Page 68 of The Earl’s Hoyden

“I tried to go to you,” he continued. “To tell you, to ask you to marry me to protect you from the salacious gossips.”

“But I refused to see you,” Hannah concluded. “I’m sure it’s been terrible for you with Lady Alison.”

He sighed. “Absolutely awful.”

“I’m well aware. I went to finishing school with her.”

“I know.” Lucien scoffed. “She said—”

Hannah tilted her head for him to go on. When he did not, she lifted her brow. “What did she say?”

“Nothing I cared about. Nothing that would have kept me from you.”

“What did she say?” Hannah asked, more insistently this time.

Lucien grimaced at having to voice Lady Alison’s ugly words aloud. “That there had been a dalliance…with the stablehand.”

“Me?” Hannah asked.

Lucien nodded. “But I don’t care. Hannah, that was your past and anything you’d done—”

Hannah started laughing. Not in the cruel way Lady Alison often did, but in that pure, open tinkling laugh Hannah gave when she was genuinely amused.

“That was her,” Hannah said between breathless giggles. “Lady Alison was the one who had the tryst with the stablehand. I should know because I’m the one who interrupted their…interlude.”

Suddenly, Lucien felt foolish for having ever believed Lady Alison’s claim in the first place. “I thought I was protecting you.”

“You endured Lady Alison for a fortnight for me? Even after I refused you. Even after my father advised you to never speak to me again.”

Lucien nodded.

“Why would you do that?” she whispered.

“I told you,” he said, his voice hoarse with emotion. “I love you.”

Her head tilted as she studied him. “You really do, don’t you?”

He gently cupped her face in his hands, wishing he could pour every drop of his love for her into that tender touch. “I very much do, exactly as you are, exactly who you are. There is no one in this world more perfect for me than you. If you’ll have me.”

“Are you asking me to marry you?” Her voice caught.

In truth, he had prepared to ask her if she would allow him to court her. But if she were willing to skip over the process and simply be his wife, he would take that over the former with great pleasure.

“Or should I say, are you proposing marriage…a second time?” she added playfully.

Lucian shrugged. “I presume as it worked so efficaciously for Mr. Darcy, so, too, might it fall in my favor.”

“You read the books,” Hannah said with what appeared to be genuine surprise.

“All three volumes.” Lucian nodded. “I dare say that while it was no Odyssey, it was well written and far more engaging than I anticipated. I’m glad to have been introduced to such compelling works that I might never have known otherwise. In this and so many other ways, you have made me a better man.”

Hannah’s heart nearly burst at the realization that Lucien had not only read Pride and Prejudice but that he’d managed to work it into his proposal.

He must honestly love her if he had tolerated the awfulness of Lady Alison for a full fortnight on her behalf.

“Oh, Lucien.” She grasped his hand and held it as though he were the only thing tethering her to the earth. “You needed no improvement.”

He chortled. “I absolutely did.”