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‘You couldn’t! Because you love me. The reason I was so unhappy in my first marriage was because of... Well, you know the way Millicent behaved.’
‘Yes, you explained a little of that. It sounded perfectly horrid.’
‘It was. And they said she’d be the perfect duchess.’ He couldn’t help grimacing at memories of the pain and humiliation he’d experienced as a young man. ‘She couldn’t ever have been the perfect duchess. For all that she was born with a title and came from a noble family. And she had money—yes, all the things you say you don’t have. But she didn’t love me. Nor have any of the other women who have made an attempt to lure me into their clutches loved me. They’ve merely coveted the title. You are the only woman who has loved the man and rejected the title. That is what you’ve done, isn’t it?’
He looked at her keenly, wondering even now if she was going to recoil from the duties and status that went with marrying him.
‘Well, not rejected the title, exactly. It’s just that it...it scares me a bit. Well, a lot. I don’t know how to be a duchess, Gregory. And you ought to have a wife who can do you proud.’
‘I ought to have a wife who can love me,’ he came back swiftly. ‘That’s all it will take, Prudence, for you to be my perfect duchess. For you to love me.’
‘It’s lovely of you to say so, but surely it will mean more than that?’
‘Prudence Carstairs,’ he said, pretending shock. ‘Are you admitting to being afraid of something? You who faced down a farmer with a gun?’
She blushed. And wriggled. Which almost made him abandon their conversation and simply give in to the physical appetite she was arousing. It took a serious effort of will for him to concentrate on what she was saying. But he made himself do so. Because this was important. To her, and therefore to him.
‘Physical danger is something I’m used to,’ she said dismissively. ‘Running the gauntlet of indignant society matrons, all pointing their fingers at me and whispering behind their fans, is quite another matter.’
He took hold of her chin. ‘If anyone dares to whisper behind their fan about you, you will simply look down your nose at them the way you did at me when I had the effrontery to try and stop you from singing in public. Remember that? I thought at the time you could have outdone any of the patronesses of Almack’s for haughtiness. Even dressed in rags and singing your heart out at the market cross, you looked like a duchess to me.’
‘Oh, Gregory...’ She sighed, shaking her head. ‘You aren’t looking at me the way everyone else will. They’ll say I’m an upstart. That I smell of the shop.’
‘So what if they do? Why should you care about what anyone thinks or says but me? And don’t forget,’ he murmured into her ear, swirling his tongue round the shell-like whorls for good measure, ‘if anyone dares to criticise you, and I find out about it, I will make them rue the day.’
‘Would you? Yes, I suppose you would.’ She bent her head to give him better access to her ear, and in doing so her neck. ‘I shouldn’t think anyone would dare do anything much, would they?’
‘Of course not. I’m not a man to cross, Prudence. You can trust me to keep you safe...’ he paused to apply his mouth to her throat ‘...and happy.’
‘Yes...’ she breathed as he reached the spot he’d been seeking and sucked. ‘After all, I trusted you with my fortune and my future when I thought you had nothing at all, didn’t I? I don’t know why I thought you were suddenly someone else the minute I discovered you had a title.’
‘I am not anyone else, Prudence. I’m just the man who loves you.’
‘And I love you.’
‘Thank God,’ he breathed. ‘I thought you were never going to admit it.’
‘But—you knew. Didn’t you?’
‘No,’ he growled. ‘You kept me guessing.’
‘But you knew.’
‘No, I bloody well didn’t.’ He reared up onto his elbows and glared down at her. ‘You have kept me on my toes ever since you ran from that ostler and climbed into my cart. From that moment on I’ve always been half afraid you would run off and I’d never see you again.’
‘Well, I won’t, my darling.’ She reached up and stroked his cheek. ‘My love, I will marry you, and stick to you like a burr for the rest of my days.’
‘Thank God,’ he breathed again. And lowered himself back down.
Chapter Nineteen
