Chapter 29 #2
The world narrowed to her eyes, the wet sheen in them, the way her breath caught.
“For weeks, I tried to pretend otherwise,” he continued.
“I told myself you were another story, another seven nights, another curiosity to occupy my mind between ledgers. Then you told me you were to be sent away. Then I watched you flinch when he raised his hand. Then I saw you slip from this house like a thief so that you would not endanger your mother. At some point between those moments, something inside me changed. I did not wish to admit it, but the letter forced me to.”
Color rushed into her cheeks. “You read it?”
“Yes, after you left Greystone House last night.”
She pressed her hands together so hard that her knuckles whitened. “I told you not to.”
“You begged me not to read it in front of you,” he corrected. “You did not forbid me from reading it at all.”
“That is a very convenient interpretation,” she muttered.
The corner of his mouth quirked up. “It is the truth. You intended to leave it on my desk and flee. You hoped I would find it when you were safely beyond my reach, so that you need not witness my reaction.”
Her blush deepened. “I did not wish to see you pity me.”
“Is that what you expected?” he asked. “Pity?”
“What else?” she murmured. “A girl with a ruined reputation in love with a duke who has reminded her repeatedly that he will not marry her. It is a sad story, not a triumphant one.”
Victor took a step closer. The open door and the maid beyond it made the movement feel both intimate and perilous.
“When I read your words,” he said, “I did not feel pity. I felt as if someone had handed me the answer to a problem I had been working on for months. The numbers suddenly aligned. The columns balanced. The world made sense.”
Her eyes shone. “You and your ledgers.”
“You will forgive the comparison,” he said. “It is the language I know.”
She almost smiled.
“I love you, Gwendoline. I have tried not to. I have lectured myself on the unsuitability of your family, on the risks of an association with your stepfather, on the inconvenience of your cleverness. None of it made the slightest difference. I love that you lied to ruin your own reputation because you refused to leave your mother. I love that you face me with your back straight, even when I am at my worst. I love that you care so fiercely for your mother that you would sacrifice your own peace. I love the way you laugh when you forget to be cautious. I love the way you look when you play the pianoforte as if it were the only place you can relax.”
Her lashes trembled. Tears rolled down her cheeks.
He swallowed. “I have spent years afraid of my father’s shadow.
Afraid that if I allowed myself to feel anything deeply, I would turn that intensity into harm.
I still fear it. I might always fear it.
But when you are near, that fear feels smaller.
When you look at me as if I am more than the sum of his lessons, I begin to believe you. ”
She drew in a shaky breath. “Victor.”
“You wrote that you loved me,” he said softly. “Is that still true? Or was it only a moment of weakness on a night you now regret?”
She let out a sound that was almost a laugh. “You are merciless.”
“I am thorough,” he corrected.
She hesitated, then lifted her chin. “No, it was not a moment of weakness. It has been building for weeks. Since the first night you let me choose whether to stay or not. Since the first time you touched me as if my pleasure mattered. Since the night you told me about the snow and Virgil. I tried to stop it. I thought I had. Last night proved I had not.”
He stepped nearer until only an inch remained between them. “Say it, Gwen.”
She met his gaze without flinching. “I love you,” she breathed.
The words sent warmth through him.
“I accept your proposal,” she added, her voice steadier. “Not because Howard wishes it. Not because of the scandal. But because of you. If you are truly asking as a man who loves me, and not as a duke fulfilling a duty, then yes, I will marry you.”
Relief washed over him so suddenly that he had to brace one hand against the edge of the desk.
“I am asking as both,” he said honestly. “As a man who loves you and as a duke who recognizes that his life will be poorer and his house colder if you are not in them.”
She laughed then, a small, watery sound. “You have a talent for romantic speeches you pretend not to possess.”
“Do not tell anyone,” he murmured. “It would ruin my reputation for tedium.”
She wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand.
He caught her wrist gently. “May I kiss you?”
Her lips curved. “The door is open.”
“To hell with that,” Victor said softly.
Gwen’s eyes danced, and laughter spilled out of her as she nodded her head. “Yes,” she whispered. “Please.”
He bent and kissed her.
It was not the hungry, frantic joining of their previous encounters.
It was slow, sure, filled with the knowledge that something had shifted permanently.
Her hands came up to rest against his chest, not to push him away, but to draw him closer.
He felt the soft press of her mouth, the familiar taste of her, the way she sighed into him as if releasing the last of her doubts.
For a moment, the study, the open door, the threat of Howard’s return, all vanished. There was only the woman he loved and the realization that he had stepped into a future he had never dared imagine.
When they parted, she looked a little dazed, a little radiant.
“You know this will be difficult,” she warned quietly. “Howard will not give up control easily. The ton will talk. Your mother will be displeased.”
“Mother has already informed me that my choices are none of her business,” he said. “As for the rest, let them talk. They have always talked. We might as well give them something worth the effort.”
A faint smile tugged at her lips. “You are very arrogant.”
“I am in love,” he corrected. “It feels similar.”
Footsteps sounded in the corridor. Howard’s voice barked her name.
Gwen straightened, smoothing her gown, composure sliding over her features like a veil. Whatever storm waited on the other side of the door, they would face it together now.
Victor smiled to himself and reached into his coat pocket, closing his hand around the ring.