The Matter of a Marquess - Jess Michaels Page 0,88
stop touching her, fingers smoothing along the soft lines of the flesh he’d revealed when he tugged her skirt up.
At last, though, she sighed and buried her face into his neck. Her voice was muffled as she said, “We’re going to arrive soon. We should probably tidy up.”
He didn’t answer, but pulled the bodice of her dress back up. He kissed her neck as he buttoned her. Only then did she shift off of him and take a place across from him as she smoothed her wrinkled skirts.
He watched her as he put himself back in place, buttoning up so that he no longer looked like a hungry lover, but a proper gentleman. She was so beautiful flushed from his touch and his kiss and her pleasure. But then, she was beautiful always. And she had been in his dreams for so long that he’d never believed reality could hold up if he found it again.
But it was better. Being with her, it was all so much better.
The carriage was slowing now, pulling into the drive back at her home. He reached across the expanse between them and caught her hands. He met her stare and held there, lost in that warm brown that could soothe and inflame in equal measure.
“Aurora,” he said softly, peaceful at last with the decision he had made. Unable to keep it from her for even a moment longer. “I’m giving up the title.”
Chapter 22
Aurora careened into her parlor with Nicholas hard on her heels. She pivoted in the middle of the room and glared at him, watching as he closed the door behind them and gave them a little privacy.
“No,” she said, finally answering the terrible statement he’d made in the carriage a few moments before.
He arched a brow. “That’s it? Just no. You think that is the end of the discussion, my lady?”
She folded her arms. “No, there is a great deal to discuss. Including just how in the world did you come to such a ridiculous decision?”
“It isn’t ridiculous, Aurora,” he said, but there was no frustration to his voice. Just infuriating calm and decisiveness. “I will not be marquess.”
She moved toward him then in a few long steps. “You have wanted this for years,” she said. “Years, Nicholas. I know that it’s what you’ve desired more than anything. It’s been clear by every action you’ve taken since you returned home from the war. I cannot let you give up on that because…because of me.”
He tilted his head and his smile was almost indulgent. “Aurora, do you know why I so desperately wanted the title when the option of it came up?”
She blinked. That was a question she’d never considered. Her life had been led alongside men of title who inherited their roles. No one doubted that it was what would happen, so she’d never really thought about it.
“I…no,” she admitted.
He reached for her, taking both her hands in his. The electric shock of his touch stunned her, just as it always did. How could she always feel so connected and desired by him? No matter how many times he made love to her, when he touched her it was always the first time.
“You were taken from me all those years ago, Aurora. I didn’t know how much of it was a manipulation at the time, all I knew was that you were gone and I was powerless.” He shook his head. “I wanted to make sure that nothing like that could ever happen to me again. I built my life around it. Somehow I foolishly conflated the idea of power with the idea of control or safety. But I don’t feel that way now.”
“Nicholas—”
“Willowby has a title, a high title, and today I saw his face when the shooting stopped. I saw how afraid he was for Diana. Just like I was holding you and praying that I had protected you well enough and fast enough and long enough. A title can’t stop a bullet, my love. You could have been snatched from me in an instant, or I from you. And there is no protection from that. Not truly.”
She nodded, her arguments lost in the very real discussion of how close they’d come to losing each other that day. “I was so afraid when you stood up that your blood would be on me. That you’d be torn away from me again when we’d only just found each other.”