Chapter Seventeen
May 31, 1815
Sutcliffe House
Manchester Square
Mayfair, London
“Get your arse up, Ravenhurst.”
He cracked open an eye to find his valet staring at him. “Go ‘way.” Rain drummed against the windows, and with the overcast gloom in the room, all he wanted to do was go back to sleep…
…and forget.
But Akers was quite stubborn. “Get your arse up. In two hours, Miss Hardesty will marry Inglehart, and every dream you’ve ever had will die as soon as that happens.”
“I know. Go ‘way.” Alexander didn’t want to think about it, didn’t want to know that across Mayfair, the woman he’d fallen hard for would soon become someone else’s wife. “Not my concern.”
The valet shook his shoulder. Violently. “It is your concern because since the moment you sent her away, you’ve been balancing on the razor’s edge of a wicked temper. Additionally, you let all of an hour pass before you ordered the whole damned household back to London.” Again, he shook Alexander’s shoulder. “Those are not actions of a man who doesn’t care about a woman.”
With a growl, Alex threw off the bedclothes and pushed his body into a sitting position. “I wanted to be in London. There was no purpose in staying in Essex.”
“Ah, well at least you are upright.”
“And partially hung over,” he couldn’t resist adding, for his head pounded and his mouth felt as if a cotton rag had been stuffed in it.
“Mmm, because nothing says a man’s thrown his hat over the windmill quite like trying to drink himself into oblivion.” Akers tsked his tongue. “I’ll have you know, you cast up your accounts in the dressing room last night, so that was waiting for me this morning.”
Damn.
“My apologies.” Then he glanced down at himself. Apparently, he’d gone to bed still in breeches and his shirt, and that shirt reeked of brandy and vomit. “You want me to interrupt the ceremony.” It wasn’t a question.
“I do, but first you’re going to need a bath, which is why it’s being prepared in the other room.”
“Why?”
The valet waggled his eyebrows. “Why the bath? You stink. Or why the ceremony?” When Alexander glowered, Akers snorted. “You love that woman, and unless I miss my guess, she returns the feelings. Go rescue her, talk sense into her so she can do the same to you, and if all else fails, kiss the sanity from her, fuck her if you want. The pair of you must rub along well in that way since you bedded her nearly every day that she was here.”
“But that was—”
“Don’t give me that rubbish about it being part of your revenge plot. I’m not the nodcock you apparently are.” So saying, Akers tugged at Alexander’s sleeve until he removed himself from the bed. “Come now. Let’s clean you up, get you shaved and cut your hair. You should look your best when you ask the lady for her hand.”
“What?” Shock plowed into his chest, and he didn’t resist when the other man helped him to remove his soiled shirt.
“Indeed. Get her from the marquess’ clutches then marry her yourself.” One of the valet’s eyebrows went up in challenge. “And no more of this ending your own life talk. You have much to live for now.”
How the hell did the man know about that intention? He shook his head. “My title’s reputation is besmirched by lies and the coffers are nearly empty. What do I have to offer a woman?”
“Start with yourself, speak from the heart, and go from there.” Akers shoved at Alexander’s shoulder. “We have much to do and time is growing thin.”
Dear God, I’m not ready.
Devonsfield House
Grosvenor Square
Mayfair, London
“This is a fool’s errand.” Alexander sat in his closed carriage in front of Inglehart’s townhouse as he checked his double-barreled pistol. Yes, both balls were in place, in the event he needed them this morning. There was every possibility Madeline would refuse him on the spot, for she could prove quite stubborn when she wanted, but there was nothing for it. He wanted her in all the ways that mattered, and he couldn’t wait any longer. Then tucking the weapon into the side of his right boot, he sprang from the vehicle, hunching his shoulders against the rain. To the driver, he said, “This shouldn’t take but a half hour at most.”
“I’ll be just fine waiting, Your Grace.”
“Excellent.” For he might need a quick getaway. Why the hell had he let Akers talk him into this bit of insanity? He went to scratch his fingers through his beard as he strode up the short walkway to the black-painted door but realized at the last second that he was now clean shaven, and his hair had been trimmed and styled into respectability. “I don’t feel myself.” And without the whiskers, he couldn’t hide.
