“She saw us that night,” he explained.
Hannah’s cheeks went red. “Which night?”
“At Vauxhall Gardens.”
A horrified moan escaped her throat, and she covered her face with her hands.
“Lady Alison threatened to spread the word around the ton about our tryst,” he said. “Unless I courted her long enough to encourage the attention of wealthier suitors.”
Hannah dropped her hands and stared at him incredulously.
“I tried to go to you,” he continued. “To tell you, to ask you to marry me to protect you from the salacious gossips.”
“But I refused to see you,” Hannah concluded. “I’m sure it’s been terrible for you with Lady Alison.”
He sighed. “Absolutely awful.”
“I’m well aware. I went to finishing school with her.”
“I know.” Lucien scoffed. “She said—”
Hannah tilted her head for him to go on. When he did not, she lifted her brow. “What did she say?”
“Nothing I cared about. Nothing that would have kept me from you.”
“What did she say?” Hannah asked, more insistently this time.
Lucien grimaced at having to voice Lady Alison’s ugly words aloud. “That there had been a dalliance…with the stablehand.”
“Me?” Hannah asked.
Lucien nodded. “But I don’t care. Hannah, that was your past and anything you’d done—”
Hannah started laughing. Not in the cruel way Lady Alison often did, but in that pure, open tinkling laugh Hannah gave when she was genuinely amused.
“That was her,” Hannah said between breathless giggles. “Lady Alison was the one who had the tryst with the stablehand. I should know because I’m the one who interrupted their…interlude.”
Suddenly, Lucien felt foolish for having ever believed Lady Alison’s claim in the first place. “I thought I was protecting you.”
“You endured Lady Alison for a fortnight for me? Even after I refused you. Even after my father advised you to never speak to me again.”
Lucien nodded.
“Why would you do that?” she whispered.
“I told you,” he said, his voice hoarse with emotion. “I love you.”
Her head tilted as she studied him. “You really do, don’t you?”
He gently cupped her face in his hands, wishing he could pour every drop of his love for her into that tender touch. “I very much do, exactly as you are, exactly who you are. There is no one in this world more perfect for me than you. If you’ll have me.”
“Are you asking me to marry you?” Her voice caught.
In truth, he had prepared to ask her if she would allow him to court her. But if she were willing to skip over the process and simply be his wife, he would take that over the former with great pleasure.
“Or should I say, are you proposing marriage…a second time?” she added playfully.
Lucian shrugged. “I presume as it worked so efficaciously for Mr. Darcy, so, too, might it fall in my favor.”
“You read the books,” Hannah said with what appeared to be genuine surprise.
“All three volumes.” Lucian nodded. “I dare say that while it was no Odyssey, it was well written and far more engaging than I anticipated. I’m glad to have been introduced to such compelling works that I might never have known otherwise. In this and so many other ways, you have made me a better man.”
Hannah’s heart nearly burst at the realization that Lucien had not only read Pride and Prejudice but that he’d managed to work it into his proposal.
He must honestly love her if he had tolerated the awfulness of Lady Alison for a full fortnight on her behalf.
“Oh, Lucien.” She grasped his hand and held it as though he were the only thing tethering her to the earth. “You needed no improvement.”
He chortled. “I absolutely did.”
“But you didn’t,” she protested. “I loved the way your old clothes fit you and how your hair was slightly too long.” She reached for his cropped hair with her free hand. It was as silky beneath her fingertips as she’d imagined it would be. “You were perfect as you were with your sweet charm and your unpolished candor.”
His cheeks colored in the glow of light washing over them from the ballroom. “You liked me how I was?”
“Yes.” Her heart pounded in a way she never thought it would. “And I love you too.”
A wide grin spread over his handsome face. “Do you?”
“I have for some time, but I’ve been so afraid of rejection that I let it drive a wedge between us. I wanted to prevent myself from getting hurt.” She took a deep breath. “I didn’t think it was possible for anyone to love me. It’s why I had the pact with the other ladies.”
“The pact?”
Hannah clapped her hands over her mouth in horror at what she’d shared.
Lucien’s brow quirked up. “Oh, now I must know.”
Hannah gave a resigned sigh and shook her head. “It was a pact never to wed that the other ladies and I signed when we were at Lady Finch’s Finishing School. We had plans to live in a manor in the country together, free to do whatever we wanted without judgment.” She rattled off the list they each had and how greatly they longed for the freedom to pursue what they enjoyed the most.
“I can see the appeal to that,” Lucien nodded. “But while I hate to ruin your plans…” He knelt before her and held her hand in his.
Her pulse spiked as she knew exactly what was coming.
“Hannah Bexley, you are the most beautiful woman in the world to me, and you’ve lit my life in ways I never knew possible.” His gaze met hers and held it with earnestness as he spoke. “Would you do me the esteemed honor…in front of our eager audience…”
He glanced to the window where all four of her friends’ faces were plastered against the glass, watching them. Hannah and Lucien shared a laugh before he continued, “Will you become my wife?”
She nodded enthusiastically. “Yes,” she gasped. “Yes! Nothing would make me happier.”
“Not even a manor in the country for you and your friends?” he asked with a grin as he straightened.
“Not even that.” She threw her arms around his shoulders, and he kissed her soundly.
A click sounded, and the door to the ballroom was thrown open amid the excited squeals of her friends.
A figure approached from behind them, and the excitement bubbling through Hannah diminished somewhat.
Lady Brightstone.
Her posture was severely rigid, her head held at a proud angle. “I owe you an apology, Miss Bexley.”
Hannah said nothing as the hurtful things the other woman had said welled in her anew.
“Lady Arksford told me after the fact that she knew you were in the bushes at Vauxhall Gardens. I realized then you’d heard what I said.” The muscles in her neck strained as she drew in a deep inhale. “I was immediately ashamed and tried to defend it with false means. My son is a strong man with a sense of justice. When he told me I needed to examine my own life, I realized exactly why I was so ashamed of how I’d spoken of you and how very wrong I was. He had defended you from my unfair accusations from the first.”