AllFreeNovel
Share Us
CHAPTERSEVENTEEN
Hunter shook his head at Evie’s too-innocent expression. The little imp obviously had decided now was the time to focus her considerable attention on him.
He crossed the room to resume his seat on the chaise beside her and take one of her bare hands in his.
He saw absolutely no reason to delay this explanation any longer when there was always the possibility that if he did, Evie would somehow misinterpret his intentions yet again. “The reason I asked Oxford to become your guardian is because I cannot remain so. I would then have no one with whom I could ask permission to propose to you.”
Evie stared at him blankly for several moments before frowning. “Propose what to me?”
Hunter should have known that in this, as with everything else which involved Evie, she was not about to make easy for him. Not that he doubted for a moment that her puzzlement was real. She genuinely had no idea what he was talking about.
He drew in a deep breath for courage before releasing it. “Evie, when a man loves a woman deeply and overwhelmingly, it is advisable, for his sanity, for him to ask that lady to marry him.”
She looked none the wiser for this explanation. “Yes?”
“Evie, it is I who lovesyoudeeply and passionately.”
She blinked. “You do?”
“I do.” He smiled ruefully, then winced. “Could you at least try to look a little pleased at the admission, even if you ultimately refuse me?”
“Refuse you what…?”
“Your hand,” he bit out his frustration. “This hand.” He lifted her bare left hand and kissed the back of it. “And this one.” He lifted her right hand and kissed that too, maintaining his hold on both of them as he continued. “Evelyn Jane Gardener, will you please marry me and put an end to the torment of love and desire I have felt and suffered for you since the moment I first saw you as a beautiful woman and heard you speak?”
Her throat moved as she swallowed. “In the forest?”
“Yes.”
“When I was dirty and rebellious?”
“You are always rebellious, my love, and the dirt you could do nothing about.” He frowned. “If anything, I was the one responsible for your discomfort continuing for as long as it did.”
“My love…?”
“That is what you are and always will be to me,” he assured. “I wish… I hope one day I might become the same for you, and when that day comes, that you will agree to become my wife.”
* * *
Evie felt as if her world had tipped up on its axis before falling to earth again, now made different and brighter. So bright it threatened to blind her with the possibility she might spend the rest of her life with Hunter. The man she loved with the whole of her heart.
She moistened her lips. “You love me?”
“Very much.”
“You wish to marry me?”
“More than my next breath.”
“You have already asked my new guardian if you might make your intentions known to me?”
Hunter’s expression was pained. “Please tell me you are not going to be angry at me for that? There is a way of doing these things, my love, and I first had to get Oxford’s agreement to the guardianship before I could then ask his permission to court and hopefully marry you.”
Hunter had done all this forher? Because he was in love withher? Because he wished to marryher?
She had never thought… Never dared to dream…
“Are you sure you wish to—”
