“I have trusted you.” He wanted to touch her, to reassure her, and while the indescribable curve of her hip brushed against his knee, he could not reach her with his naked hands, with the needy tips of his fingers. He tried to reach her with words, instead, as he’d never done with any other woman. “I’ve never told anyone about how women… giving birth scares me. I’ve never told anyone how empty I feel at times, not even Griff. Only you.”
She nodded, her gaze still heavy on her lap. “Do you know, I’ve never asked anyone for anything. Except to help the women of the ton. I asked for that, but that wasn’t for me. It was for them. I don’t like being a bother. But you made me want something for myself. You made me feel comfortable asking for it. As if asking for something was not selfish.”
“It’s not. You’re not.” The words raw in his throat. Please God that she believed him.
The tiniest shake of her head and the slightest rush of pink crossed her cheeks. “Perhaps you did not tell me your name because you had already told me in other ways who Keats is. I was listening. I know.”
“You don’t know exactly how much of a rogue I’ve been. But I’ll spend every hour of the rest of my life being better. I know you do not believe me, but?—”
“I do believe you.”
He risked it all—pain and his torso ripping in two—to push upright and lean forward, to take her hands and press them into his chest.
She tried to force him back down to the mattress. “You’ll open your wound. Hades will have to stitch you up again, and he’ll be quite displeased.”
He resisted her, his muscles screaming. “I cannot lie down as I tell a woman I love her.”
Her hands remained on his chest, but they went still, as still as the rest of her body. Only the light in her eyes beamed brighter.
He kissed her palm. “I love you, Lucy. And I want you to be my wife. You do not have to answer now or return the words. I simply beg you to give me a chance.”
“A chance. Hm.” Hope like dawn rose bright and fierce across his soul, warming faster when she met his gaze with an adorable almost smile that popped a dimple into her cheek. “I think I might like to become better acquainted with you.”
“You’re asking for a courtship. Very well. I accept.”
She laughed. “I’m the one who must accept.”
He shrugged, then groaned, then managed to say, “Perhaps you should propose to me. I’ve proposed enough.”
“What’s the fun in that? I know you’ll say yes. But if you propose to me, I can keep you on your toes.”
“Minx.” And then he sighed and said, “Angel.” And then he got a little bold, and he picked up her hand and kissed her knuckles and said, “Mine?”
She inhaled as she leaned forward so close their breath mingled, and then with a happy hitch of her lips she kissed him. “Mine.”
Epilogue
One month later, London
London felt like a trap. The street beyond the window of her grandfather’s townhouse hardly seemed a prison, though. She could see the garden at the center of the square and the street was neat and clean. The sun bright. Not a cloud in the sky. Yet she felt the bars gathering about her.
Perhaps it was because Lucy had grown up in the country and preferred open skies and fields to narrow lanes and tall buildings. Perhaps it was because those her grandmother, Viscountess Springwell, introduced her to did not often approve of a young lady with a farmer for a father and a scandal-maker for a mother. Or perhaps it was because of the failure of her plan, and her flight from Hawthorne House. She’d left because she’d needed change, to discover who Lucy was without her cause ruling her waking thoughts and nighttime hours. To try something new.
Like being courted by a marquess.
Ah—there lay another bar in her London cage. Not the courtship itself. That felt like being lifted on a strong breeze upinto the clouds on a sunny day. What felt like manacles around her ankles was an increasingly rapacious need she must soon speak of.
“Miss Jones?” Her grandfather’s butler, Mr. James, bowed from the doorway. He had a short nose that tipped up at the end, showing more nostril than Lucy ever knew what to do with. “Lord Rainsly is here. Are you at home?”
“Yes. I’m always home for Lord Rainsly.”
“I told you she’d say that, James.” Keats patted the butler on the shoulder as he strode into the small parlor at the back of the house. He stopped right before Lucy, his hands clasped behind his back, his eyes glittering. “Good afternoon, Miss Jones.”
Lucy dismissed the butler, then sat near the window. “This is an unexpected visit. I’m glad of it, though. My grandparents are gone for the morning. You will have no chance to discuss parliamentary matters with my grandpapa.” She was glad for that, too. Keats all to herself. A rarity.
“Not here for a chat with Springwell. I’m here for you. Naturally.” Keats dragged a matching chair closer and sat, pulling to the edge of the seat so their knees almost touched. When he rested his elbows on his knees and leaned forward, he tapped her thigh three times. “I’ve heard chatter about Palmerson.”
Unexpected, that. And it banished the tingles that had been making a slow path from thigh to parts of her body higher. “I thought we were done with him.”
