Chapter Twenty-Eight #2
He leaned back with a pure and unbridled expression, like he enjoyed looking up at me.
“No game, my love. But I would like to clarify a thing or two. To start, I have been here for three days, meeting with your brother in secret, until he agreed to let me see you. Which happened just this morning during our fencing match—I see where you learned your great lunging skills—when I won the required fifteen hits over him. Your sister-in-law judged fairly, I might add, if he wishes to debate the matter later.”
I wondered if Amelia had said anything at all, and what. “You’ve been here for three days?”
He told me about Maggie and his mother, then handed me a page from the paper dated a week ago today. “I won’t offer you a recounting of the first few days of chatter on the subject of Lord Reynolds and me. But we posted this in response.”
I read down the page. My heart hung on the words: friendship grew into something more, and does not profess to be a perfect man, but endeavors to love and be loyal to his dearest friend, expecting that the world around him does the same.
He rubbed his jaw. “I did not admit to any wrongdoing, which might seem cowardly, but now everyone will know the truth about what happened that day. Why I did what I did. Which leads me to my second clarification. If you had any doubts at all, Georgiana”—he pushed up on his elbows and lifted a hand to my jaw, tracing the sensitive spot by my ear—“you should know by now that I love you. And it is blasted painful to be parted from you. I cannot bear it another day.” He thumbed my bottom lip.
“There is no one like you in the world.”
He reached into his jacket and withdrew a little leather box. He opened it and pulled out a ring.
His grandmother’s ring.
I couldn’t breathe.
He held it between his first finger and thumb. “This ring is imbued with a legacy that goes back generations in my family, and my hope was that it would serve as a reminder to its wearer of that legacy for many generations to come.”
“Your father’s legacy.”
He shook his head. “My father’s legacy was restoring the dukedom. He did well, and I am and will always be proud to call him my father. Proud of his accomplishments and grateful. I finished the work he started, and I hope he’s pleased.” He frowned, eyes downcast, and swallowed.
I reached out and cradled his face with my hand. He leaned into my touch, then turned and placed a slow, soft kiss in the center of my palm.
My heart melted and burned and cried out his name.
“But the dukedom is mine now.” He met my gaze with firm determination. “It is time I work toward my own legacy. It’s time to think about what I want to leave behind, and who I want to share it with. That someone is you.”
Emotion welled behind my eyes. Still, after everything? It was far too good to be true. Far too lovely and perfect. He was too perfect.
“You’ll say there’s someone better, more prepared or more accomplished than you, and you might be right.
Perhaps there are a dozen women more suited for the dukedom than you.
But no one could make me feel in a lifetime how you make me feel in a single moment.
I want my legacy to be tied with yours.” Gently, he took my hand and slid his grandmother’s ring onto my finger.
“I want to make a life with you. Grow old with you. We’ll face whatever comes together, as one family, mine and yours.
Marry me, Georgiana, and I swear I will make it the best life you could ever dream—”
I leaned into him and kissed him soundly. He fell back on the hay and cradled my neck, keeping me exactly where he wanted me. His thumb traced my jawline, fingers lightly grazing down my neck, my arm.
When his hands met my waist, they drew me up, and gently lifted, then tossed me back against the hay. He climbed over me, his hair lined with straw, eyes hazed and wild. “Yes?” he breathed against my mouth, entwining his legs with mine. “Is that a yes?”
I wove my fingers under his parted jacket, up his waistcoat, beneath his doubly knotted cravat, and he tensed under my touch. “Yes,” he answered for me, grinning and breathless. “That was a yes. That was evenings in the library, yes. Late mornings, taking tea in your bed, yes.”
I pulled his cravat down until his lips took mine.
He kissed me like we had all the time in the world. Like we could exist on just this. Like nothing else in the world mattered but us.
His fingers swept across my side, my ribs. He pulled back, just barely, to look down at me. To see me.
It was the most wonderful feeling in all the world, to be seen by this beautiful man. “Say something,” he begged.
I love you, I wanted to say. More than anything. “You, Lucas Kennerly, Duke of Marlow, are better than the best book. The most honorable, most exceptional of men. And, still, I left you. You must understand why.”
“I know why, you little ninny,” he whispered, his eyes filled with emotion.
He kissed the corners of my mouth. “You think you will ruin me, but I am telling you, it will be quite the opposite.” He buried his face in the curve of my neck, tickling the space by my shoulder with his kisses.
He made me forget why loving him was a bad idea.
I bit my lip hard, trying desperately not to dissolve into the wave of joy that beckoned, and dug my fingers into the nape of his neck.
“Say yes.” He groaned. I laughed when he kissed up my jaw, and then back down again. “Please.”
“How about, receiving no invitations because we’re outcasts, yes? You are not thinking this through.”
“No?” He kissed my nose. He rolled until we were side by side, looking out across the barn.
He lifted a hand as though to form the frame of our future.
“I see our family—not just an heir. A proper family—and summers in the country. Our children wandering like wild things, their cats and hounds and chickens all at their heels.” He looked back at me, grinning.
“I see you inviting anyone and everyone to one of your grand parties, no matter how many times their names have been in the papers. Me, growing what we’ve built tenfold for our children.
Of course, there’ll be plenty of late nights in the library.
A rendezvous or two in the hay barn.” He winked, and I tugged him back until his knees entangled with mine.
“It won’t be perfect,” he admitted. “We are good at making mistakes, you and I, but we’ll fix them together.”
Heavens, he was so sincere. So confident, but so hopeful for the future he’d just spelled out. I felt his hope take root in my chest and spread out like veins around my heart.
I wanted it. So badly, I wanted it all to come true. “I have no idea how to host a party as grand as that, but if you promise not to be cross—”
He squeezed my thigh and bit back his grin. “I promise I won’t be cross.” He took my jaw delicately in his hand and pressed his lips fervently to mine.
“There is so much I do not know, Lucas. I’ve barely traveled. I will surely bumble it all—”
He kissed me into silence, then drew back, and said, “You, Georgiana Wood, are perfect to me in every way that matters. You make all the bad things worthwhile. You make them good. You make me better. With your sweetness, your genuine heart, your laughter, your brilliance . . . we will find your confidence together. And you will flourish.”
Heavens, that was how he saw me?
Our eyes locked together.
I waited for him to break. To change his mind. To look away. Any sign that he was unsure.
He didn’t.
Would it be so terrible, a life with him? If he knew the risk of my failures. If he promised to support me, to guide me . . .
He waited. Lips pursed. Gaze set like he would sit beside me for a lifetime while I thought it through.
A life with Lucas could go very wrong. But the way he saw us, the future he wanted for us, was a dream I’d risk anything for.
Slowly, I nodded. “Very well, then.”
“Yes?” He bit back his smile, still questioning.
I let myself smile, let myself feel again. “I love you, Lucas. My answer is yes.”
“Yes!” he cheered, grinning wider and kissing my face all over until I truly did dissolve into the joy that beckoned me. I reveled in it.
We spent another few moments—and perhaps a few more after that—in the barn, and then a few more against the barn door before Lucas finally opened it.
Sunlight poured in, and we walked hand in hand toward our future.