Chapter 11
“Y ou’re all wet,” Portia said, then covered her mouth with her hand to stifle a laugh as she observed the Duke of Ferrars marching across the long lawn.
In an exceptionally large piece of linen cloth that brought to mind Roman senators.
It was draped rather artfully about him, but his muscled arms were bared and glistened with drops of water.
Ferrars, soaked! He looked disgruntled as a hawk who had been set down amongst peacocks and wasn’t quite certain what to make of his new surroundings.
Even so, he was a gorgeous sight, she had to admit. The way the linen was draped, the fabric kept sliding and adjusting over his hard body, giving glimpses of his powerful limbs.
She swallowed.
What would happen if he let go of the makeshift toga? She suddenly found herself hoping his hand would slip and his body would be bared to her view.
As it was, there was little left to the imagination. His dark hair was quite a scandal about his face too.
She found herself short of breath, wishing she could run her hands over his beautiful skin and sculpted torso, but she was also on the verge of laughter.
“What happened to you?” she asked at last, though she had a good idea.
“Your family. The male contingent.”
Her lips twitched. “Oh?”
“They threw me in the river,” he drawled as he strode up to her, his bare feet tracing over the trimmed grass. “I was halfway to London before I got out.”
“Oh, dear,” she groaned. “Did they do that? Where are your clothes?”
“I think they stole them. But at least they gave me this. And Huxton said that my clothes would almost certainly be found up at the house, drying before the kitchen fire.”
“They must like you.”
He groaned. “If this is a sign of being liked by the Briarwood clan, what will the rest of my life be like?”
“Do you wish to spend the rest of your life with the Briarwood clan?” she asked, a subtle prompt, she realized, to get him to propose. And she was stunned to realize, in that moment, that she did wish him to propose.
The truth was if her cousins and her uncles had thrown him in the river, they did like him. If they hadn’t liked him, they would’ve just sent him on his way with little said, little done, and certainly without his clothes lost. Briarwoods didn’t waste time on people they didn’t care about, admire, or find interesting.
They ignored them instead of teasing them.
The Briarwoods found no point in giving unlikable people attention.
“I am struggling to imagine it,” he said, “but I do see how it could make my horizons grow and make me a better man.”
She let out a full laugh at that, and her heart warmed at the way he looked at his situation. Some powerful men would be furious. “That is a very diplomatic reply,” she said.
“And you?” he asked, closing the distance between them, the edge of his linen brushing her skirts as droplets of water slipped off of him into the summer air. “Would you like me to be a member of the Briarwood clan?”
She parted her lips. She gazed up into his eyes and said, “No, no, that will not do, Your Grace. You must ask me properly. Not in a roundabout way. You have asked my uncle if you may wed me. I think the time has come for you to actually ask the person you wish to wed.”
He cocked his head to the side. “Ah. I knew your family was not the sort to keep secrets. Your uncle made plain what I wish?”
She drew in a breath. “And my mother, and my grandmother. The whole family knows about the negotiations. We don’t keep secrets,” she affirmed, amazed at how many people did, at how often the Briarwoods had to explain this to people. “We find it to be desperately unhealthy and hurtful. And also, we don’t really do things that we need to be secretive about. You see, we all feel that if one wants to do something, they should just do it. And if they’re so ashamed to do it, then they really shouldn’t.”
“It is a novel concept,” he replied dryly. “Most people can’t live like that. They do what they want in the shadows because they fear what others will think.”
She cocked her head to the side. “Most people aren’t Briarwoods. This gets said a lot, you know, but only because it’s the truth. So, you should really pause, because if you marry me, it’s the family. Are you actually comfortable with that?”
He was silent for a long moment. “I think I am, because I think you would make an excellent duchess.”
There was a hesitation there as if he wanted to say something else, but whatever it was, he did not.
“Well then,” she replied, “I confess that I think I would like to be your duchess. I enjoy you,” she said, “and I enjoy the way you kiss me.”
His eyes warmed at that and he pulled her to him. “Do you?”
