“You went through quite the trouble.”
He crossed the distance to her. “I only have one question.”
She stared at him wide-eyed, almost as if she braced for a blow.
“Were you out of your bloody mind?” He scowled down at her. “Do you have any idea what this will do to your reputation once word gets out? You are aware there is a wager to unmask the mysterious owner of Knightley’s?”
“You said one question.”
“The last two were rhetorical.” His voice was dry as sand. He cocked his head to the side. “Knightley’s is the reason you declined my offer of marriage.”
Her lips parted. “I . . . Not the first time,” she admitted. “I was rather shocked then, but the second time, yes.”
Wolfstan nodded. He understood. He didn’t want to understand, he wanted to be offended as hell. But he couldn’t be. He’d been standing on the sidelines all this time. He could only commend her courage, and bloody rejoice at the chance to be part of her life. In all ways. “How do you feel now?”
Her teeth scraped her lower lip. “Relieved that I hadn’t attended the ball for nothing,” she whispered. “I planned to tell you about Knightley’s tonight.”
“You did?” Her admission surprised him. “What changed your mind?”
“You.” She gave him half a smile. “You happened.”
Wolfstan’s entire world shifted beneath the tilting weight of those words. He reached to cup her face in his hand. “I’m not sure whether that is a good thing or not?”
“I suppose it’s a good thing. I thought you would be angrier.”
“I’m furious as hell, Rebecca, but only because you thought you could not confide in me. Your reputation is also a concern.”
“My reputation?” She gave a small laugh. “You mean the one where I turn four shades of purple when a gentleman attempts to converse with me? The one that casts me as an oddity? That reputation, right?”
Wolfstan’s mouth split into a grin. “Are you being tart, Rebecca? You are surely no awkward wallflower any longer, though, to me, you never were.”
She blushed. “I didn’t lie about how I met Mr. Lance. He is the one who presented the opportunity. I had resigned myself to spinsterhood, and Mr. Lance, unwittingly, gave me, if not a brighter future, at least a thrilling one.”
“And all this time . . . Christ, Rebecca, I have been such a bloody fool.”
“You thought I favored Langley.”
Wolfstan refused to take the out. “I was too damn petrified to take a chance. Fear held me back. Fear that you would reject me, that I would lose you if I tried. For a moment, I thought I did lose you.”
“And now that you know the truth?” she asked. Wolfstan heard the hesitancy in her voice. “I cannot promise my identity will not come out.”
If that was their biggest problem, he would take it. He would take her any way he could get her. He loved her that much. “Well, I certainly cannot stand for that. I shall not allow you to go down in infamy.” He grinned at her. “Not without me.”
