“You are making me worried.” An understatement. His heart was beating so fast he was in fear of it smashing his ribs to smithereens.
“Not as much as I am worrying myself, I can assure you.”
“Try opening your eyes and breathing, then spit it out.” She nodded at his advice. Inhaled. Opened her eyes. Then stared at him like a startled deer. “You were thinking that instead of putting it behind us we should…?”
She stared for a few seconds more.
Blinked.
Blinked again.
“I was thinking that instead of putting it behind us we should…” She paused and Giles gripped her elbow, fully committed to shaking the words out of her if he had to, to put him out of his misery. “I was thinking that perhaps we should put it in front of us instead?”
It was his turn to blink. “What does that even mean?”
She pulled an uncertain face and flapped her hands between them. “That we acknowledge it… Don’t ignore it. That we give it a go.”
“Giveusa go?” He couldn’t have heard that correctly.
Her answering monologue was a rapid stream of thoughts thathe struggled to keep up with, but which filled his aching heart with joy.
“I know I’ve always been vehemently against the idea of a man or of losing my independence, but people change, don’t they, and let’s face it, you are not my father. Or that horrid brute in the alleyway. You are not even technically a duke anymore, for pity’s sake. And if Minerva and Olivia are convinced that having a man in your life isn’t such a bad thing and they are both equally as stubborn, then maybe I am doing myself a disservice by denying myself what my stupid heart and even stupider body seem to want. Especially since it heard Lady Sewell in the pergola and that has now given it all sorts of inappropriate ideas that go way beyond kissing. But wanting you doesn’t automatically render me a helpless chattel, now, does it? Let’s face it, we both know that you can issue orders like Wellington at Waterloo and I am still going to ignore you. I am the most headstrong person I know. Only a blithering idiot or a masochist would try to control me or change me and I have long been of the opinion that you are neither. Besides, giving it a go is more dipping a toe in the water than an actual commitment and toe-dipping isn’t legally binding and both parties are still free to step away if it’s all a big mistake. Obviously, I’d want to ease into things with a long courtship and…” She finally paused to take in some air, so before she started up again as her manic eyes suggested she was about to, he placed his fingers over her lips.
“Youwant to giveusa go?” She nodded because his fingers were still over her mouth. “Even though I still have skeletons rattling here, there, and everywhere and I could still have the dukedom stripped from me at any minute?” He released his fingers tohear her verdict but kept them close in case she began to vomit more superfluous words.
She nodded again. “Even though.” She smiled and cupped his cheek. “I cannot imagine not having the constant bane of you in my life, and with some intense training you might even make a decent assistant for the Sentinel one day. But I would hire you as an apprentice assistant.”
“A harridan’s apprentice…” He pretended to ponder it even though he could barely speak he was so choked with emotion. “What are the wages like?”
“Dreadful.” Her lovely eyes were misted with tears. “You’d likely need another job to keep a roof over our heads.”
Ourheads. He liked that. Liked it a great deal. “That’s all right, you can pay me in sarcasm and pithy retorts.” Giles couldn’t stop touching her. Her hands. Her face. The delicate arch of her eyebrow. “Besides, even if Harpenden goes, I still have plenty of money. I’ve been speculating for years and it turns out I am pretty good at it so I hope you don’t mind living in Tavistock Square.”
She laughed as she smoothed her hands over his shoulders. “Bloomsbury is so much more convenient for Fleet Street than Mayfair, but you would have to get rid of all that Egyptian nonsense in your ballroom. I will tolerate your rattling skeletons but am not living with a sarcophagus.”
“It’s empty.”
“It’s an ostentation and one you only purchased to inflame your father.” Her eyes clouded. “I know that losing Harpenden would be devastating to you, Giles, but I cannot deny you being a baker’s son rather than a duke is a great weight off my mind. Imean, look at me? I am a forger’s daughter from Clerkenwell and not at all duchess material. Furthermore—”
He groaned and smothered the rest of that sentence with a kiss so decadent he sincerely hoped she would forget there was ever a furthermore. She wanted him—Dirty Secret, rattling skeletons, and all—so nothing else really mattered.
She smiled against his lips as he hauled her into his lap and they collapsed laughing backward on the sofa, then froze when they heard Vee’s incensed growl from the hallway.
“You have some nerve turning up here again, Galahad Sinclair!”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“I see this place hasn’t changed a bit.” Without waiting to be invited, Gervais oozed over the threshold of Harpenden Hall like he owned the place; something about his smug, covetous stare raised all Giles’s hackles.
“What do you want?”
“You know what I want, nephew.” He gestured to the walls around him like a king greeting his subjects. “I want what I am due.”
“You are due another stint in jail.” Diana stared at his uncle as if he were something stuck to her shoe. “Hopefully they will throw away the key this time.”
“What a charming young lady you have found yourself, Giles. Works forThe Tribune, doesn’t she? Or at least that’s where we’ve seen her fancy carriage drop her off whenever she’s not sneaking around with you. Tell me, was she the one who tore your baptismal record out of the parish register?”
“I have no idea what you are talking about.” Giles forced calmness even though every panicked sinew of his being wanted to adopt a combative stance.