She bit her lower lip, wishing for his kiss again. It had been far too long. “Yes.”
He lifted his gaze to the small walled garden and pulled her through the open gate, so they’d be hidden by the red brick walls. “It won’t be easy being my duchess,” he said.
“Why?” she asked.
“I’m not like your family. I have a certain prickliness about me. It won’t be easy for me to change. I’m not sure I even wish to.”
She narrowed her gaze at him. “You do.”
“What?” he asked.
“You wish to change. Otherwise, you never would’ve picked me,” she rushed, loving the feeling of being nearly alone with him. Of him standing there in next to nothing. Her future was but a few moments away. “You can tell yourself whatever story you want to, but you would not have picked someone like me if you wanted to remain silly and austere.”
Portia folded her hands before her and cleared her throat. “Now, I understand sometimes in a marriage there has to be the serious one and the funny one, and I’m quite happy to be the funny one, though I think secretly, actually, you are the funny one,” she said. “You just don’t know it yet. So for now, I am the exuberant one. You are the quiet one. And that is perfectly acceptable to me. You do like rules a great deal though, don’t you?”
He gave a tight nod of his head.
She arched a brow. “And you will want me to follow some of those rules, won’t you?”
He gave another incline of his head.
“That could prove difficult,” she sighed.
“I don’t think it will. You seem an intelligent sort.”
“That’s true.” She smiled, enjoying his admiration of her brain. Not every man liked an intelligent lady. “I am, but how willing are you to allow me to be myself?”
“There’s only one answer to that,” he said softly, inclining his head downward, which caused his dark hair to feather against his cheek.
“And what is it?” she breathed. “I must know before I give you my answer because it is the main thing that my reply hinges upon.”
He smiled ruefully. “Your cousin told me the main thing would be if I won your family over.”
“I’m not my cousin, though he is close to right,” she replied, licking her lips, his nearness causing an ache to travel through her.
“Of course I will let you be yourself,” he returned, reaching up and tracing his fingertips along her chin. “It is you who I want for a duchess. I want you . Not anyone else. I could have anyone else.”
“Don’t be arrogant,” she teased, thrilling at the touch of his hand on her face.
“It’s not arrogance,” he replied honestly, tracing a hand up to cup her cheek. “It’s true. I could go out tomorrow, pick any young lady from the Season, and their mother would swoon with happiness. They’d shove their daughter at me, will she or nil she. Your family doesn’t swoon with happiness over such a thing or force you to bend. They’ve accepted me with a sort of reticence, given my personality, which is quite an unusual thing for me to experience. And again, I think it’s good for me. It will help me grow as a person. But I saw you in the park. I saw the way you behaved and the way you spoke, and I knew that you had to be my duchess. And that knowledge only grew when I saw you at the garden party and then again at the ball. Don’t you understand? I need someone like you. I need you to…”
She sucked in a breath. “You need me to rescue you.”
He winced. “That’s not the word I would use.”
“I thought you liked truth and accuracy,” she said.
“Truth can be dangerous and painful. It doesn’t always need to be shared.”
“I see,” she said. “Then I shall use a different word.”
He gently rubbed his thumb along her jawline. “What?”
“I will make your life palatable, won’t I?”
He grimaced. “It’s not the best word. Rescued might be better. Palatable sounds so…”
“Bland?” she cut in for him.
“Yes,” he said, sighing and lowering his forehead to hers for a moment.
The gentle intimacy of that gesture nearly undid her.
“You wish me to run the social side of your dukedom while you just get on with it, so you can be left alone. Isn’t that it? Because you are shy?”
He gave a nod against her, his pain palpable, his need so strong it passed from her to him through their touch. “Are you comfortable with that?”
“Of course I’m comfortable with that,” she replied, lifting her own hand to cup his strong jaw. “Especially since you’re being honest with me. If that’s all it is, there need be no worries. I will tuck you into a corner in a grand ballroom and make sure that everybody leaves you alone so that you can gaze upon us imperially, and I shall take care of all the conversation. I’m quite good at it. You won’t need to fill in. I can talk a million miles a minute if I want.”