Would she think him attractive?
He’d barely knocked on the door before a reed-thin fellow opened it. The man peered over the rims of his half-moon spectacles at Alexander. “I am here to attend the nuptial ceremony,” he said without pause.
“And you are?”
“The Duke of Ravenhurst.” It had been ages since he’d announced himself with the title and felt pride as he did so.
“I was given strict orders not to let you in, Your Grace.”
“I see.” Alexander cocked an eyebrow then pointed to the pistol in the side of his boot. “If you think you can survive a ball to the head, by all means try to prevent me.” As the older man stood back, he nodded. “That’s what I thought. Now, where are they?”
“Drawing room,” the butler gasped. “Should be underway momentarily.”
“Over my dead fucking body,” he murmured as he raced along the corridor toward the grand staircase. Then, taking the treads two at a time, Alexander kept going until he had gained the second level and loped down the hall. The double doors to the drawing room were open. A drone of voices within betrayed the fact there were more than two people within.
For a handful of seconds, he paused at the rear of the room. Madeline stood in front of the cold fireplace with Inglehart next to her as a man dressed in a black suit— presumably the clergyman—opened a leatherbound book. A few other people were present, no doubt to serve as witnesses, and he assumed one of them was her brother, but the scene wasn’t what caught and held his attention.
It was Madeline herself.
Clad in a taffeta gown of sky blue with some sort of white gauzy overskirt, the bodice sparkled with tiny clear beads lining it. They also decorated the hem and shimmered each time she drew breath. Her light brown hair had been arranged in an elaborate upswept style, and there was a white ostrich feather stuck into it as adornment. White silk gloves hugged her arms to the elbows. Yet as he stared, he noticed a faint red mark decorating her left cheek with slight bruising forming there. It stood out due to the paleness in her cheeks.
Damn it all to hell. Protection rose in his being. Had her brother hit her or Inglehart? His chest tightened to the point of pain to match the incessant ache around his heart. It didn’t matter, because both would feel his rage this morning.
“Madeline, stop!” Every person in that room focused on him as he came into the space, but he ignored them all in order to concentrate on her. Though desperation and anger fueled his footsteps, the thirst for revenge drove him, kept him upright while his head continued to pound, but there was a force deep down inside that overruled all that. He loved her, and she was his. Nothing else would be tolerated. When he reached the nuptial pair, he met her shocked gaze. “There is something I would say to you.”
“Alexander?” Madeline narrowed her eyes and peered at him, her gaze roving over his face. Then she gasped. “It is you. I scarcely recognized you.”
At once, the marquess—who was a big, hulking man—moved in front of her, blocking Alexander’s view of her and a man with the same color hair as Madeline launched out of his chair and came over to the gathering.
Inglehart growled a warning. “Leave at once. I’ve won, and she is mine.”
“I don’t believe you’ve said vows yet, Inglehart,” Alexander said but kept his focus on her. “I am a duke, and this will not go forward until I’ve said my piece.”
The other man chopped a hand through the air. “If you think to sway my sister away after the contracts have been signed—”
He moved so quickly the other man didn’t finish his statement. Drawing the pistol from his boot, he aimed it at the viscount. “Again, I have the higher rank of both of you, and it is my right to tell the bride what I would. Unless you want a ball in your forehead.” As her brother took a few steps backward, he swung the pistol around to point at the marquess. “If you wish for the same, you’ll let me speak with her for a few minutes.”
The marquess didn’t answer but he glanced at someone in the doorway of the drawing room. “Go find a constable.”
“Arsehole,” Alexander muttered beneath his breath. He took one of Madeline’s hands in his free one and tugged her away from his enemy. “I must speak with you. Quite urgently.”
She shook her head. “I don’t understand why you are here. There is nothing else to say.” Yet the sadness and longing in the mossy depths of her eyes said otherwise.
“I rather think there is.” God, how could she go through with this? With his pistol still pointed at the marquess, he ignored everything else and talked to her. “Choose me instead.”
