26. Understanding Rose
UNDERSTANDING ROSE
His thumb moved slowly over her fingers.
Reginald had to get this right. He couldn’t wound her again simply because the truth was more complicated than he wanted it to be.
“I should’ve listened,” he said. “I should’ve believed you when you told me what this place had given you.”
Rose stared at him.
“And you’re right, The Domus protected you when no one else would. It educated you. Gave you safety, friendship, and the freedom to decide what happened to your own body.”
He tightened his hold on her hands.
“But that’s not what made you so courageous, Rose. Or clever. Or kind.”
A faint, unsteady smile touched his mouth.
“It merely gave those parts of you room to survive.”
Her lips parted.
“I love your beauty. God knows I do. But I love your strength more. Your honesty. The way you fight for the people you love.”
His silver eyes held hers.
“I’ve never known anyone like you.”
Reginald lifted her hands between them.
“The Domus is part of your life. Part of your history. I don’t have to understand every part of it to understand that rejecting it meant rejecting part of you.”
His thumb brushed over her knuckles.
“I won’t make that mistake again.”
Then, Reginald released one of her hands and reached inside his coat, grasped a handful of papers, and then tore them cleanly in half.
Rose stared at the pieces. “What is that?”
“The contract for the sale of The Domus.”
Her gaze flew to his.
“I’m canceling it. The property will be conveyed to you. Or to you and Nell together. Or placed into whatever trust you believe will best protect everyone living there.”
Finally, finally he was doing this right.
Rose looked down at the scraps of paper. “Why?”
“It should belong to someone who understands what it is. And this isn’t a transaction. It’s not even a gift. The Domus is yours whether you marry me, refuse me, or decide never to speak to me again.”
Slowly, she looked back up at him.. “Marry you?”
There was no elegant way to do this. No carefully charted course that might spare him the terror of waiting for her answer.
Reginald lowered himself onto one knee.
“You’ll always know The Domus is there for you,” he said. “But I want your home to be with me.”
She eyes, dark and shining, widened.
“Marry me, Rose.”
“Reginald…”
“I never believed in fate.” His fingers tightened around hers. “But that night at the masquerade, I looked at you, and my entire world shifted.”
A rueful smile pulled at his mouth.
“Then I made a bloody fool of myself in the garden. I didn’t learn your name. No one seemed to know who you were, and it was the final ball of the Season. I had no notion how I would ever find you again.”
Rose laughed, though tears had begun spilling down her cheeks.
“I couldn’t stop thinking about you. Only after I’d convinced myself I’d imagined the entire thing, I found you.”
His voice roughened.
“I think I’ve loved you since that first night. I don’t know how else to explain it. I crossed half the world without knowing what I was searching for.”
He lifted her hand to his mouth.
“Until I met you.”
Rose blinked down at him, her mouth softening, and the sight sent hope surging through Reginald so sharply it almost hurt.
“Please,” he said. “Put me out of my misery and say you’ll marry me.”
“You truly love me?”
“More than life itself.”
“More than the Phantom Gale?”
Once, Reginald might’ve believed such a choice impossible.
Now, it wasn’t even a question.
“The Gale carried me home,” he said. “You, my love, are my home.”
Rose closed the distance between them, laughing and crying as she placed her ands along the sides of his face.
“Then I will make my home with you, Reginald. Yes. I will marry you.”
Relief and joy crashed through him all at once.
“God above, Rose.”
He caught her around the waist and pulled her down onto his raised knee, needing her closer, needing to feel that she was real and had truly said yes. His other hand slid into her hair, and then he was kissing her, marveling that somehow, this woman, the woman he loved with all his heart. Somehow…
“I love you,” she said.
Rose wrapped both arms around his neck, laughing and crying against his mouth while he held her as though he’d never let her go.
He might have stayed there forever.
Only when a discreet cough sounded behind them did he finally drag his lips from hers.
Once again, the Duchess of Malum stood in the doorway of the drawing room, this time, with one brow raised. Her gaze moved first to Reginald, still on one knee, then to Rose’s tear-streaked smile.
“I take it,” the duchess said, “that you have settled your differences regarding The Domus?”
“We have, actually,” Reginald grinned at Harry, who stood behind his wife with their son asleep on his shoulder.
“Wonderful.” The duchess smiled. “Because I have an idea.”