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Their forced interruption had heightened every sensation. Not just heightened—multiplied. In that spirit, he doubled his pace, stroking into her with abandon. The base of his spine tingled in anticipation. So close. So close.
A hoarse shout tore from his chest as pleasure exploded inside him, blanking his vision and driving out everything else.
He slumped against her chest, pinning her to the wall. Pure joy simmered and hummed in unlikely parts of his body. His stiff finger. His damaged left knee. The scarred, wounded chest that covered his wildly thumping heart. For this one blessed moment, pleasure was all he knew.
“Merry, I …” Words failed him. He just stood there, panting into her hair, just waiting for her to tell him what came next. Because damned if he knew anymore.
“Ask me,” she whispered in his ear. He could hear a smile in her voice. “Know that I don’t believe in fate, or destiny, or anything else except what lies between us, right here, right now. Now ask me to marry you.”
Oh, God. As he pulled in a deep breath, her jasmine scent permeated his very being. He could taste her sweet nectar on his tongue. All this could be his, so easily.
And he was about to do the most damn fool thing of his life.
“I will.” He cleared his throat and pulled away to look her in the eye. “But I must tell you something first.”
Chapter Twenty
“You need to tell me something?” Meredith felt her smile spreading into a silly, cheek-stretching grin.
“Yes.”
Please, she thought. Please let it beI love you. And then, like Echo, she could say the words back. Not just once, but a hundred times.I love you, I love you. I have always loved you. I will love you so hard and hold you so tight, I will make everything better. Every instance of pain will be forgotten, and from this moment forward, you will only know bliss.
But as the silence stretched, Meredith felt her smile fading. “Are there more than three words involved?”
He sighed. “Most definitely.”
His eyes were so earnest, so troubled. He seemed to have missed her hopeful hint completely. Which, in that case, was probably for the best.
“Oh.” She became suddenly conscious of the stone digging into her shoulder blade. “Then … may I lower my skirts?”
“Yes, of course. Sorry.”
He withdrew from her body and tucked himself back in, refastening his trousers in haste. The cravat was a lost cause. He wadded it up and stuffed it in his pocket, where it shared the space with that last orange. Meredith felt, with a sad, sudden certainty, they would never eat it.
She shook out her skirts and smoothed them down.
“Let’s walk,” he said. “It’s easier to converse that way.” He took her by the hand and led her out of the shadows. The street being deserted, they promenaded down the absolute center at a stately pace. A parade of two. Her heart served as the pounding bass drum.
“After what you told me, earlier …” He rubbed his neck with his free hand. “I gather you know my father and I … Well, we didn’t get on.”
The understatement was so great, so absurd—she had to bite back an incredulous laugh. “Yes. I know he beat you. Regularly. Severely.” For her part, she wasn’t going to mince words. If he wanted to talk about it, they were going totalkabout it. He’d been holding his silence for far too long. “Until that last summer,” she added softly. “What made him stop?”
“I grew too big. I came home from Eton four inches taller and two stone heavier than when I’d left.”
“I remember.”
He looked askance at her, as though questioning why she should have noticed such a thing. She shrugged. How could she not?
“I came back to Nethermoor that summer,” he said, “and for the first time I stood taller than my father. I was younger than him, and healthier, too. We both knew I could best him in a fair fight. So the next time he tried to order me into the cellar … I simply stood tall and said, ‘No. Not anymore.’ And that was the end of it.”
She hugged his arm. “That was very brave of you.”
“It was stupid, is what it was. He was enraged, and the fury had no outlet. One night, a few weeks later, I came back from a ride to find him in the stables. He was worked into a frenzy, whipping a mare for only the Devil knows what reason. The grooms were powerless to stop him. Your father wasn’t around.”
Her whole body tensed.
He noticed. “I gather you know where this story is going.”