“What?” Confusion etched through her expression. “Choose you for what?”
He couldn’t fault her for wanting clarity. “Choose me, for a lifetime.” Then he blew out a breath when Inglehart growled. It was now or never. Though fear played his spine with icy fingers, if he wanted her, he had to fight. “I cannot let the woman I love marry this bounder and quite possibly face death like his two other wives.”
That apparently set off the marquess, for he sprang at him, grabbed Alexander about the middle and tried to toss him away from Madeline. “That is none of your concern. I need a wife and an heir, so Miss Hardesty’s brother and I struck a deal.”
An heir. Alexander trembled. It was entirely possible Madeline even now carried his babe, borne from his seed, from one of their many couplings, and damn if he would let any child of his bear the Inglehart title. Where that had been part of his initial plan of revenge, he wanted that life, wanted her, wanted to have children with her.
Because he simply couldn’t exist without her.
“Oh, I’m sure you did, and that arrangement was from the very devil, just like all your dealings.” He refused to be thwarted. Once more bringing up his pistol, he cocked one of the barrels, which caused Inglehart to back down. “I am not finished.” Again, he sought out Madeline’s gaze. “Over the course of the week, I have fallen in love with you.” With flagging courage, he cleared his throat. “I thought you should know.”
And he deserved the right to say it.
“You love me.” Shock lined her face, but it was the light of hope in her eyes that bolstered his bravery and nurtured his own hope. Then her expression fell when the viscount made an objection from the side. “But Richard is correct. I’ve promised to wed Inglehart. Coin has exchanged hands. Contracts have been signed.”
So everyone in the room kept saying, which was a good sign that the marquess had threatened all these people within an inch of their lives. He had to break her free from him.
“Surely you can’t truly mean to go through with this after everything!” Why was she so damned willful? Yes, it was a trait he adored from her, but it was also bloody frustrating. Perhaps she was held captive by fear, just like he had been all these years. “Not now, especially.” If the ache around his heart didn’t cease, he feared he might suffer an apoplexy. “The man is a blackguard! You know what he did!”
“I do, and—”
“That is quite enough.” A roar issued from Inglehart. “Get out, Ravenhurst. You’ve lost. Miss Hardesty belongs to me—hell, after today, I’ll own her brother as well—regardless of your machinations to postpone the wedding.” Victory flashed in his dark eyes. “Once again, something you love is mine, and I’ll do what I please with her. It’s none of your concern. But you’re welcome to witness the ceremony, at least until the constable arrives.”
That same mocking expression, that same look in the other man’s eyes had been the last thing Alexander had seen before being rendered unconscious that night long ago when his parents had been brutally murdered.
Not again.
With a tight chest and the pain of remembrance clogging his mind and heart, he uttered a sharp cry, aimed the pistol at the bigger man, and then pulled one of the triggers.
Bang!
The report of the pistol echoed in the space, but Inglehart fell to the Aubusson carpeting with his hands to the wound in his kneecap that Alexander had delivered. Not enough to kill him, obviously, but enough to slow the bastard down. Blood marred the soft colors of pink and pale green in the carpeting, but he grinned, for that had felt all too satisfying.
“Alexander!” The horrified scream from Madeline seemed fitting for the scene while her brother stared with rounded eyes, his body tense as if he would run like a coward and leave his sister. “Please stop.”
“I can’t, not until you hear me out.” He ignored the clergyman who slunk away to the back of the room where he joined a younger man, who was no doubt his clerk. “How can I stand idly by when you would still sacrifice yourself for your bounder of a brother? While you go willingly to your death—or something worse—because of a misplaced sense of honor or responsibility?” He shook his head and let the hand holding the pistol fall to his side. “This last week with you has meant everything. Some would say it’s not been enough time, but they are wrong. Living with you, seeing you, spending time with you, sharing everything with you has been the singular spot of joy in my wretched existence that has gone long ways to restore me in all the ways that matter.”
“Oh, Alexander.” Tears welled in her eyes. “That week has meant everything to me as well. I was inconsolable in the traveling coach when coming back to London. Something precious had slipped from my grasp.”
