in the stables. He looked like he always did, tall and handsome and nigh irresistible and… heaven help her.
Ethan nodded. “And the master comes in, soused already.”
“Ethan!”
“Well, he was. And then he had some of the rum Cousin Jack brought me and then he orders me not to fetch anyone to take him in. I couldn’t just leave him there!”
Lucy could see this.
“And I was that tired, I fell asleep. But that’s not what I wanted to tell you.” This was the moment. Ethan was stepping into unknown territory once again, and even more nervous than last night, if that was possible. “The thing is, Lucy, Sir Alexander’s in love with Miss Charlotte.”
“What?”
“He told me so.”
“Told you? Whyever would he tell you?”
“Well, he wasn’t himself, was he? I’d bet anything he’s offering for her in the library right now.” Before she could recover from this surprise, Ethan grabbed her hand and sank to one knee. “It makes everything right, don’t you see? Oh, Lucy, you will marry me, won’t you? I don’t see how I can live without you, and that’s a fact.”
She gazed down at him. His deep, dark eyes were utterly sincere. She felt like she could read his soul in them. His hand was strong and sure on hers. “You won’t be telling me any more lies?”
“Never!”
All the complications that’d been plaguing her seemed to fly away. Whatever people here thought of her, whatever was happening in the library, she didn’t think she could live without him either. “Yes. Yes, I will.”
Ethan surged to his feet and swept her into his arms. For the very first time, this place felt like home.
***
Charlotte sailed into the library on a wave of anger. Yet through it ran a thread of hope that she couldn’t suppress, even though she despised herself for it. He didn’t want her to go. He’d threatened extreme measures—outrageous, insulting measures—to keep her here. She wasn’t an unwelcome intruder in his house. Not that that meant he could order her about. “How dare you summon me as if I were your servant?” she demanded when the door had closed behind her.
“I didn’t. I merely invited you to my library for an important conversation.”
He looked almost back to his usual self—handsome and magnetic, and smug and incredibly irritating. Charlotte crossed her arms and raised her chin. “Yes?”
“Will you sit down?”
“No.” He raised his brows as if she were being stupidly unreasonable. She hated it when he did that!
“Then we will stand. Charlotte…”
He said her name in the way that made her breath catch, and then he said nothing more. He was looking at her as he had that night in her bed, a look to melt bones. Why didn’t he go on? “Yes?” she said, her voice a bit unsteady.
“When I thought that something might have happened to you, that I might have lost you… I realized…”
Charlotte had begun to tremble. This man who always had so much to say seemed suddenly stricken with a maddening inability to talk.
“That I can’t ever lose you. You must marry me.”
She blinked. “Must?”
“I meant…”
“You are to command, and I am to obey. Is that it?” So much of her cried—yes! But was this the way she was to be asked? Or, more like, not asked.
“I didn’t say it properly…”
“Say what, precisely?” If he could do no better than this… Charlotte nearly burst into tears from the turmoil within her.
He strode over and grasped her arms. “Say that I love you with all my heart. And I want you to be my wife more than I’ve ever wanted anything.”
The tension went out of her on a long sigh. Her heart pounded with joy and relief. “I thought you had vowed never to make a love match?”
“The devil with what I said. I was an idiot.”
“You can be, but… yes. I am so in love with you, and yes.”
He pulled her into a kiss that drowned out everything but the feel of his hands on her, the taste of his lips, the glorious knowledge that this and so much more was her future. It was an endless time before they separated, and then only to sit close together on the sofa, his arm warm on her shoulders.
A thought suddenly occurred to Charlotte. “Oh.”
“What?”
“Mrs. Wylde. I never wanted to hear that name again.”
“Well, you will be Lady Charlotte Wylde. Entirely different.”
“Umm.” She smiled impishly at him. “I suppose it’s all right then.” She raised her lips again, and he took them.