She smiled, her eyes stinging. “I know.”
He blinked in surprise. “You… knew?”
“You showed me,” she said. “Not your interference with my cousin. I mean you and me, right here on this bed. You didn’t say the words, but you didn’t have to. You told me with your body. You would never have given up control to anyone you didn’t love and trust.”
“Let me prove how much every night and every tomorrow.” He pressed her fingers to his lips without taking his eyes from hers. “Make me the happiest of men. Marry me. Or at least stay, for as long as you like, and I will do my best to make that be forever.”
She gazed down into his hazel eyes.
He was right. She didn’t have to prove herself. There was nothing left to prove. Unity had already proven herself over and over, time and again. She was fine. She was complete. She was capable. She was enough, with or without him.
The choice was hers.
She cleared her throat. “Are you certain you wouldn’t mind if I... oh, say for example... launched competing masquerades?”
He grinned at her. “As long as you don’t mind competing against yourself.”
She frowned. “What?”
“I don’t want to possess you,” he said again. “I want the Duke and Duchess of Lambley to be a team. You should do as you please with your money. It’s yours. What I want to do with my life is share every part of it with you. This is your home. These are your parties, too.”
She eyed him skeptically. “I can change the order of the fruit trays?”
He blanched, but nodded. “I want you to choose me. I want you tokeepchoosing me, every day. Just as I will keep choosing you, over and over again.”
She knelt before him and pressed his hands to her rapidly beating heart. “I’ve been choosing you, day after day. I chose you when you joined me in the market. I chose you when you made ridiculous rules about kissing. I chose you when you fed me grapes I’d never heard of. I chose you when I walked into this room.”
His breath shook. “Are you saying...”
“I’m saying I do choose you. I’ll keep choosing you. I love you, you high-handed, arrogant sobersides. Yes. I’ll marry you.”
“But youwereteasing about altering my perfect fruit trays?” he whispered.
She burst out laughing and wrapped her arms around his neck. “You realize half of society will not condone our union.”
He scooped her up. “You do realize I don’t give a fig about their opinions.”
“You were scandalous long before I met you,” she agreed, trailing a finger along his naked shoulder. “So what is it you do care about?”
He tumbled her onto the bed and climbed between her legs, his eyes glinting wickedly. “Let me show you, duchess.”
And so he did.
Epilogue
Unity stood next to a conveniently located table of hopelessly mismatched hors d’œuvres and watched as costumed guests streamed through the open doors of her masquerade club.
She could not keep her grin from taking over her face.
This was the twenty-eighth time she’d stood near the entrance to glimpse the first arrivals, and each crowd was larger than the one before.
“You did it,” her husband whispered into her ear.
Her chest filled with pride and happiness.
This was once Roger’s club, though it never should have belonged to him. As an adolescent, when Unity first started making decisions for the club, it had ceased to feel like Roger’s even back then. It washerefforts that had made it successful, and it was her efforts again that had completely reimagined it into the vibrant, inclusive, non-scandalous masquerade club it was today.
Hers. Her heart fluttered every time she thought the word.