“Yet, here you are, agreeing to make a deal with that blackguard.” It was difficult to keep the bitterness from his voice; never had he wanted anyone or anything more than he wished for a life with her. “After all your pretty words of encouragement to me over the past week, you will disregard love? Will you walk away from the chance to spend a lifetime with a man who adores you? Who will protect you from every threat or ill? A man who will move heaven and earth if you but ask?” Perhaps he’d waxed poetic a bit, but then, he was quite desperate.
Madeline took a step toward him while the marquess spouted vulgarities from his place on the floor. “What of your thirst for revenge?”
His head pounded, but he ignored that too. “It is still there.” In fact, he wanted to shoot the man dead, but for the love of her, he refrained. “But I have found something I wish to pursue more than that.”
“Truly?” The luminosity of her eyes and the moisture-spiked lashes that framed them nearly brought him to his knees.
“I am coming ‘round to the idea more and more, but there is something I must do first, simply for me.” He left her side to confront the marquess, who had struggled into a seated position on the floor, but he’d managed to wrap his cravat about his knee to stem the bleeding. “You killed my parents, raped my mother, sent me to be shanghaied for years, destroyed my name, and drained my coffers.” He brought his pistol up and trained the nose on Inglehart’s heart. “You owe me your life.”
“Ha!” The marquess sneered. Hate glittered in his eyes. “Except you are nothing, have nothing. I’m living the life you should have had, and in moments, you’ll be hauled out of here, and I will wed the woman you want. After that, she’ll be mine to do with what I will, but if you continue to be a problem, perhaps I’ll fuck her right here at the ceremony’s conclusion so you can watch.”
A swath of hot anger slammed through Alexander’s chest. God, he wanted nothing more than to put a ball through the man’s heart, yet there was Madeline to consider. Could he be a better man for her? Would it make her want him, love him in return?
Beyond that, was there anything left of him to be saved?
“If you do, I’ll kill you, and if you ever think to touch her again, I’ll kill you.” He didn’t care that he sounded beyond possessive, and he didn’t much care. All he wanted was to take Madeline away from this place.
“Ravenhurst, forget about him.” When she laid a hand on his arm, everything fell out of his mind except the heat of her touch and the scent of her perfume sent him back to the days when he’d spent his time with her in the last week, when he’d fallen in love with her. “Is that all you will say to me?” Humor threaded through her inquiry.
“I…” If this was to be his last chance to try and win her, he had to be honest. “You know me, Madeline. I don’t have a fortune or modernized properties. The funds I do have from my time as a mercenary will go toward renovations and repairs to my homes and tenant farmers. I don’t have a sterling reputation any longer, thanks to the lies men like Inglehart and your brother have spread.” He shrugged. “As well as the things I’ve done in my past for one reason or another; it matters not why. So throwing your lot in with me won’t be the life of luxury you deserve or should have.”
“Perhaps I don’t want any of that.”
The ache around his heart grew, for he hadn’t anticipated that she would be so shallow. “I understand.” When the marquess would have moved, Alexander went over and planted a boot on his chest, then aimed the pistol at Inglehart’s head. “Give me a reason, you blackheart. I am not feeling particularly generous just now.”
“You wouldn’t dare; it would be outright murder, and not even your status as duke will save you.” That damned smirk nearly had him pulling the trigger.
“Stop.” Madeline came closer, laid a palm on his chest. “You are not that man any longer.”
“I am, unfortunately, but in a different way perhaps.” His heart continued to fracture from their parting two days ago, for she hadn’t admitted to feelings for him or even that she loved him in return. Had he been so wrong, then? “Is that all you will say to me ?”
“I…” A frown tugged at the corners of her kissable lips. She darted a glance to her brother, who glowered back, then she looked at the marquess who still lay on the floor, pinned in place by Alexander’s boot. “Oh, I truly don’t wish to discuss this now.”
