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“I could never be afraid of you,” she promised. “I was only grateful. You saved me.”
“Then we are even,” he offered with a shrug. “For you most certainly saved me.”
Caroline grinned up at him. “I suppose I can accept that,” she teased. “I would hate to have one up on you for the rest of our lives.”
He stilled as he processed her words. “Do you mean that?”
Caroline bit her lip. “I mean—”
She had never meant to have been the first to have mentioned a desire for a future with the duke. It was not seemly. Wasn’t a man supposed to make such statements? She knew that, but she supposed she had never been a conventional woman. It would not do to change now. She could only be honest, since their relationship had started with so many lies. Now, she would tell the unbridled truth.
“With every fiber of my being,” she admitted after deciding that the cat was well out of the bag and there was no point in playing the shy maid.
The duke’s face broke out into a beatific grin, and he wrapped his arms around her without fair warning. Caroline squealed with delight when he pulled her onto his lap. He kissed her with all the claiming of a brand and she returned his favor. They languished in one another for a long while, hands and mouths exploring and claiming for their own.
When the duke finally came up for air Caroline found herself laughing against him with what little breath she had recovered. “What?” she asked. He was looking at her as if he had never seen her before. His fingers trailed along the embroidery at her knee, the fine fabric and elegant cut unlike anything he had ever seen her wear. He must have only just recognized the change. “This is very fine,” he said.
“This is what I usually look like,” she informed him.
“I like it,” he replied in a voice far too throaty to be the result of anything but the deepest desire. Caroline basked in the praise. She had never cared what others thought of her looks, but she found the fact that the duke thought her appealing to be the most potent drug of all.
“Thank you,” she grinned. “Does that mean you’ll keep it?” By it, she had meant her, but he knew that. The duke had yet to make an offer but Caroline felt that it was safe to assume that he wanted to. The gentleman was far too used to being rejected, she thought. It could take him ages to work up the nerve to ask her the question, and she wasn’t willing to wait.
“Keep it?” he repeated.
“Yes,” she said. “Keep me.”
“Can I keep you?” he murmured, his eyes full of hope and wonder.
Caroline pursed her lips to one side and tilted her head. “I simply don’t know,” she hemmed. “I would have to be asked, you know. That is generally how these things play out, or so I am told.”
“I’ve already asked your father,” he blurted in such a way that he seemed to have shocked even himself.
Caroline’s mouth fell open. She had enjoyed teasing him but she had not expected that.
He went down on one knee in front of her. “I love you, Caroline,” he professed when it seemed she was unable to speak. “I don’t know if you want me; if you feel the same, but I must speak, and speak now. I can wait for a proper courtship, but I want you to know my intentions. I’ve wanted you for a long time. I don’t know when it first began because I spent ages trying to convince myself that it could never be. Even if I was allowed some dispensation to marry a maid, I could not have children with you, not if you were a commoner, but now—” His face broke into a beatific smile.
Children, Caroline thought. Of course, children. He would want an heir. The thought made her blush and a heat settled in the pit of her stomach.
“When you told me who you really were,” he continued, “it was only then that I began to hope.” His eyes were breaking something in her soul. It was as if he were begging to be loved but unable to believe that she would even consider such a thing. “I’ve thought I lost you so many times now that I cannot imagine another moment not knowing if there might be any chance that you could feel the same.” He raked one hand through his hair, mussing it and a manner that she found most appealing. It was a nervous habit she realized but endearing all the same. “I know that you care for me in some way or else you wouldn’t kiss me the way that you do, and I told your father that you might need time but I’m willing to wait if that’s what you need to be certain.” He was rambling in his nervous state, but Caroline could not bring herself to stop him. The sound of his voice was like music. Her heart had ached to hear every word that was now spilling from his mouth. “I don’t know if you could ever love me, but all that I am asking is that you’ll consider it.”
“I do love you,” she broke in when she could no longer bear his need to argue his case. “I don’t need any convincing, and I don’t need time. I’ve loved you for…” she searched her memory for the moment, “I don’t know how long either because I too had told myself that it could never be. After all, I was married to your father, if only in name.”
“Oh, he began, brushing off the thought with a nonchalant hand.
“And I lied to you,” she said softly.
“You had no choice,” he forgave her.
“It was only when you knew who I was and did not hate me for my deceit that I began to hope as well.”
The duke released a shaky breath as if he feared that a sound might shatter the dream in which they were living.
Caroline reached out to take his chin with both hands, as always unbothered by the scar that was now so natural beneath her palm. She had her own scars now.
He leaned close and their lips met in a searing kiss. All of the passion they had stored up in the past months seemed to bubble forth like a tsunami. She kissed him. Once, twice, and when they heat of that encounter threatened to overcome them both, she pulled away breathless.
“I love you, Robert Bennington,” she said so that there could be no confusion, “and I want nothing more than to be your wife.”
