Chapter 27 #2
He shook his head. “I didn’t give up. I begged every friend, distant relation, and casual acquaintance I had to help me find some form of gainful employment.
But let’s face it—I had the worst reputation imaginable.
I wasn’t a strong candidate for the church or for business.
And, with the war over, there was already a surplus of officers.
I was running out of options. I tried to call on your father a dozen times, to throw myself on his mercy, but he was always out.
I wrote to him, too, sometimes twice a day. But I never received a response.”
Rosalie squeezed his hand. “He mentioned that. He said he was so busy negotiating the Appropriation Act that he didn’t even open your letters until after you had left the country.”
Lucian bit back a curse. “I wish I had known that. After a while, I concluded that his silence was his answer. He’d told me not to come back if I couldn’t secure the living, after all.
My landlord was after me for the unpaid rent.
But it happened that one of the school friends I had approached to beg for help finding a living was about to leave for Italy.
He kindly offered to let me accompany him.
As it was the only offer I had, and as it was becoming clear that I needed to disappear in the dead of the night in order to avoid the horde of debt collectors who would soon be descending upon me, I accepted. ”
“I went and found Reeves,” he continued.
“That bit was also a lie. There was never any wager between the two of us. I explained that I had begged your father for your hand, and he had refused. Happily, he had yet to place a bet of his own, so he didn’t stand to lose anything.
I must have been a pitiable sight indeed, because he immediately pledged to keep what he had witnessed to himself. ”
His voice grew gruff as he said, “That just left one more matter to attend to. You. I tried to come up with the kindest approach I possibly—”
“Kindest?” Rosalie’s pale eyes sparked as if they contained pent-up lightning. “There was nothing kind about what you did!”
He hung his head. “I know. I’m an idiot.
My hope was that you would cry about it for an hour, but then you would conclude that I had never been worthy of you, and that you were well shot of me.
I hoped that, by exposing myself as the worst kind of louse, you would thank your lucky stars that I was gone from your life.
You would move on. You would find love with someone else.
I would be miserable for the rest of my life, because I already knew that you were the only woman on the face of this earth for me.
But that was all right, so long as you were happy.
” He gave her a sad smile. “All I had to do was be the biggest heel on the face of this earth for the space of ten minutes.”
She huffed. “Well, if that was your goal, you did a fine job.”
He gave her a sad smile. “And yet, I didn’t. I could tell as soon as I saw you again that I had wounded you. I’m so sorry, Rosalie. I know it’s difficult to believe, but I was attempting to do you a kindness.”
Her eyes were full of hurt. “It is never a kindness to take my choices away. I don’t care how unpleasant the thing you think to spare me from might be. I am not a child, Lucian. I always wish to be told, to be given the chance to decide for myself.”
He sighed. “I do know that, but in this one instance, when there was the potential to spare you such a degree of pain, I felt justified. It’s not as if the outcome would have been any different, had I told you the truth.”
She did not respond right away, and when she finally spoke, her voice shook. “I would have gone with you to Gretna Green without a second’s hesitation.”
He absorbed her words like a punch to the heart. It took him a moment—a long one—to regain the ability to speak. “But, Rosalie… This was before I inherited the title. I had nothing. No money, no prospects.” He gave a hopeless laugh. “I was just… some wastrel.”
Her jaw took on a mulish set. “You were the only man who really looked at me, who saw me for who I was. And who actually liked what he saw.”
“But…” Words failed him. It couldn’t be true. It just couldn’t. “Your father disapproved. I know how important he is to you, how close the two of you are. I would never have asked you to put that relationship at risk.”
Her voice was clear and tremulous in its conviction. “I would have chosen you.”
He shook his head. “You were only marrying me because Reeves discovered us together. Because you didn’t have any choice.”
She lifted her chin. “Now, hear this, Lucian Deverell. I am Lady Rosalie de Lacy, and no one ‘forces’ me to do anything. I was marrying you because. I. Wanted. To.” She punctuated each word with a jab to his chest. “And no one, not even my bear of a father, could have prevented me.”
Another time, Lucian would have smirked and pointed out that she wasn’t Lady Rosalie de Lacy anymore. That she was Rosalie, Lady Valentine. But he found that his head was swimming and the room had gone blurry, and he was entirely too busy trying to stay upright to be capable of speech.
Vaguely, as if from a distance, he heard her saying his name. “Lucian? Lucian, are you all right?”
He blinked, struggling to clear his eyes. “You would have chosen me,” he gasped.
She swam back into focus. Her eyes were blazing. “Yes. I would have.”
He felt like he might cast his accounts all over the Axminster carpet. “We could have been happy these past two years. Instead of…”
Her eyes had an I-told-you-so quality. “Yes. Instead of.”
He buried his face in his hands. “God. I’m such a fucking idiot. I’m so sorry, Rosalie.”
She stroked his back. When he managed to raise his head, she gave him an arch look.
“Indeed. And while we are on the subject of your idiocy, why am I only learning all this tonight? Do you have any idea how stressful the past two weeks have been for me? Feeling unable to trust the man I was expected to marry? Why did you not tell me at once what really happened?”
His shoulders relaxed a fraction. “Ah. That one, I can explain.”
She crossed her arms. “The same way you explained away your decision to break my heart instead of telling me the truth?”
He held out a hand. “Picture the night of our betrothal ball. Can you imagine if I had strolled up to you and said, ‘Good evening, Rosalie. Don’t worry about all that rot I told you in the conservatory two years ago. I was lying. I’ve really loved you this whole time?
