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Benjamin stepped toward her, and she was unafraid. “But there mustbefor all of this to have meant something. I must see out my promise to you.”
“Your promise?”
“My promise to keep you safe from the ton.”
She could hardly believe what she was hearing. She brushed the hair from her face and answered, “I have no need for you anymore.”
“I don’t believe it.” He looked at her with earnest longing. She wanted to trust that look. Wanted to trust it more than she trusted the sun to keep rising in the sky. “I have not a thing to bargain with, I know—“
“Bargain?” she hissed in echo. “For which commodity are you bargaining? We have done all we could for one another. More than that… I do not trust you! A cleverer woman would ask you to leave this house at once.”
He took another, more confident step toward her until he was facing her with only the pink velvet sofa between them. “You said yourself that we are strangers—you cannot scorn a man you do not know. Give me a chance to let me prove myself to you.”
She breathed a laugh. The whole moment felt like a fevered dream. “I did, and you proved a liar.”
“You knew Huxley. You knew a highwayman before that. You have not known me as the man Icouldbe with you by my side.” He took her hand from over the seat, and his touch was hot against the naked skin of her palm. It flittered down her arm, up to her shoulders, and she almost felt herself falling forward. “I don’t deserve a second chance at meeting you, Char. I don’t deserve athingin this life beyond punishment… but rogue that you know me to be, I must ask, knowing I have nothing to loseandeverythingto gain…“ he breathed in, pulling her fingers up to his mouth, “Marry me.”
It must have been a dream. There was no other explanation for the words that had spilled from his mouth. She thought to see them on the air, drifting before her face:marry me. “Marry… you?”
“That’s what I said.” He climbed onto the sofa, kneeling on the cushions, so his eyes were level with hers. “I will die before I see you married to Gamston,” he spat the name, “I need to keep you safe.”
“Safe… from the ton?”
“From anything and anyone who would look to do you harm.” Effortlessly, he hopped over the back of the sofa. It was as if they were dancing, her taking two steps back, another around him, and him moving ever toward her.
She twirled by the pianoforte. She must have been under a spell because the proposal had not incited fear butexcitement.“You’re mad—madder than I have ever given you credit for!” she murmured through a laugh. “You ruin me and then look to secure my hand in marriage! Even if you were not a villain, acriminal, you haven’t a penny to your name!” She scoffed, trying not to smile. Why could she not stop smiling? “Marry me,” she said mockingly, and it felt like the world was spinning too quickly. “Even if I were to marry you, who might I say I am marrying? Huxley? Fletcher? My father would send me to a convent! Gamston would be the least of your concerns. And—“ She stopped, realizing that he was staring at her, grinning.
“You ramble when you’re nervous.”
He had said that once before. “Is that all you know of me? That I ramble? No, of course not! You also know that I am easily fooled!”
Benjamin hopped toward her, and she placed an armchair between them. Through his incessant smile, he said, “I know that. I also know that you are beautiful, devilish, bright, bold, and gifted.” He grabbed the armchair to pull it away as if they were trapped in a tug-of-war. “I know many things about you, and I love them all!”
Charlotte bit her lip. “This isn’t Shakespeare!” She pushed the chair toward him. “This is mylife! I have no proof that your words have any credence.”
With a kick, he cleared the space between them and dropped to his knee. “Marry me,” he asked, taking her hand.
She pulled it away. “No!”
“Marry me,” he asked again, taking the other.
“Mr. Fletcher—“
“I shall ask you to marry me until I am breathless.”
Somehow, she believed him. She was as deluded as he was. “That we might shack up in that hovel of yours with your many friends? Don’t make me laugh, sir!”
“I will give it up. I will be born anew for your hand.” He rose to his feet, and there was no more space between them. “I will be whoever you need me to be… until you no longer have need of me.” His gaze fell to her lips, and she blushed. “Think of this, Char—we could be everything you havedreamed. I will make a thing of myself and you could do the same! You could write, liberated. I would protect you from all ill. If not forever... then long enough to see Gamston to his deathbed.”
Her skin turned to ice. “You mean… you are only asking for my hand long enough for me to become a spinster?”
He shrugged. “If that is what you want. Was that not our original plan?”
Her eyes were slick with the need for sleep. She wiped her lids, hoping it might give her a moment to herself when he was notlookingat her, crazed. “You’ve lost your mind…”
Benjamin laughed, and it was the sweetest thing she had ever heard. “Only for you. Charlotte, you have made my world shift for your being in it. I will not pretend to be a knight in shining armor come to save you. I have mistreated you. I have lied to you. I have taken you for granted because I did not know who you were—”
“You thought I was an unfeeling, spoiled princess.”
