“Tessa,” he said under his breath, “what are you doing?”
“Stopping you.” Then louder: “You are a rake! And you are fooling no one with this pitiful speech. We all know it is you the Belle wrote of.”
“Tessa, don’t,” he hissed. “I’m trying to?—”
“I know exactly what you’re doing.” She laid her palm against his chest, and his heart picked up speed. “And I won’t have it.”
He was going to faint. Or cast up his accounts. Or toss her over his shoulder and run off with her into the night.
The audience seemed to hold its breath.
And Tessa wailed, placing the back of her hand against her forehead. “But what I must have…” She paused for dramatic effect. “Is that man as my husband.”
The audience gasped.
Remmy caught her arm. “Stop.”
She dropped to her knees and raised her face to the chandeliers. “Because if he does not?—”
“Tessa.”
“Then I am surely?—”
“Do not do it.”
“Ruined!” she wailed.
“Bloody hell.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. She’d ruined them both.
The theatre had grown so quiet he could hear some man’s pocket watch ticking down the remaining seconds of Remmy’s life. Well, if he couldn’t direct the act, he might as well join it.
He hit his knees beside her and took her hands in his. “How can you be ruined, my heart? Of course we will marry.”
Her eyes danced with merriment. “Do you swear it?”
“You’re laying it on thick,” he whispered. “Adopt some subtlety.”
She grinned.
Louder, he said, “Of course I swear it, sweetheart.”
“You must prove it!”
The audience grumbled its agreement.
“Yes, prove it!”
“Do the right thing, you scoundrel!”
“Marry her!”
And one brilliant soul Remmy thought of as a kindred spirit: “Kiss her!”
“A token,” Remmy said, “of my commitment.”
He stood and kissed her. Hands where they belonged on her neck, tilting her head to the side, lips laid softly against, lips, and her arms wrapping around his waist. He kept it chaste. He kept it sweet.
The crowd erupted in applause.