“Ah.” So then, he was naught but a nodcock. He’d uttered words of love and devotion, but she didn’t say them back, didn’t indicate at all that she returned the feelings. The rejection stabbed through his chest with such pain that he couldn’t catch his breath. “Well, at least I took the chance, but it seems fate is done with me. If he is what you want, so be it; I only want your happiness.”
“Get out of my house, Ravenhurst,” the marquess growled. “Leave me to finish the nuptial ceremony.”
“May God damn you to hell, Inglehart.” Then, because he could, Alexander pulled the second trigger.
Bang!
The ball found purchase in the marquess’ shoulder. It would either go through the fleshy part or lodge in bone, but he wouldn’t die. Perhaps he would suffer greatly, and if fate was kind, the man might bleed out. With a groan and another string of curses, Inglehart lay flat on the floor with a hand pressed to the new wound as blood seeped through his gloved fingers, scarlet against the stark white.
Madeline screamed. One of her hands went to her mouth while with the other, she clutched at his arm. “Please stop.”
“I am spent as is my pistol.” When he turned his back on the marquess, he desired to have one last appeal to her. With his free hand, he scooped up hers and squeezed her fingers. “Please say we have a future together, Madeline. Please tell me there is hope after all this, so that my whole history and yours as well as the struggles therein won’t have been in vain. Say you will marry me .”
She gasped. “I…” Seconds later, her eyes rounded and abject fear shadowed the depths. She tried to push him away. “The marquess has a pistol!”
Where the devil he’d procured it, Alexander would never know, but by the time he turned, Inglehart had the nose of it trained on his heart. As their gazes locked, he cocked the weapon.
“Join me in hell, Ravenhurst, or find your parents, it matters not to me.”
Bang!
Madeline’s scream of horror echoed through the room for long, shivering moments.
Well, fuck me. Alexander braced for the pain he knew would come directly, but when that didn’t, he gasped, for the viscount moved, then. He threw himself bodily in front of Alexander, taking the ball in the chest that was meant for him.
“Richard!” Madeline screamed again. She fell to her knees beside her brother, who was bleeding profusely from a gaping hole in his chest; he wouldn’t be long for the world. “Why did you do this?” Tears streamed down her face as she tried in vain to stem the tide of blood with her gloved fingers.
The viscount clutched at one of her hands, holding it tightly. “I do love you, Maddie. In my own way.” His breathing was labored. A bit of blood seeped from the corner of his mouth. “Perhaps now you can forgive me for… everything.”
“No, Richard!” Tears fell, and Alexander’s heart broke all the more for her. If he could take away her pain, he would gladly do that.
The viscount then moved his gaze to Alexander, who had come close, and at a loss, he dropped to his knees on the man’s other side. “Treat her well, Ravenhurst. Give her everything she could ever want.”
“Of course I would, but—”
The other man wasn’t listening, for he fixed his gaze on his sister again. “Maddie, don’t be stubborn.” He paused to suck in a breath. “I’ve not been the best brother…” He struggled to breathe. “Made mistakes…”
“Why did you do this, Richard?” Her tears fell freely now, and Alexander spied the truth in her eyes that she knew her brother wouldn’t survive.
The viscount chuckled, but it was a wet, gurgling affair. “You love the duke. Any fool can see that. I can’t die… knowing you… would be so miserable.” He coughed, and more blood dribbled down his chin. “Be happy, Maddie. Let all of this mean… something.”
Since there wasn’t much anyone could do for him, the viscount slipped away quickly with his open eyes fixed on her face.
“What the devil has happened here?” All eyes in the room went to a man with broad shoulders. “I’m Constable Williams and was told there was a man trying to disrupt a wedding.”
This would soon turn into a farce worthy of Drury Lane. Slowly, Alexander stood while chaos reigned in the room with the constable’s men pouring inside. Tossing his pistol away, Alexander took charge of the situation. “I am the Duke of Ravenhurst.” The pride in that statement hadn’t dimmed. He pointed at the marquess on the floor. “Take this man into custody and put him in Newgate. There is quite a list of his crimes, the most egregious of which is his killing in cold blood of the Viscount of Prentice.” He pointed at Richard’s limp form then proceeded to tell the constable of the crimes Inglehart had committed that he knew about. “I’m certain there are many more, but I haven’t the time just now.”
