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Her breath faltered as he traced the line of her cheek. His touch seemed tender, the stark lines of his face harsh with regret. Sudden hope rattled around inside her chest. Tamping the wild cravings stirring in her breast, she awaited his answer.
“I love you,” he said simply, shocking her witless.
“I…what?”
“From a lad of eighteen, I knew my inheritance was in shambles. It was why I attended my studies so diligently. I needed all the knowledge I could get to turn it around. I have sold paintings and antiques to raise money for investments. They yielded handsome returns, but it was not enough. I knew from I was five and twenty that I needed to marry an heiress to help me. Yet it was not until years later I saw you that I felt that something different…and unexpected awakened inside me. I felt that, before I even knew you were a damn heiress.”
Oh!
“Then I learned your age and thought ‘she is too young for me.’ I was a man of nine and twenty with varied experiences, and you were a chit fresh out of the schoolroom. I turned the other way and resolved to ignore you.”
He reached into his coat and handed a small, framed picture of her.
“Look at it,” he said gruffly.
Prue lowered her gaze to the portrait. It was of her, fresh-faced and laughing, standing near a pond in Kensington Gardens. Her heart squeezed. “This…this day was before my very first ball. My parents took me here only my second day of being out in London.”
“This was the first time I saw you, and I still cannot explain what compelled me to paint you and keep this portrait in my bedchamber.”
And she had never noticed it. Prue lifted her head to meet his stare. “Oscar—”
“I love you,” he said again.
“You are not allowed to take it back!”
“Not even under torture, I would do so.’ He paused, seemingly searching for the right words to say before he just let it all out.
“I know it to be more than a damn word. It is the way my heart beats every day for you, Prue. It is the way I long for you five minutes after I leave your presence, and it is the way whenever we are together, it feels like peace…and happiness. I do not want polite distance and hurt between us ever. Just passion, love, trust, and friendship.”
Her chest rose and fell raggedly. “You wretched beast, to make me have worried so!” She thumped his chest and embarrassed herself by sobbing.
“Forgive me, my wife, please,” he murmured.
She flung herself at him and hugged her arms tightly around his neck. It was as if a dam holding all the pain, doubts, and fears she’d held inside her cracked, and she cried it out, her face buried in his throat. “I love you, Oscar. So very much.”
“I am a fool for not realizing it sooner.”
She sniffed delicately, gripping him even tighter as if she feared he might vanish. “Yes, you should.” Something tender swelled inside her chest. Prue laughed and pulled back, staring up into his eyes. “You love me!”
A crooked smile slanted his face. “Certainly more than anything I could have ever imagined.”
She rained kisses over his face, sighing when he kissed her deeply. Prue’s heart so was happy she felt fit to burst. As he deepened his embrace, she thought, ‘I love you, Oscar, with all my heart.”
Epilogue
Prue slipped from her husband’s arms, sated with contentment. They had spent the night wrapped in each other bodies, delighting in sensual pleasure. She was exhausted from their passionate fervor, yet she also felt exhilarated.
The warbling echo of a rare bird sounded again in the stillness of the night. The very insistent call which had roused her could only have been made from a member of their club. A quick glance at the clock showed it to be minutes after three in the morning. Oh, blast! Shoving the covers from her feet, Prue scrambled from the bed and hurried over to the windows that had been left open to counter the balmy night.
“Don’t tell me your friends also have a secret signal?” Oscar murmured.
Muffling her laugh, Prue glanced around, noting he stared at her with lazy satisfaction and a wicked gleam.
“Yes, and you better get that look out of your eyes,” she muttered before turning back and pushing up the partially open windows.
From the garden lanterns that remained lit throughout the night, Prue spied a slim figure that stood below dressed in black breeches and shirt. The hair was also covered in a black cap. Prue cleared her throat and that face tilted up.
“Charity?”
