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He smiled up at her. “Besides, your brother is none too pleased with me right now. He is more likely tomurderme than consider me as a prospective brother-in-law.”
“Well…you do deserve it.”
“I do,” he agreed. “Say you will marry me, Emily. Make me the happiest man on earth.”
She smiled hesitantly at him. “Oh…I don’t know. I do kind of enjoy looking at you from this vantage point.”
“Marry me,” he coaxed her, his voice dropping to a low whisper. “And I shall serve you on my hands and knees for the rest of my life.”
He was looking at her with that familiar hungry look in his eyes, and Emily felt her face heat up.
He…was he referring to that time at the gazebo…?Emily felt a delicious tingle run down her spine.That did feel rather wonderful. I would not mind a lifetime of, well, that.
She smiled down at him, her fingers curling around his. “I think I would like that, Your Grace.”
The smile that shone on his handsome face was more brilliant than a thousand suns. He shot up to his feet and crushed her close to him.
“My God, I love you so!” he groaned into her ear. “You drive me insane, but I love you so damned much!”
Emily laughed, her chest feeling the lightest it had been recently. “I hope you have the fortitude for a lifetime of that, Your Grace.”
“It will be worth it.Youare worth everything,” he told her, his lips claiming hers in a kiss that stole her breath.
Emily smiled as she eagerly returned his kiss. She could hardly wait for the rest of their lives together.
EPILOGUE
Emily sat at the edge of the bed, her heart pounding in nervous excitement as Jenny finally exited the room, leaving her alone to await her newly wedded husband.
After his proposal at the Montgomery townhouse, His Grace—Daniel, she reminded herself—was a whirlwind of activity. Emily had assured him that she wanted a small wedding with just their family and a few close friends in attendance, but her betrothed would have none of it.
He used all his staff and every connection he had at his disposal to arrange a grand wedding for her at St. George’s Church with everyone of consequence in attendance. If there had been wagging tongues over the sudden end of Emily’s engagement to the Viscount of Caney and her subsequent betrothal to the Duke of Gilleton shortly after, they were all struck dumb when the invitations arrived.
As the wedding was set at merely four short weeks after the invitations were sent out, their aristocratic guests all scampered about to find suitable gowns and accessories to wear to what was now being considered the wedding of the decade.
Even in the rush, His Grace made sure that his bride would have the loveliest wedding dress in all of history, and when Emily finally walked down the church aisle that morning, bedecked in a sumptuous concoction of lace, pearls, and diamonds, there were many who looked on with growing envy.
After all, who would have thought that the wallflower of two seasons would actually manage to marry one of the most sought-after bachelors in all of London?
Emily could hardly believe it herself.
As she sat there quietly, mulling over her wedding day in her heart, she heard the door open, and the tall, broad-shouldered figure of her new husband appeared before her. He had dispensed of the garments he had worn to the wedding and was now dressed in a snowy white shirt that was unbuttoned from his neck down to his chest. Dark breeches encased his long, muscular legs, and Emily flushed when she saw the noticeably bulge in between them.
“My dear wife,” he murmured, striding over to her. “Are you nervous, my sweet?”
She licked her lips a little and nodded, enticing a groan from him.
“If you do that again, I might not be able to hold back,” he warned her in a low voice.
As much as the nights at the garden and the gazebo had given Emily a taste of just how pleasurable her husband’s attention could be, this was to be her first time, the night they would consummate their marriage and become man and wife in every sense of the word.
Tragically, her knowledge of the relations between men and women were limited to what Lady Horatia flippantly told her earlier. The woman could not be bothered to educate her stepdaughter any more than what she felt was absolutely necessary.
On the other hand, Jenny had been all too happy to inundate Emily with as much information as she could, but in the end, it left her all the more confused.
And there had been those two times when His Grace had touched and kissed and pleasured her until she splintered apart in glorious rapture—somehow, they—Lady Horatia and Jenny—never seemed to describe it in the same way that Emily experienced it.
“Come, my sweet.” He urged Emily to stand and follow him to a small table where a dark bottle and two glasses sat. He poured a deep red liquid into a glass and handed it to her. “Drink this. It will help with your nervousness.”
