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“You told me that I must become acquainted with the woman I court before proposing. I’d like to submit, for the record, that I have. I know you, Viola. I know that your eyes are a new-fern color of green that makes me believe in the possibility of a new life. I know that you like to slather your toast with butter, read Gothic romances, and compose sonatas of a rainy afternoon. I know that you are kind, and giving, and you bring out the best in everyone around you. I know that you look stunning in scarlet velvet, and even more beautiful in nothing but bedsheets.”
“What about poor Lady Winifred?” Viola sniffled.
“There’s nothing poor about her. She’s wealthy, attractive, and much sought-after. I don’t think she formed any real attachment to me. She’s never given me any indication of being anything other than complacent and obedient to her mother’s wishes.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“I never gave her false expectations and I never showed her more attention than any of the other ladies. I was too wrapped up in you. I lived for so long in the darkness, but this new man standingbefore you believes in love with a capitalVfor Viola. You hold my heart in your hands. If you refuse me my life will be like summer with no sunshine. An orchestra with no conductor. I want to grow old with you. I love you, Viola Beaton. Most desperately. Will you be buried next to me?”
She smiled through a veil of tears. “Yes, West. I’m yours. I have been since the moment I first saw you. But don’t be too conceited about that. I’m still thinking of the perfect cutting insult and may deliver it when you least expect it.”
“I look forward to it.” He gathered her into his arms and brushed away her tears before claiming her mouth in a searing, heart-pounding kiss.
When she could breathe again, she placed her hand along his angular jaw. “I was a woman who put everyone’s needs before my own. I didn’t know how else to exist. And I was happy, in a way. I was content with my place behind the scenes. But you made me want more.”
“Oh, I’ll give you more. Come.” He took her hand. “I still have something to show you in my bedchamber. And it’snotthe bed. I promise that what I want you to see has nothing to do with fornication.”
She’d rather been hoping it might haveeverythingto do with fornication.
When they arrived, instead of lifting her into his arms and carrying her to the bed, he brought her to a chair and placed a sealed envelope in her hands.
“The very last letter that my father wrote informed me that there was one final letter to becollected from Westbury Abbey. I never read the previous missives, so I never knew that he’d left me anything here.”
“West. You didn’t open it?”
“I was waiting for you. You’re the reason I read his letters. I would have gone my whole life without opening them.”
“You open it,” she said, giving him the envelope. “It’s yours.”
He tore the seal from the letter and began to read.
“What does it say?”
“Viola.” His face was stricken by emotion, his voice choked with it. “This was written two nights before he died. I’d always thought his death was unexpected, but he knew his heart was failing, he knew he didn’t have long on this earth. And you were right. That knowledge changed him. This isn’t a letter, Viola. It’s a new will. Witnessed and sealed.”
West sank to his knees before her, clasping her hands in his. “It’s been sitting here the whole time. A new will naming me as the sole heir to all properties and the entire fortune that was attached to my mother.”
“How extraordinary.”
“It’s not a large fortune at this point, my uncle has spent imprudently, but it’s enough to invest wisely, and to complete the most urgent of repairs to the properties.”
“Will your uncle fight it, do you think?”
“I don’t think so. He doesn’t seem to care about Westbury Abbey in the least. I don’t even knowwhere he is at the moment. He was last seen in Prague.”
“I can’t believe this.”
“It’s all because of you, my love.” He kissed her hand, and then he gave her that wolfish, smoldering stare that had been her downfall on that fateful night the first time they kissed. “Now I’m going to show you the bed.”
They came together in a new way this time, with open hearts and cloudless minds.
As the wild bells rang, Viola gave herself to him, and demanded everything from him in return.
Much later, as they lay with bodies entwined, breathing heavily and grinning like fools, Viola nuzzled his neck. “I thought you said that what you wanted to show me had nothing to do with beds or fornication,” she teased.
“I lied.”
“I can’t trust you at all.”
