guests, all watching, all judging.
Once more, he tried on the terrace, but before Margaret’s hand could even touch his sleeve, Aunt Agnes materialized. “Lady Margaret, your sisters require you.”
No cries followed and no urgent footsteps, just that careful blankness sliding into place on Margaret’s face like armor.
Henry managed a bow that felt like swallowing glass.
This wasn’t chaperoning. This was sabotage of his courtship.
At luncheon, Margaret “accidentally” dropped her napkin.
Henry retrieved it before the footman could move. For one heartbeat, their fingers brushed. Her thumb pressed once against his knuckle. Quick. Secret.
Tonight. Don’t give up.
Later, he found a note tucked beneath his teacup: I am sorry. I am not refusing you. I am surviving them. He kept it in his pocket like a talisman, the only thing that kept him sane later, when his aunts’ musicale commenced with all the subtlety of a military campaign.
Every unmarried young lady in three counties had been invited—a parade of potential duchesses. A reminder of what he could have if he’d just stop being stubborn about the widow from the countryside.
Henry sat through three pianoforte performances that made his ears ache, a harp recital that lasted a geological age, and a soprano whose ambition far exceeded her skill and whose high notes could shatter crystal.
His gaze kept drifting to Margaret at the back of the room, spine straight, hands folded in her lap, enduring the torture with stoic grace.
Three weeks of proper courtship. Three weeks of stolen glances and careful touches and wanting her so badly he could barely breathe.
Enough!
When a certain Miss Carnie began her third encore, Margaret’s eyes met his across the room. She tilted her head toward the door. The smallest, most deliberate movement.
Then she rose and slipped out.
Henry’s heart kicked.
He waited exactly three minutes. Long enough to be discreet.
Then he stood. “Forgive me. I require some air.”
No one tried to stop him.
He followed her through the terrace doors, down the steps, into the moonlit garden, where shadows pooled and the air smelled of roses and possibility.
Her lavender dress glowed silver in the moonlight.
She’d chosen a bench tucked into a corner, private and hidden, facing a fountain that burbled softly.
“Margaret,” he said, barely more than a whisper.
Her head turned, and her eyes offered relief. Warmth. Hunger.
“Henry.” His name on her lips felt like coming home. “Isn’t this lovely?”
“The music is dreadful, don’t be kind, it’s simply—” He realized she looked up. She meant the garden. The moon.
The world melted away. He only had eyes for her. “Absolutely stunning.”
Her cheeks flushed. “I’m sorry for abandoning the entertainment, but the gardens were calling.”
“Oh, you mean Miss Carnie’s singing overwhelmed you with emotion? You needed a quiet place to contemplate its beauty?”
Her lips twitched. “Perhaps I was slightly overcome.”
“I don’t blame you, though I should warn you—if she continues much longer, the apocalypse will commence.”
She laughed. Actually laughed. The sound went straight to his chest and lodged there. He’d missed that laugh. Even after three weeks of seeing her daily, he’d missed hearing her laugh like she did in the countryside.
“We’re being terrible,” she managed. “She’s a sweet girl.”
“I’m sure she’s delightful when she’s not murdering Mozart.” He gestured to the bench. “May I?”
“Please.”
The bench was large enough to maintain proper distance. He sat close instead, close enough that their thighs almost touched.
She shivered.
“Cold?”
“A little. I forgot my wrap.”
He shrugged out of his coat and settled it over her shoulders. Their hands touched as she pulled the lapels close.
Three weeks of touches like this. Brief. Proper. Never enough. He was going mad. He deserved a medal for his restraint.
“I’ve been trying to find a moment alone with you all day,” he said.
“Have you?” Her voice had gone soft. Breathless.
“Every moment since we arrived.” He turned to her. “Margaret, I need to know—are you happy here? Could you see yourself living here?”
Her breath caught. “I don’t know.”
“Is it the house? The title? My aunts?” He ran his free hand through his hair. “Because I can’t change the first two, but I can absolutely do something about the third.”
A startled laugh escaped her. “You can’t exile your aunts.”
“Watch me.”
“Henry—”
“I’m serious. Since we arrived, I’ve barely seen you alone. Every time I try to talk to you, someone appears. It’s like breaching a fortress.”
“They’re protecting you.”
“From happiness?” The word came out sharp as a blade.
“Because that’s what you are. Three weeks, Margaret.
We’ve had three weeks of proper courtship.
Of sitting across from each other at breakfast and not being able to touch.
Of chaperoned drives and stolen glances.
Now we’re here, it’s worse than ever because my aunts are determined to keep us apart. ”
Her thumb stroked across his knuckles. Small. Deliberate. Devastating.
“You’re right,” she said. “I have been uncomfortable. Not because of the house. Because I keep waiting for someone to point out that I don’t belong here.”
“You belong with me.” He lifted her chin and made her look at him. “Three weeks, Margaret, and I’m still certain. I’ve been certain since that morning in your kitchen. So tell me—what do you need? What will it take for you to believe this?”
“Henry—”
“I have the special license. It’s sitting in my desk. Ready whenever you are.” His voice went rough. “But I can’t keep doing this. I can’t keep pretending that sitting three feet away from you at dinner is enough. That stolen glances are sufficient. That I’m not going out of my mind wanting you.”
“I want you, too,” she whispered.
The words hit him like a physical blow. “Then why are we waiting?” He cupped her face. “Why are we torturing ourselves with propriety when we both know how this ends?”
