He shook his head, and his expression was tortured, desperate. It was not at all the face of a man who’d just won a small fortune.
“He wasn’t supposed to win!” There was an urgency, a desperation in his voice she’d never heard before. “You have to believe me. That wasn’t the planat all.”
“What do you mean?”
“Fool For Love was supposed to lose.Iwas supposed to lose. All that money? It was my grand gesture. I was trying to prove how little it all means without you.” His eyes bored into hers as he took a step closer. “You, Tess. I did it all for you.”
The ground was suddenly unsteady beneath her feet. The buzz of the crowd receded until it felt like they were the only two people in the world.
Justin took another step, slowly, as if she were a skittish horse who might bolt at any moment.
“I love you,” he said simply. “And I know you can live without me, but I honestly don’t think I can live without you.”
He took another step and she could feel herself swaying toward him.
“Please stay with me. Be my duchess. Not because of some stupid agreement, but because you want to. Because you wantme.Completely. As I want you.”
Tess couldn’t seem to find words. Happiness was bubbling up inside her, but she was still afraid to hope.
A faint smile curled the corner of his mouth, and her breath caught at the familiar sight. She’d missed such secret things. Missed being in the same room as him, missed the laughing glances that made her skin heat and her toes curl in her slippers.
“You wore a silvery dress like that the first time I ever saw you.” His voice was low, almost reverent.
Tess frowned. “No, I was wearing that scandalous red dress. At Careby’s.”
He shook his head and gave her his heartbreaking smile. “That was the first time you saw me. But I saw you long before that. Almost two years before, in fact.”
“What? When?”
“You know that rumor I started? The one about how I’d dreamed of you for years?”
Tess nodded.
“It was true. I saw you in a silver-white gown at some party or other, before I even left for Canada, and I thought you were the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.”
Tess’s lips parted in astonishment. “I had no idea. Why on earth didn’t you introduce yourself?”
“To save myself from heartache,” he said wryly. “I had a premonition, a conviction that if I spoke to you, got to know even a tiny part of you, that I would fall completely and horribly in love. And I was a realist. What chance would I have had against your legions of suitors? Your father would never have let you throw yourself away on a lowly merchant.”
“No, probably not,” Tess acknowledged sadly. “But perhaps we could have eloped?”
He gave a despairing sound, half laugh, half resignation. “Perhaps. But maybe it’s best that we didn’t. Trying to become someone worthy of you drove me from that moment on. Even if I didn’t fully admit it to myself.”
“If we’d met back then,” Tess said severely, “you’d never have made enemies who tried to kill you.”
“That’s true. I’m so sorry about that.”
Tess clenched her fists in her skirts. Her heart was pounding, but she was determined that there would be no more misunderstandings between them.
“Charles King doesn’t exist. King & Co. is run by Ellie, Daisy, and myself. We investigate crimes that Bow Street’s too busy to handle. Mainly ones that involve women. I didn’t tell you, because I was afraid you’d try to stop me from doing what I love.”
“I would never do that.” He let out an odd half laugh.“Because I love you. I didn’twantto. In fact, I did everything in my power to prevent it.”
He ducked his head, then met her eyes again. “When my mother died, and I saw my father’s pain, I vowed to save myself that, in any way I could. I thought that if I never allowed myself to get too attached to anything—to anyone—then I couldn’t get hurt. I insisted on a stupid three-month rule for my relationships, for my own protection.”
He shook his head, as if amazed at his own foolishness. “What I failed to take into account was that love doesn’t need three months. Sometimes it doesn’t even need threeminutes.”
His lips curved in a rueful smile. “It didn’t with you. I can’t tell you the precise moment I fell in love with you, but I can tell you the precise moment I finally admitted it to myself. It was at Vauxhall, when I thought I was losing you. Ithurtto let you go.”
