“I can assure you that you will not lack for anything,” Mr. Drew said.
“Except love,” Henrietta countered.
Mr. Drew shrugged. “You are pleasing to the eye,” he remarked. “I don’t see why we couldn’t form an attachment towards one another.”
“How romantic.”
Mr. Drew took a step closer to her. “You want the truth, then?” he asked.
“I would prefer it.”
“You were found in a compromising position with a man in your bedchamber,” Mr. Drew said, his eyes narrowing. “No one will want you now.”
Without the slightest hesitation, Charles spoke up from behind Henrietta. “I do.”
Not quite believing what she had just heard, Henrietta turned to face Charles. “Pardon?”
Charles met her gaze. “I want you, Henrietta.”
She opened her mouth to respond when Mr. Drew spoke up from behind her. “Well, you can’t have her,” he spat. “She is mine.”
“Why don’t you let the lady speak?” Charles asked dryly.
Henrietta felt the emotions stirring inside of her at Charles’s declaration, but she had a few questions of her own. “Are you in earnest?”
“I am,” Charles replied. “I hold you in high regard, and I refuse to let you marry this blackguard.”
“But we hardly know one another.”
“I know enough,” he replied.
“You do?”
He nodded. “You have intrigued me from the moment we met, and my thoughts of you never end.”
“Oh, Charles,” Henrietta breathed.
His eyes sparked with vulnerability, and he swallowed. “I hope I am not alone in my affections.”
Finding a reserve of hope inside her, she found the courage to reply, “You are not.”
“That does please me to hear.”
Mr. Drew started slowly clapping from behind her and didn’t stop until she turned back to face him. “That was charming, but nothing has changed. Henrietta will still be my wife.”
Charles took a commanding step towards Mr. Drew. “Everything has changed,” he declared. “Henrietta has agreed to become my wife.”
“Have I?” Henrietta asked.
Charles glanced over at her. “I didn’t specifically ask, but I assumed that is what we were discussing,” he said.
“I…” Her voice trailed off when her father stepped through the gardens with a stern look on his face.
“Are you gentlemen quite finished with this spectacle?” her father demanded. “If so, I would like to see you both in my study.”
Her father spun on his heel and headed back into the townhouse without waiting for a response.
Charles offered his arm and asked, “May I escort you inside?”
