“Merely because nothing,” he said. He put his arm around her and pulled her into him. When he spoke again, his words were whispered into her hair, and she could feel his breath as if it were part of her. “I love you, Charlotte. I have tried to deny it; I have tried to refuse it. But I love you so very much, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”
She let her muscles relax and melted into him. She loved him too. She could admit that now. She wanted him, she wanted for him to never let her go. Could she really forgive him so easily? She pulled back from his embrace and looked deeply into his eyes.
“And Lady Lucille? What of her?”
“She is nothing to me. I have, on a few occasions, been forced to talk with her, as any polite society gentleman would do, but I haven’t enjoyed it one bit. I’ve only ever wanted to be with you, my darling Charlotte.”
Charlotte’s lips fell open as she looked up at him. He filled her vision as he filled her heart, and she never wanted to lose him.
“You are not merely proposing because we made love, then? You’re quite sure?”
Alexander chuckled and curled a finger under her chin. He raised her face to his and gently kissed her lips. “If making love made me want to do anything,” he muttered into her mouth, “then it was simply to make love over and over again. With you, always and forever.”
“Goodness.” Her eyes were closed, his hand thrust into the mess of her hair, and she let her head lean back and rest against him. “That sounds wonderful.”
His lips brushed along her jawline and up to her ear. Charlotte quivered with anticipation and desire. Everything about him was intoxicating, from the scent of his cologne to the roughness of his fingers against her flesh.
“Seeing you always enchants me so,” he muttered. “I can’t stop thinking about you, Charlotte. You have become part of me. My everything.”
A shiver ran through her, his touch sending sparks through her body. “Alexander, we shouldn’t,” she whispered, though there was little force in it.
“How long will Annie be gone?” he asked, and when she did not reply, he pulled away and looked at her quizzically. Charlotte couldn’t stop herself from giggling.
“That may have been, after all, a little white lie. Annie is in town with my aunt.”
A flash of passion raced through the duke’s eyes, and Charlotte’s breath hitched as she thought of what was to come. They stared at one another for a long moment, but anticipation soon gave way to passion, and his mouth on her sensitive skin was hot and demanding.
He leaned into her, pinning her against the couch as his hands roamed over her curves, searching for the fastenings of her gown. “I cannot resist you, Charlotte,” he muttered.
Nor I you. She could not say the words. She could not breathe as he made quick work of undoing her gown. She thrust her hands into his hair and pulled his lips back to hers, kissing him quickly, urgently, her insides churning with need for him.
“We must be quick,” she said. “Annie may be out, but the butler is still here.”
Alexander’s hand slid up her thigh, making her shudder just as it had before, and remembering the way he had filled her made her womanhood clench with hunger. Their touch was so urgent, so passionate, it was as if they had each been deprived for many years. The gentle touch as his fingertips ran up the length of the sensitive skin between her legs set her on fire, every part of her crying out for him. She opened her legs to welcome him, to beg him.
“Don’t make me wait any longer,” she uttered as he bent down to kiss her again, his knees wedging between hers as he prepared to enter her.
“I could say the same to you. You have yet to answer my question satisfactorily.”
He kissed her again, warm and insistent, and she knew what answer she would give him. As he pushed into her, she said the word. “Yes,” she cried. “Yes, Alexander. I will marry you.”
Chapter 26
Later, as Charlotte fixed her hair as best she could and Alexander retied his cravat, she looked at him with such love that she thought her heart would burst. Perhaps she was the marrying kind, after all.
Alexander had certainly made her so, and she realized her fears were baseless. He would never treat her as a mere housewife, nor would he discount her opinions. He would treat her equally, always, just as her father had done. If anything, he relished in her uniqueness, in her unconventionality.
“You did mean it, didn’t you?” he asked, his own vulnerability showing through as he looked at her. “When you said yes?”
“In the throes of passion, you mean? I’m not sure you can trust the word of any lady when she is so laid bare and overwhelmed with sensation.”
The poor man looked so panicked that Charlotte couldn’t stop herself from laughing. “I am teasing you, Alexander. Of course I meant it. A secret part of me has been hoping you would ask.”
His grin widened, and he leaned in and kissed her quickly, chastely, on her lips. “You don’t know how happy that makes me.”
“I should hope it does,” she teased. “Otherwise why on earth would you ask?”
“Fair point.”