’” He shook his head. “You would have tossed a glass of champagne in my face.”
“I most certainly would not have done!” She fixed him with a poisonous glower. “I would have smashed you over the head with a candelabra.”
He couldn’t help it. He grinned.
“That’s my girl,” he said, his voice emerging a bit gruff.
“Clever thing that you are, I knew you would figure out the truth yourself, and that, while you would immediately distrust anything that came out of my mouth, you are too logical and fair-minded to deny the evidence that is plainly before you, even when it contradicted your own hypothesis.”
She elbowed him in the side. “Quit trying to sway me with compliments.”
He quirked a brow. “Is it working?”
She glowered at him. “You know full well it is. And what do you mean, you’ve loved me this whole time?
” She was doing her best to look angry, but Lucian didn’t miss the tremble of her lip or the fact that she was blinking rapidly.
“Is that your notion of a declaration? I would have thought such a legendary Lothario—and Lord Valentine, on Valentine’s Day! —could do better.”
He smiled at her. “Right you are, my darling Rosalie. As usual.” Abruptly, he wrapped her up in his arms, then rolled her back onto the mattress, pinning her beneath him.
He kissed her with every ounce of love that he’d kept bottled up inside of him these past two years.
When he lifted his head, they were both breathing hard.
“I love you.” His voice broke as he added, “So much. I know I’ve made a mess of things. But I intend to spend the next fifty-some-odd years making it up to you.”
“You’d bloody well better,” she replied, the anger in her voice offset by the great sniff she gave.
Tenderly, he brushed an errant curl back from her forehead. “Shall I start now?” he asked, flexing his hips in suggestion of a possible way he might demonstrate his ardor.
“No!” she snapped. “Or… yes, but not until I’ve had the chance…”
Lucian was all curiosity. “The chance?” he prompted.
She had flushed red. He loved that about her, the way she always blushed. Her inability to conceal her emotions from him.
She looked down and said in a rush, “The chance to tell you.”
He certainly liked the sound of that. “The chance to tell me what, my darling?”
He could tell she had to force herself to look him in the eye. “That I love you, too.”
Warmth washed over him, in spite of the chill of the room. He felt like he had drawn his first full breath in two years.
Rosalie had gone fuzzy beneath him. “Lucian?” she said, squinting up at him. “Are you… crying?”
“I suppose I am,” he admitted, swiping at his eyes. “I just… I thought… I was so afraid that you could never…” He trailed off, unable to explain.
Although judging by the knowing gleam in her eyes, she understood.
“As you should have been.” Her tart tone was offset by the fingers she stroked through the hair at the nape of his neck. “You took a terrible risk, you know. What if we hadn’t found our way back to one another? We could have spent our entire lives apart!”
“That would have been a tragedy.” He framed her face. “What a pale shadow of a life I would have stumbled through without you.”
“There now. That’s much better.” She must be softening toward him, because she had looped her arms around his neck. “More the sort of thing a woman expects to hear from Lord Valentine on Valentine’s Day.”
“Alas, I’m no poet. But I can promise you this.
I will show you, not with words, but with deeds, the love and esteem in which I hold you, every day for the rest of our lives.
” He paused, studying her beautiful face.
“Do you think you can ever forgive me?” he asked, his voice deep. “Really forgive me, I mean?”
She blew at the stubborn wisp of hair that kept falling across her forehead. “I already have, you blasted man. You’re too charming by half.” Her eyes softened. “And, considering what my father said, I suppose… I can understand.”
Oh, God. He’d been so afraid he would never hear those words, so afraid they would never reach this point. He felt as if his heart might burst. Was this what perfect, incandescent happiness felt like? He wouldn’t know, as he’d never felt it before, but he rather thought it was.
It seemed like a more likely explanation than dyspepsia.
When he spoke, his voice was none too steady. “Thank you for giving me this chance. I promise you, Rosalie, you will never have cause to regret it.”
He leaned down to kiss her, but just when things were starting to get interesting, her lips curled beneath his, forming a smile. “What is it?” he asked, lifting his head.
“You threatened to throw Great-Aunt Millicent out on her arse!” Rosalie said, looking partially outraged and partially amused.
“I did.” Lucian barked out a laugh. “You have no idea how hard it was to keep a straight face while I said it.”
Rosalie swiped at a tear, this one, he fancied, of the happy sort. “I thought you an utter villain.”
“Oh, I am.” He reached low, sliding his hand beneath her bottom and pressing her hips into the bulge that had formed beneath the falls of his trousers. “Admit it—you enjoy my wicked side.”
Rosalie had begun to squirm beneath him. “I do, God help me.” She fixed him with a pointed look. “But there will be no more cavorting with other women.”
He stroked her cheek. “No. No, there will not. I don’t want anyone but you.”
“Good,” she said. “Good.” She was trying to act nonchalant, his tough-as-nails Rosalie.
But he did not miss the sheen in her eyes, nor the trembling of her lip.
“In fact,” he said, “as the new Lord Valentine, I feel as though I have an obligation to the ton.”
“And what’s that?” she asked, her voice slightly breathless.
He ran his thumb across her lower lip. “To do something very unfashionable, indeed. I’m going to demonstrate what it’s like when a man is completely, utterly, hopelessly devoted to his wife.”
Rosalie smiled and arched a brow. “Can you do it?”
“I can,” he said as his lips descended upon hers.
On this occasion, Lucian was right. He could.
And he did.