“Why are you here? You were shot only last night,” she said softly, brushing her finger over his jaw. He did not object to her tender ministration but leaned even farther into her touch. “I was coming to you, Nicolas.”
“I had to come to you…to let you know I love you. You must know.”
Alarm and joy suffused her in equal measure. “Are you dying?”
“No. I didn’t want you to linger in any doubt even for a moment about how much you mean to me. I love you, Maryann.”
“I know you do,” she said achingly. “I love you, Nicolas, with my entire heart.”
He cupped her cheeks between his large hands, bent his head, and crushed her mouth beneath his own.
“Marry me,” he said against her mouth.
“Yes.”
“Tomorrow.”
She laughed. “I want a large wedding. We are the most scandalous couple of the ton. I will not disappoint their thirst for a grand spectacle, and our wedding will be the grandest.”
“Ah, I suspect this has been your dream? A large wedding?”
“I have always hungered for a family of my own,” she said softly. “A husband who will not cage me but love me completely. And you do, Nicolas, you do. But I think I just might be happier eloping with you.”
He smiled and took her mouth in a kiss of possessive tenderness.
A throat cleared loudly, and Maryann pulled her lips from his, blushing. It was her father. Nicolas did not release her from his embrace but rested his chin atop her head.
“I believe you called, Lord Rothbury, to make a formal offer for my daughter’s hand?”
Nicolas cleared his throat. “That I did.”
“Offer accepted,” the earl said, and then went back into the drawing room to his wife.
“Sneak me into your room,” he suggested.
Maryann giggled against Nicolas’s chest, happiness bursting inside her heart. “It astonishes me you think you will ever be able to enter my room again before marriage,” she said with a laugh, leading him to the smaller parlor. “I am calling for our physician.”
“No need. I was tended to well.”
They entered the smaller parlor and went over to the large armchair by the open windows. He lowered himself onto the cushions and tugged her into his lap. She peeled back his jacket slightly and stared at his padded shoulder.
“You promise the doctor’s report was good?”
His head dipped in a slight nod. Maryann slipped her hand around his nape and rested her forehead against his.
“Arianna is alive,” she whispered. “I am so very glad she is.”
“I gather Crispin saved her and protected her these last few years. I have not spoken to her as yet, but I am also extremely glad she lives,” he said gruffly.
Maryann smiled, understanding his world had narrowed to her. He had only pushed from his bed to reassure her. Piercing emotions tore through her with the power of the fiercest storm. “Is David alive?”
“Yes. I suspect he will be leaving England soon. I will ensure that there are no legal consequences against Arianna for shooting him.”
He butted against her, and she lifted her forehead from his. Nicolas cupped her cheek, his thumb brushing over her mouth. His soft caress, so light it was scarcely a breath of sensation, pierced her heart sweetly.
“Forgive me for hurting you with my careless words,” he said, pressing a kiss to her mouth. His mouth gently moved over her cheek and to her hair.
“I understand your heart, and I know why you walked away.”
“I want you to know that I had planned to sneak into your chambers last night, fall to my knees, and beg you to forgive my foolishness.”
Maryann smiled, a lump forming in her throat. “All is forgiven.”
Then he kissed her, and she sank into his embrace, knowing how irrevocably cherished she was.
Epilogue
Two weeks later…
Maryann grinned as Lydia lifted her rapier in salute and assumed the en garde position.
“Remember now,” Maryann said, “slow and easy.”
Lydia nodded, a glint of pleasure in her golden gaze, which reminded Maryann so much of Nicolas’s eyes.
Maryann had been teaching Nicolas’s twin sisters to fence for only three days. She had asked Nicolas’s permission to secure a fencing tutor for them, which he had agreed to after speaking with his mother. The dowager marchioness had relented, but with the condition that they started in the next summer.
The girls had been disappointed but had rallied at Maryann’s suggestion to teach them what she knew until their tutor arrived.
“Nicolas!” Louisa, who had been reposing on a lawn chair, awaiting her turn, shouted.