“Good God.” Constable Williams propped his hands on his hips. “What a coil.”
“Indeed.” Alexander sighed as he shook his head. With a glance at Madeline, who still cried over her brother’s body, he slowly made his way to the doors. It was done. His purpose for living was done. He had gained his revenge, to a point, with perhaps more drama than he’d intended, and he was exhausted.
I honestly thought I would feel relief.
But there was none of that. Only sorrow and annoyance and longing. And perhaps the ever-present anger, for he’d made himself vulnerable, revealed his feelings, and for what? She’d completely ignored his proposal. Barely had he gained his closed carriage that waited at the curb, when he was hailed. Rain fell upon his top hat and his shoulders.
“Ravenhurst, stop!”
Of course Madeline had followed him. He pressed a hand to where his heart ached most fiercely, but he paused after he swung open the door.
“Alexander, please wait!” She hurried over to him, laid a gloveless hand on his arm, wouldn’t let him shake off her touch. “Please, stop. Don’t go.”
“I cannot do that.” Fighting back his own tears, he went up the few steps and into the carriage, collapsing onto one of the benches. He tossed his hat aside, not caring if it was crushed.
“Why are you so aggravating?” With annoyance in her voice, Madeline climbed in as well. She sat on the opposite bench while the driver put up the steps and then closed the door. “You didn’t give me a chance to say all that I wanted back there.”
“It was a chaotic time.” He shook his head. Even to the last, she would show her spirit. “You should remain with your brother. No doubt you have grieving to do.”
“No.” She shook her head then wrenched off the bonnet she’d clearly donned in haste, for the ribbons hadn’t even been tied beneath her chin. After tossing the headgear with the stuffed bird on one side to the bench beside her, she sighed. “Richard showed me time out of hand that I meant nothing to him outside of an insurance policy.” Sadness shadowed her eyes, but there was something else there, something that renewed his spirit. “There is nothing I can do for him now, and death is final.”
“Oh, I am well aware.” He closed his eyes. “There is a bottle of laudanum waiting for me at home, which I intend to take.” If he drank the whole thing, he’d go to sleep and never wake up. Perhaps then the heartache would cease; it was worse than the remembrance of the horrors he’d done in his past.
The agony in her expression tugged at his chest. “Then listen to me. If you can’t have respect for yourself, at least give me that on the ride to your townhouse.” Then she rapped on the roof of the carriage. “Sutcliffe House, if you please.”
“Aye, miss!”
Then the carriage lurched into movement.
Alexander peered at her through the gloom. “Your silence spoke volumes.”
“You are an arse if you assume that. The scene back there was fraught with high emotion and far too much violence that I couldn’t find words, and I certainly didn’t wish to say what should be private things in front of those men.”
“Bah. Excuses.” Would everyone disappoint him, abandon him?
“You would know.” She narrowed her eyes on him. “Why I love you to distraction only God knows, but I do. When it happened or even why remains a mystery to me, but here we are.”
That caught his attention. “I beg your pardon?”
“Surely you aren’t going senile already, Your Grace?” When he didn’t answer, she huffed in apparent frustration, moved off her bench to join him on his, except she climbed into his lap and straddled him with yards of her blood-spattered skirting billowing between them. Madeline held his head between her hands. “I love you, you great dolt. All of you. Your past, your mistakes, your failures, your triumphs, everything you’ve done that has shattered your soul and that which has made you proud. I love you, not for the man you could be, but for who you are now, the man struggling with growth, the whole duke, come what may.”
“You love me.” It wasn’t a question, and he sat, holding her hips, stunned as the knowledge washed over him.
“I do, and that fact was brought home to me while I stood beside the marquess, moments away from pledging my troth to him, a man I certainly did not love.” She shook her head. “In that second when you came bursting in, I couldn’t imagine spending my life without you in some capacity, couldn’t endure being with a man who I didn’t love… who didn’t love me.”
