love like I had intended. Instead, I went directly to the point, which I could tell by the way her eyes heated was a mistake.
“I do not need your permission and neither does Nicholas,” she replied with her chin jutted out and her shoulders straight.
Sighing, I tried to regain my focus. I did not come here to get thrown out. “I am sorry, that is not at all what I meant and not how I should have said it. I’ve not slept and-” I stopped because I realized that I now sounded as if I were about to ramble like a deranged drunkard.
“What is all the noise… Lord Ashington!” Lady Wellington entered the foyer, her eyes wide with surprise at the sight of me. I could not say I blamed her. “Lord Ashington, your hair is… it is standing up all over… are you unwell?”
I was beginning to believe I was in fact unwell. As for my hair, I hadn’t thought about it, but there was a chance I had ran my hands through it while pacing most of the night.
“Good morning, Lady Wellington. I am sorry to stop by so early,” I said, noticing then that she wasn’t wearing any slippers. Her toes were peeking out from her day gown.
“I would invite you to join us for breakfast but with the circumstances that might be-” She didn’t finish that sentence and then looked at Miriam.
“He was just leaving. He came to tell me I couldn’t marry Nicholas, which he has no power for such a proclamation,” Miriam told her aunt then looked back at me with a challenge in her gaze.
“You are right. I do not have the power to tell you who you can and cannot marry. That is not why I came. I am here, Miriam Bathurst, because I am in love with you and I cannot bear to lose you. When I say that you cannot marry Nicholas, it is because I love you. You consume my thoughts, you fill the void inside me, and I never believed that I would feel this way about anyone. Please, Miriam, don’t marry Nicholas. Whatever he feels for you, it is not to the depths of what I feel. You own me.”
Silence was only but for a moment.
“Oh my,” Lady Wellington blurted out loudly.
I kept my eyes locked on Miriam who continued to stand as stiff and determined as she had been before my proclamation of undying love. Something I never thought I’d find myself doing. Yet here I was doing just that.
“Nicholas asked me to marry him. I believe his feelings run deeper than you give him credit,” she said.
Nicholas may have asked for her hand but so had I. I needed the confirmation that she did not know of my meeting with her uncle and my request to marry her. I now had it, yet I did not want to be the one to tell her of that meeting. I wanted nothing more than to have Miriam in my life and by my side forever and with her would come her family. She had no father, but she had an uncle and she cared for him. She respected him. Unsure how to explain myself without telling her the exact truth would be almost impossible.
“He asked for your hand in marriage first,” Alfred Wellington’s voice filled the room.
I did not take my eyes from Miriam. I watched as she looked at her uncle, clearly confused by his words. Over the past two weeks, I had thought many things of Alfred Wellington and none of them were fond thoughts. The man had so bluntly informed me that he did not care that I was an earl. I was not good enough for his niece. She deserved more than to just be the mother of my bastard. Hearing Emma called a bastard had been all it took to end my request. I had left 18 Mayfair without another word.
“What do you mean?” Miriam asked at the same time her aunt asked, “WHAT?” rather hysterically.
Wellington sighed and shot a look in my direction. I then met his gaze and waited to see what it was he was going to tell Miriam. The truth was I never said what all I had come to say that day. His accusation about Emma and my temper had been enough to end our meeting. I realized too late I should have stayed and pled my case. Perhaps if he had known the depths of my