“Because I need to be certain.” Her eyes searched his. “I need to know this isn’t just—”
“Just what?”
“Just wanting proximity. Just—” She stopped. “I need to know you see me. Not the widow. Not the woman who comes with burdens. Me.”
“I see you.” He leaned closer. “I’ve seen you since the pea conversation. Since you looked at me like I was worth knowing instead of just a title. Since you let me help with your father-in-law. I see you, Margaret. All of you. And I choose you. Every day. Every moment.”
“Henry—”
He kissed her.
Three weeks of restraint shattered in an instant.
His mouth claimed hers, desperate and demanding. She gasped against his lips, and he deepened the kiss, tasting her, drowning in her.
Her hands slid into his hair and pulled him closer. She met him with equal hunger.
This wasn’t the sweet kiss in her kitchen with siblings upstairs. This was three weeks of wanting compressed into a single moment. Three weeks of proper touches and stolen glances and going rigid as he thought of her.
He pulled her closer, and she came willingly, melting against him. The coat fell from her shoulders. Neither of them cared. His hand found the curve of her waist, then her ribs, then the swell of her breast through fabric.
She gasped and arched into his touch, making a sound that shot straight through him.
He traced the edge of her neckline and felt her shiver, felt his own control fracturing. “Tell me to stop,” he managed against her mouth.
“Don’t stop.” Her fingers twisted in his hair. “Please, Henry. Don’t stop.”
His thumb brushed over her nipple through the fabric. She moaned.
He kissed her jaw, her throat, the sensitive spot below her ear that made her gasp.
“Margaret,” he breathed against her skin. “Marry me. Tomorrow. I have the license. We don’t have to wait. Just say yes and—”
Gravel crunched.
They stilled.
Margaret’s eyes went wide. Henry’s hand tightened at her waist.
“Oh, gracious dear!” The voice cut through the night like a blade.
Margaret pulled back from Henry, heart hammering as she turned to face the garden path.
Aunt Agnes stood there with theatrical shock written across her face, her ridiculous feathered turban bobbing indignantly. Behind her stood the vicar’s wife and Mrs. Henderson—the biggest gossip in three counties.
Henry stepped forward, already opening his mouth to speak.
Margaret stopped him with a hand on his arm. “No,” she said quietly. Then louder, to the women watching, “Let me.”
She stepped past Henry and faced the three women, who were already composing tomorrow’s gossip in their heads, already deciding how to tell the story of the scheming widow who’d trapped another man.
“Before you say anything,” Margaret said, voice steady despite the way her hands shook, “let me save you the trouble of speculation. Yes, we were kissing. Yes, we were alone. Yes, this looks improper.”
She lifted her chin. “But I didn’t trap him.
I didn’t scheme or manipulate or set this up.
Henry has been courting me for three weeks—openly, with chaperones and propriety and every rule you could possibly demand.
He invited me here. He’s had a special license ready since the day I arrived in London. If anyone’s been trapped, it’s mutual.”
The vicar’s wife blinked. “Lady Margaret—”
“I know what you’re thinking. Poor widow catches a duke. How convenient. How calculated.” Margaret’s voice went hard. “But I’ve spent three weeks trying to decide if I could bear this—his world, his title, his aunts who look at me like I’m something they scraped off their shoes.”
Aunt Agnes sputtered. “How dare you—”
“How dare I what? Tell the truth?” Margaret laughed, the sound bitter. “I’ve been performing for too long to please women like you. No more hypocrisy for me! I’m done pretending.”
She turned to Henry. His eyes blazed with an intensity that made her chest tight.
“Henry asked me to marry him weeks ago. I said no—not because I don’t want him, but because I was terrified of being trapped again.
Of making another mistake. Of marrying someone who’d regret me.
” Her voice cracked, but she steadied it.
“Tonight, kissing him, being with him, I realized something. I’m not trapped.
I’m choosing. For the first time in my life, I get to choose. And I choose him.”
She turned back to the women. “So yes, we’re engaged. The wedding will be soon. You’re all invited if you can be civil about it. If not, you can gossip all you like. I don’t care anymore.”
Silence hung in the garden like a held breath.
Then Henry was beside her, his hand finding hers and squeezing. “What she said.” His voice carried a ducal authority that made people listen. “Though I’ll add that if anyone speaks ill of my future wife, they’ll answer to me. And I can be considerably less civil than Margaret when provoked.”
Mrs. Henderson’s eyes were wide, as she doubtless calculated how to spin this story for maximum drama.
The vicar’s wife cleared her throat. “Well, this is certainly unexpected.”
“Is it?” Henry asked. “I’ve been courting her openly for weeks. The only unexpected part is that you all thought you could stop it.”
Aunt Agnes’s face turned purple. “Your Grace, this is highly irregular—”
“Then we’ll be irregular together.” He pulled Margaret closer. “The wedding will be in three days. You’re welcome to attend or not. Your choice.”
He looked down at Margaret. “Shall we go inside? I believe we have a wedding to plan.”
She nodded, unable to speak past the lump in her throat.
They walked past the three women, heads high and hands clasped. Behind them, she heard Mrs. Henderson whisper something to the vicar’s wife, the beginning of tomorrow’s gossip.
But for the first time in her life, Margaret didn’t care.
She’d chosen. Finally, completely chosen.
And it felt like freedom.