“Dear God…” Awareness of her shivered over his skin. He caught her into his arms, crushing his mouth to hers in a kiss that said everything he’d wanted to add, that promised her everything that he was. The longer he drank from her, kissed her, implored her, the more aroused he grew, for he knew beyond a doubt this woman belonged to him, not as a bed mate or an object to be used, but as a helpmeet, a wife, a duchess.
“I have missed you so much,” Madeline whispered against his lips as she frantically tugged at his cravat, ran the fingers of her other hand through the hair at his nape. “While you are scandalously handsome rigged out like this, I will always have a soft spot in my heart for you in that familiar state of undress, for you when you had the whiskers and scraggily hair.”
“All of that can be arranged, sweeting.” As he marveled over the endearment that slipped out, he delved a hand through her skirting, intent to reach his frontfalls.
But she was there ahead of him, anticipating him, for she’d learned his moods and desires well enough. When his engorged length tumbled into her palm, he shook from need, and before he could say anything, Madeline rose onto her knees, guided his member to where she wanted it, then without ceremony, she slammed her down upon his length, fully impaling herself.
Their groans blended together and became background music to the steady rain outside the carriage.
Yet she didn’t move. Instead, she looped her arms about his shoulders, holding him close, and there were already tears on her cheeks. “You were right. You’ve ruined me for any other man, not that there is another I want.”
“Ha.” How much did he adore her? Not trusting his voice, Alexander held her, kissed her, reveled in being joined once more with her, but she hadn’t answered his question, and he honestly thought he would die a thousand deaths of not knowing. “Madeline, please, will you marry me, stay with me until God parts us?”
The cheeky woman didn’t answer. Again. Instead, she moved upon his length, sliding up and down his shaft, and on her downward strokes, he thrust upward with his hands guiding her hips. What was more, each time they crashed together, she uttered the word “yes”.
Then they were both lost in the act and to each other, their bodies heaving together, moans pulled from their throats, fingers and lips exploring as they came together like a violent summer storm.
“Oh, yes!” She panted out the word as she rode him, clearly with the intent of taking every last drop of his strength.
“I apologize, my love, but I will need more clarification.” Then he cried out, for urgency raced through his shaft and tingled through his stones. He was thrown violently into release, and before he could help her into the void by playing with her button, she joined him. A half-stifled cry filled the carriage, which led to his driver chuckling, but Alexander didn’t care. He ground his hips into hers while her body greedily sucked at him, and eventually when they both came back down to earth, he held her close once more. “Dear God, I will never have enough of you.”
“I can honestly say I share that sentiment.” In some breathlessness, Madeline smiled, and it could rival the sun in its brilliance, yet his world tilted, and he welcomed that warmth. “Yes, Ravenhurst, I will marry you. It matters not to me the state of your coffers or your holdings, which is what I tried to convey in the drawing room earlier.”
“Ah, then I apparently misunderstood.” Exhausted, he licked and kissed the tops of her breasts above her bodice. “I can’t promise what the future will hold for us, but perhaps the not knowing is all we need.”
“Love is all we need, but perhaps your promise that you will remain in this world without trying to remove yourself from this mortal coil?”
“That I can promise you, for now I have a reason to stay.”
“Good.” She kissed him, and when she pulled away, she said, “I have the ruby. We’ll sell it to repair your estates and lay a foundation for our life together.”
His heart squeezed, this time with love. “Poppycock. We can sell the townhouse. You keep the ruby to see to your singing career.”
“Stubborn man.” Madeline kissed him again, and he wouldn’t be himself if he didn’t kiss her back with his customary forcefulness that left them both breathless. “We shall discuss it later.”
“Perhaps in my bedchamber, with you splayed out over my bed, naked and wanting, while I eat you out before fucking you into oblivion for the second time this day?” After all, he could only be who he was, for sometimes growth was slow, and she’d fallen in love with him while seeing the worst of him.
Her eyes rounded. “You’ll have no complaints from me, for isn’t that how you first won me?”
“Ah, sweeting.” Again, he kissed her, and far too easily he was lost in the glory that was his soon-to-be-wife. Being redeemed might not be as painful and dull as he previously thought.