Kissing her hair, her forehead, her temple, he waited for them both to stop quaking. She was his now. He would make sure of it.
“Joshua.” She drew back to gaze up at him. “Why did you—”
“So I could prove I was willing to keep from getting you with child. What I just did is how I can do it.”
She gaped at him. “But . . . but you didn’t—”
“Oh, trust me, I did. Just not inside you.”
She swallowed. “And that doesn’t . . . frustrate you?”
“A little.” He kissed the tip of her pretty nose. “But it’s worth it to have you. Gwyn, I love you. I want you to be my wife. And if that is what’s required, I will do it.”
“Do you really mean that?”
“I do. I can’t go on without you, dearling.”
Tears welled in her eyes. “That is . . . the sweetest thing any man has ever said to me,donefor me.”
“So you’ll marry me?”
“Yes,” she whispered and kissed him soundly. “Yes.”
“Good,” he rasped. “Because I think I hear someone in the hall, so it’s probably time we get dressed.”
“Joshua!” she cried. “You should have said something!”
“And ruin our special moment? Not on your life.” He left her to hop over to the settee so he could sit down and drag on his stockings. After he tied the garters, he pulled on his drawers and buttoned them up, trying not to look at her as she drew up her bodice.
She hadn’t yet said she loved him, but she’d called him her love, and that was good enough for now. Especially because she’d agreed to marry him.
He looked over to find her slipping off the console table and fluffing out her skirts. “Damn, woman,” he murmured. “You barely look disheveled.”
“Yes, but underneath, I’m a ruin of dishevelment.”
“Don’t start talking like that,” he grumbled. “I still have to don my trousers, not to mention my boots.”
“Can I help?” she asked, coyly sashaying toward him.
“No.” He drew on his trousers, then buttoned them. “Just the sight of you swinging your hips will soon have me rousing again.”
“What a pity we can’t do anything about that,” she said flirtatiously and a bit too loudly.
This time he distinctly heard footsteps in the hall. He could tell she’d heard them, too, for her eyes widened. Hastily, he pulled on one boot as the footsteps paused and came back toward the door. It was probably just her maid, but he didn’t like being unprepared.
Damnation. He took the pistol out of his other boot, which made her gasp. Then he slid it into the waistband of his trousers in back. Holding a finger to his lips, he gestured to her to get his cane for him where he’d left it by the console table. Nodding, she tiptoed toward it.
She’d just got it in her hand when the door swung open. Joshua had forgotten she had unlocked the door.
A man appeared in the doorway, his face in shadow because of the candles in the sconce on the wall behind him.
“Lionel?” Gwyn said.
Before Joshua could even rise, Malet grabbed her and held a blade to her neck. “Ah, ah, Major. Don’t even attempt to come at me or she dies. I can slice her from ear to ear before you can limp one step forward.”
Joshua’s heart dropped into his stomach. This was his worst nightmare come to life. He dared not reach for his pistol because Malet would see that. And he had no other weapon ready to hand, nothing with which to thwart Malet. His gaze shot to Gwyn, who looked pale as death in the candlelight.
But she made sure that he noticed that his cane was in her right hand, though she’d moved it into the folds of her skirts. At leastshe’dhave something to defend herself. Although right now that was little consolation. Because there might be more adversaries. The Frenchman might have come here, too. Joshua had to know what he was up against before he acted.
