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“As am I,” he admitted.
She laughed, a soft feminine sound.
“In your quest to share your own feelings, Lady Charity, you have denied me mine,” Lord Wentwell said, “But I must speak.”
“I thought that gentlemen were all the cool collected logic and not given to flights of fancy,” she quipped.
“I was wrong to say it. And when I am wrong, I admit my misdoings.”
“I too have been wrong about you, Lord Wentwell, You are not a rake. Not truly.”
“Hush, woman,” he said. “You will ruin my reputation. Shall I prove what a rake I am?” He leaned in to kiss her, making her heart sing and her blood rush to her head. She felt dizzy with the passion of it. When she could breathe again, she said, “But you are not so callous as you would let on. You do have feelings.”
“Feelings,” he said and he kissed her again.
“You deny them, but you are not so cold as you would have others believe.”
He held her a bit apart then and looked at her. His so green eyes bored into hers, and Charity thought to look down, unable to bear the intensity of his gaze, but Lord Wentwell took her chin in his hand and turned her face up to his, rubbing his thumb along her lower lip.
“I did not tell you of my feelings, indeed, I have denied them even to myself. It is not easy for a man to admit to such things.”
Her lips quirked in a smile. “Oh, so Lord Wentwell has found a game he will not play?”
“Not so,” he said. “I have only found that the stakes are much higher than I ever thought. It is true that I have often worked to keep the upper hand in a relationship. That is because, my dear Lady Charity, the truth of the matter is, I am afraid. I am afraid to lose this wager.”
For an instant Charity almost spoke, to tease him, to say, the daring and dashing Lord Wentwell, afraid, but then she realized he was speaking the absolute truth, and she reached up to touch his face. How was it that he was so strong and so vulnerable all at the same time?
“You shall not ever lose me,” she whispered.
“I have been afraid of showing my true self for a long time now. I did not believe that a woman could be trusted with such knowledge and so my initial intent was far from honest,” he said. “I knew you were the most beautiful, the most engaging, the most interesting of my acquaintances, and I thought only to turn your head, but then, you met me quip for quip and challenged me to be a better man, and I realized my own life would be less without you in it, because of the person you are, Lady Charity Abernathy.”
He moved his hand from her chin to her cheek stroking it gently. “You are not like any other woman I have met. You are Lady Charity Abernathy, buxom and beautiful, but more. You have a kind and generous soul, and you have healed mine, Charity. I want to spend all my days with you, grow together and grow old with you and fill our house with children so that you will never have a moment to be lonely. Say yes.” But he did not allow her to speak. He kissed her sweetly, gently, and she smiled up at him. He did not even realize he had forgotten the most important part.
“You will have to do better than that,” she quipped.
“I love you,” he said.
“I think that you are really not at all good at this,” she said screwing up her face in a quizzical expression.
“Please do not tease me,” he said. “I want to do better. To see a woman as more than a plaything. To see her…to see you. As a person. A person I love. Just as you are. The only transformation I should want to make, is to change your name from Abernathy to Collington. Will you be my countess, Lady Charity, and let me play this game of life with you and only you at my side?”
“Finally,” she breathed. “Yes! There is no where I would rather be than at your side, Lord Wentwell,as your wife!”She wanted to tell him that she looked forward to joining his family to hers, to having his children, growing old with him, no matter what that entailed, and indeed being his countess too. She wanted to tell him she could never be lonely with him at her side. He was the other half of herself for which she had been searching, but she never got the chance.
Before she could speak again, he swept her into his embrace with all the exuberance that she loved about him, and he was suddenly kissing her, kissing her with all the passion that she knew was inside of Neville Collington, rake extraordinaire, but he was her rake now, she thought as she felt his lips hot and insistent upon hers.
The scent of him filled her senses and made her both weaker in the knees and stronger at heart. She felt her soul fill with love as he kissed her long and deep. She tasted him, as he wrapped his arms around her making her feel sheltered, and protected and loved, and he deepened the kiss. As her body turned to liquid heat, she found herself with the railing at her waist. His hands had moved from her waist, to cup her and pull her close. She could feel every inch of him, and she wanted him with all her heart, but she managed to pull herself from the passion. Her body was trembling; her head swimming.
“No,” she whispered against his lips. “Someone will see.” She would not be embroiled in rumor. She would not prove his mother right. She would not be her own mother. She was herself, and she wanted something more.
He broke the kiss and looked at her with dark passion in his eyes. “I love you,” he said. “What does it matter what someone else sees? What does it matter how theTontwitters?”
“And I love you,” she said, “but if I am to be your wife, I will not be the center of rumor. I have seen what this did to my mother. I will not be her.”
“You are right, of course,” he said, putting an agonizing space between them. He brought his hands from places unmentionable, and smoothed her dress with a loving touch. “You are right. I forgot myself, Lady Charity.”
“So did I,” she admitted with a glint in her own eye.
He stepped away from her then as he spoke, almost to himself. “I should get a special dispensation so we do not have to wait weeks until the banns are read. We have waited too long already.”
