“Nothing can keep your brother down for long,” Warrick agreed.
“Truer words have never been spoken.
“Should I leave?” Saville wouldn’t want him here when he woke up, and he didn’t want to cause any more discord between the siblings.
“Do you want to leave?”
No.
“In any event,” Selena continued when he didn’t respond, “I’m not in the mood to be yelled at alone. So stay. Let’s provide each other with some much-needed distraction. The mood has grown quite morbid in this house.”
Warrick tugged his cravat to loosen it a bit. “Well, you did shoot your brother. Something I still can’t quite bring myself to believe yet.”
“I’m sure it shall settle in soon,” she said. “Truthfully, I’m still in awe of it myself.”
“You seem rather delighted.”
“Not entirely, although I did feel the anger that’s been simmering for weeks begin to melt away the moment he cried out in pain.”
Warrick quirked his lips. She made one hell of a sister. She would make one hell of a wife.
He stilled.
The sudden thought startled him. Also made him ponder...
Shewouldmake one hell of a wife.
But he’d already had a humiliating fight with Saville exactly because he had saidnoto the prospect of marrying her. Yet the allure of that single thought made his heart contract now. Beside him sat half the problem, but all the answers to releasing him from his curse.
He shook his head at that last.
He would never marry Selena just to break a curse. And no one had yet bothered to ask what she wanted.
He studied her through lazy eyes. Now that her brother and several of their friends had learned of the kisses, she might be feeling a different way than she had at the tavern when he told her about everything that led up to today. It wouldn’t hurt to make a wild suggestion.
“You could marry me.”
Her head whipped to his. “I canwhat?”
He laughed. “I see I can still shock you.”
“Shock in an understatement, so I repeat,what?’
“Marry . . .” He pointed to his chest. “Me.”
“If that’s a proposal, it’s the worst proposal I’ve ever heard of.”
He shrugged. “It’s a suggestion.”
“A poor one.”
“Poor?” He cocked his head to the side. “I’ve never been called a poor choice before.”
“Well, that’s because I know what you would get out of wedding me, but what would I get out of wedding you?”
He arched a brow. “Wouldn’t we just be getting each other?” A novel idea, really. It also didn’t sound half bad. Getting each other—on second thought, that sounded rather... well, wilder than the suggestion to marry, quite honestly.
She crossed her arms. “You’d also get my dowry.”