At that, he threw back his head and laughed, a wonderful sound. “It doesn’t bother you then that that’s what I want you for?”
“No, I rather like it actually,” she said, thrilled to see him suddenly light, as if he’d lost a great deal of worry at her reply. “You see, you’ve seen my qualities that some might find irritating, and you have seen what they can be used for. I won’t just be some chatty wife. I will be your social ambassador.” She furrowed her brow. “That is a strange mouthful of words. I don’t know where the idea came from, but it suits, doesn’t it? You need someone who will throw balls, throw fetes, arrange things for the tenants on your lands. You’ll want me to take care of all of that. When you host large political dinner parties, you need someone to talk to all the other lords and politicians so you don’t have to. Not because you’re not interested in the subject, but because it pains you.”
“I am actually very interested in the subject,” he confessed. “But you have the right of it.”
“Then I shall happily ease that burden.”
His chest expanded against the linen sheet with a relieved breath.
She hesitated, then licked her lips. “Can you tell me why it is so difficult?”
His mouth pressed into a thin line, and a shadow danced over his face, the lightness slipping away.
She sucked in a breath. “It’s all right,” she said. “It’s just your personality.”
His eyes narrowed a bit, and then she felt the smallest of chills. Perhaps it wasn’t his personality. Perhaps something had happened to him to make him thus, but that wouldn’t stop her. She did not want to let go of the way he looked at her. She never wanted to let go of the way he made her feel, and she loved the fact that he saw her as someone who was so full of life and wanted to bring that into his own existence to make his life better.
It seemed like an extremely healthy thing to do, to be able to acknowledge one’s weaknesses and try to find a way to mitigate them.
“All right then, Your Grace. My answer is…”
He leaned in, waiting.
She smiled, her heart swelling. “Yes. An unequivocal yes.”
He beamed down at her, closed his eyes, almost as if in prayer, before he announced, “I should like to get married at once.”
“At once?” she exclaimed. “If we do that, everyone will think that you have had me and that I am bearing your child.”
He scowled. “I’d like you to bear my child,” he said.
“Of course you would,” she replied, her mind racing to what it would require to make said child. “That will be one of my duties too, I’m certain. And as you can see, the Briarwoods are very capable of bearing children.”
“Indeed, you could populate the world.”
“Yes, that is what your sister said.”
“It wouldn’t be such a bad thing,” he mused, “if there were more of you in the world, changing it for the better.”
She angled towards him, sliding her hands to his arms, eager to embrace him. “We shall endeavor to do so. Our children will be amongst them.”
“Our children,” he repeated as if awed. “I can’t wait to have you. To make you mine.”
“I don’t suppose you have to wait to have me,” she whispered.
“I want to marry you now. Right away.”
“Why?” she teased. “Do you fear I’ll change my mind?”
A muscle tightened in his jaw. “You are the very devil, my dear, and I adore it. You will not be easy to manage.”
“Don’t try to manage me,” she warned. “It won’t go well. Just go with me, and you’ll be happy too.”
“Go with you?” he queried.
“Yes,” she replied, linking her hands behind his neck. “Hand in hand, we’ll go through our life together. Not one of us trying to manage the other.”
He frowned. “I thought wives always managed their husbands.”
She laughed at him. “Perhaps you are right. Perhaps we both shall be managing each other as long as it is out of caring and not out of control.”
“Then we will get married,” he said, “at once.”
She let out a sigh. “I suppose I shall allow myself to be managed in this, if you wish it so.”
It was so odd. She would have thought he wanted a grand wedding at St. Paul’s before all of London.
But of course not. He did not like crowds. That thought heartened her. He saw their wedding not just as a cog in a contract, but something to be enjoyed.
Still, his eagerness to wed so fast…
A thought occurred to her, what her mother had said about making sure she negotiated what they both truly wanted. But he was so passionate about her. He wished to make her his. He wished to claim her, and she wished to be claimed. So, it would be fine. She had nothing to worry about.