Page 64 of What a Lord Wants

She looked away as her eyes blurred.

He approached her slowly and set the bouquet onto her dressing table. Then he removed both of his gloves. With his face grim with concern, he reached a paint-stained hand up to caress her cheek.

The tender touch undid her, and a sob tore from her.

His arms went around her and pulled her against him as she struggled to keep from crying. No more tears! She’d had enough of them to last a lifetime. So she buried her face against his shoulder, yet her arms slowly slipped around his waist in jerky movements she couldn’t control.

“It’s all right,” he whispered against her hair as his large palm cupped her head and held her close, the other caressing soothing circles over her back. “I promised you that I’d make all this better, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

“You can’t.” She tightened her arms around him despite her words. Her breath came in panting gulps, each one burning as painfully as the aching hollow in her chest. “You tried—no one believed you. There’s nothing else that can be done.”

“There is.” He placed a reassuring kiss to her temple. “That’s why I’m here.”

At the grim resolve in his voice, she lifted her head to gaze up at him, blinking hard to clear her vision. His dark eyes assessed her closely, the same way he’d done to her a hundred times since she first posed for him. But this time, he did it out of concern, and she squeezed her eyes shut, unable to bear it.

She shook her head and choked out, “I can’t ask anything—”

“You’re going to marry me.”

Her eyes flew open, and through the blurry tears, she stared at him, stunned.Marry him?Surely, she’d misheard. He couldn’t possibly have said…She searched his face, desperate to understand.

But he returned her stare with an unyielding one of his own. “That’s why I’m here. To propose to you.”

Her voice was little more than a shocked breath as the world began to tilt around her. “You cannot be serious…”

But he didn’t laugh as if it were a grand joke, didn’t even smile. Just kept gazing at her with that same somber determination he’d worn since he appeared at her door.

“It’s the only way.” He cupped her face between his hands. “Right now, no one believes that the woman in that painting isn’t you.”

She certainly didn’t need a reminder of that! Her shoulders sagged hopelessly. She was drowning, and dragging Dom and everyone she cared about down with her.

“You need someone outside the family to champion you.”

All of her had turned numb, except for her knotting belly, which pinched so painfully that she swallowed great breaths of air to keep from casting up her accounts all over his boots.

“If the stodgiest peer in England is willing to attest to your character by making you his marchioness, then everyone will believe that it wasn’t you in that painting.”

It would never be that simple. “Marriage won’t stop them from thinking it.”

“But itwillstop them from acting upon it. They wouldn’t dare cut the Marchioness of Ellsworth or her family.” He took her chin in his fingers and raised it until she had no choice but to look him in the eyes. “Besides, when have you ever cared what society thought of you?”

Since half of them saw me naked. But uttering that aloud would only deepen his guilt. Neither of them was innocent in this.

“It’s the only way to save you, Eve.”

She sucked in a deep breath and pressed her hand hard against her stomach. The only way…and the only way to save her family, as well. But at what cost to Dom?

“Say you’ll agree, and I’ll return tomorrow to properly offer for you and arrange the settlement with your father. Then I’ll secure a special license, and we’ll be married within a fortnight.” He took both of her hands in his. “We’ll have a small wedding in St George’s, and then we’ll throw open wide the doors of Mercer House for the breakfast and invite all of society.”

Mercer House. Her last and only visit there had started all this mess in the first place. And now he wanted it to be her home, as Marchioness of Ellsworth? She should be laughing at how absurd his plan was, but it took all her strength not to fall to the floor in sobs.

“Everyone will attend because they won’t be able to resist being invited within its walls, and by doing so, give their tacit approval to the new marchioness. They wouldn’t dare cut you after accepting an invitation to your wedding breakfast.” He squeezed her fingers reassuringly. “Everyone will stop talking about the painting, and by next season, no one will remember it ever happened.”

No. They’d remember every time they looked at her. And Dom, whenhelooked at her, whenheremembered all she’d cost him…How would she be able to bear it?

She stepped out of his arms, and thank God, he let her go.

“But you don’t want to marry me.” She fought to keep her breath and forced out, “You don’t want anything to interfere with your art. That’s why you wouldn’t make love to me, why you turned Constance out of the studio…because you didn’t want to split your passion.”