Chapter 23 #2
He let that soak in, and shook his head once more.
“I am indeed an idiot as Miles said. I think I loved you then but did not know it, and that is why I could not help but treat you with special distinction.” He groaned.
“Camilla, do not mistake my illiteracy of my heart’s condition for a lack of depth or constancy. ”
A breeze of hope lifted her spirit and sent a lump into her throat. Constancy. He spoke of constancy.
“That night, I was talking to Miles as a man doomed, because the pressure to marry was great, and I could not imagine anyone in the role of countess. I picked one at random, and then as you must have deduced, could not come up to scratch.”
“I do not care about being your countess,” she said.
He looked at her curiously, and she thought he understood. With his next words she was sure of it. “But you might, under the right conditions, consent to becoming my wife?” he ventured.
She nodded, her own lips suddenly dry, and unable to remove her eyes from his.
“As for the conditions…” He paused. “Do you truly think we do not suit?” More of his carefully enunciated words. More of his direct regard that demanded the truth from her. She shook her head, unable to find her voice again after his grand confession.
“I did not ask you to marry me because I kissed you,” he stated, then a sudden smile broke through the seriousness of his manner. “Although I hope you will accept to marry me so that we might do that as frequently as we please, which, I assure you, will be often.”
She returned a tremulous smile as he took her hands.
“Lady Camilla Rowlandson, I will now ask you again. Will you do me the pleasure—the honor—and make me the happiest man on the face of this earth, by accepting my hand in marriage?”
She breathed in to answer as he removed one hand from hers and held it up at his side as though taking an oath.
“Before you answer me, I call your attention to the man kneeling before you, who has lost his heart to you, and who might not ever recover it if you refuse.” Now Camilla smiled broadly until her eyes shone with tears, and he looked at her with relief. “Ah, your smile. I have missed it.”
“I will marry you,” she said, thinking how freeing it was to once again smile in his presence. And because his eyes searched hers as though to be sure, she said it again. “I will marry you.”
Rowe leapt onto the stone bench and pulled her into his arms, wasting no time in kissing her in very much the same way he had at Hampstead. Their seated position made it slightly more awkward, but no less enthusiastic, and this went on for some time until she pulled back, smiling mistily.
“Someone might see us.”
“I hope they do,” he said, grinning and slightly out of breath. “For then, they will ask me what I am about, kissing Lady Camilla Rowlandson on a stone bench in her garden. And I will tell them you have agreed to become my wife, and that no happier man exists on this earth than I.”
The church wedding was to be held in St. George’s at Hanover Square—as was befitting, Lady Throckmorton said, of an earl and the daughter of an earl who had decided to join their hands and families in marriage.
Camilla did not care very much about earls or daughters of earls.
She just wanted to marry Rowe. He had insisted that she call him by that name privately, even before they were married, because he wished for his wife to see him first as a man and not as an earl.
With an impish smile, she assured him she would have no problem in seeing him as a man.
It was their last afternoon together before the wedding, and they sat in Lord Poole’s drawing room. By tacit agreement, the family allowed them to have some time alone, and Camilla was telling him something she had not confided in him before.
“When Dorry told me you had sold your bays to Mr. Wilmot to save Miss Eubank’s brother, what could I believe? I was sure that I was standing in the way of what you truly wanted. A marriage with her.”
Rowe shook his head. “I cannot believe you are only telling me this just now. I would take Miles to task for blabbing it about, except for the fact that he gave me rather good advice on how to go about winning your hand. For that I must be eternally grateful.”
Camilla smiled and then remembered something else she had wanted to tell him. There were always things she wanted to tell him and couldn’t wait to see him again so she might. Soon, she would no longer need to wait, and the thought filled her with joy.
“You will not care about such things, I know. But I have a very pretty gown to wear tomorrow that you have never seen me in before. I hope you will find me becoming in it, and that you will be happy with your choice of a bride.”
“I cannot help but find it becoming and will most assuredly be happy to marry you,” he said promptly. “Everything on you is becoming. Everything about you is becoming.”
She murmured something about him being carried away and speaking nonsense, but as she was smiling broadly, her words had no force.
Camilla and Rowe had taken to saying what they really thought, so there would be no more misunderstandings between them.
They would be completely unfashionable—some would even say less than British—and would hide nothing from each other, not even the small things.
So Camilla took her courage in her hands and decided to confess to what was worrying her most. She turned toward him on the sofa, their hands intertwined.
“You say you find me becoming in everything, although you are perhaps blinded by love.” She smiled down at their hands as he laughed.
“That cannot be,” he assured her. “Because even before I knew that I loved you, I always found you becoming.”
This pleased her, but she had a confession to make—a fear to voice, and it would keep her prisoner until she said it.
“You promise to find me pretty in all that I wear, but there is our wedding night…” Her voice trailed away.
No. She could not say everything. She realized it now.
What had she undertaken by entering into this conversation?
What foolish creature would confess to such a humiliating truth that could do nothing but expose her?
Horrified, she stopped short and bit her lip.
“Never mind. Please ignore what I have just said.”
His eyes seemed to see right through her, and he lifted one hand up to his lips and kissed it. “You are worried whether I will find you attractive in all situations,” he said, his voice husky.
She nodded. He had understood. And because they knew each other better now, she dared to lift her eyes to his while waiting for his reply.
“I can tell you with a certainty that I will,” he said resolutely. “You have nothing to fear.”
She absorbed his words, believing them. And yet… “My father called me a plump partridge on more than one occasion, and for my whole life, I could not help but view myself in that same way.” This she said in a very small voice.
His voice was not small, nor was the arm weak that suddenly pulled her close. “Well, as for myself, I am glad you are one. For I would much rather embrace a plump partridge, whose soft plumage will bring me comfort and warm my heart, than to try to hug a…a gatepost!”
Struck by the image, she was betrayed into a laugh.
“Yes, you may laugh. But I am dead serious,” he said, hugging his plump partridge in the most convincing way. “I know what I want, Camilla. And what I want is you.”
Her eyes and heart grew soft, and with the greatest audacity, she leaned over and planted a kiss on his lips.
“And you have me.”