“You know there is only one answer here for us. We were caught doing a great deal more than kissing, and Lady Hartfortshire made it seem even worse than it was, if that is to be believed. If I leave this be, it will not only hurt you, but also my sister. And I’ve done one of those things once, and in the service of protecting the other. Everything we suffered in the last year will be for naught.”
She sucked in a breath. “You are talking about marriage. No one will name it, but that’s what you mean, isn’t it?”
His expression faltered a fraction before he nodded. “Yes. Marriage.”
“You don’t want to marry me,” she said. “You don’t want that.”
“Last night I was imprudent. I could have locked the door, I could have taken you to my bed where we wouldn’t have been discovered. But I didn’t. So now what I want or don’t want isn’t at issue.”
“What about what I want or don’t want?” she whispered.
He moved toward her, slowly but with purpose. His hand extended, the same hand he had used to touch her twelve hours before. He cupped her cheek, and she fought not to lean into the strength of his fingers.
“You want stability,” he whispered. “You don’t want to be destroyed. Marrying me will offer you that. If you don’t…the talk was very bad after you departed, Abigail. And we both know that the world is an unfair place, so the consequences will fall harder on you than on me, especially since the fools already think they know something untoward about your character.”
She bent her head, blinking at the tears she didn’t want him to see. “Oh, God. You’re right. I know you’re right, I just cannot believe this is happening.”
“I know. I’m sorry. So, you will marry me?” he asked.
She forced herself to look at him then. “Yes.”
There was a hint of a smile on his face, but then it was gone and he was all business again. He dropped his hand away and paced from her side. “Good. Then we need a game plan on how to approach this. First, I think we simply do not allow ourselves to be destroyed. I won’t be forced to race to Gretna Green or take a special license like I’m running from a consequence. We will read the banns as if this is all very normal. It will also give my sister time to arrive in a week so she can take part in the wedding, which will give it even more a sense of correctness.”
He said each thing with such a cold certainty. Such a calculated air. It certainly wasn’t the great romantic gesture he was describing. Although Erasmus had been very much attached to the great romantic gesture when they courted, and look where it had landed her.
Perhaps this was better.
“You said the talk was already very bad,” she said. “Are you certain we ought not to just marry with haste if that is the only solution?”
“Let them talk,” he said. “And you and I will just make sure the tenor of the conversation is changed.”
“How?” she asked.
“We will let it slip out, through the right parties, that you had agreed to marry me that very night, just before we were discovered. We will imply that we were swept away by our joy and great emotion for each other.”
“Make it a grand love story and they’ll eat it up,” she murmured.
He nodded. “You were in mourning all this time, shattered by what you endured…”
“And you were there,” she whispered. “Supporting me and waiting for the moment I was free to tell me how you felt.”
He swallowed. “Er…yes. Something like that.”
“So we’ll lie.”
“Not all of it is a lie, is it?” Her heart leapt a little at the thought. Then he cocked his head. “I think we were both swept away last night.”
Heat suffused her cheeks, but she managed to squeak out, “Yes. And so we’re…engaged?”
He nodded. “It seems to be so.”
She stood in the middle of the room, shock flowing through her. She could hardly believe it. This time yesterday she had been pondering what to wear to Nathan’s ball, and now…now she would be his duchess. What would that look like? What would it mean?
He smiled as he moved to her. He caught her hand and drew her close, close enough that her skirts brushed his boots. Close enough that she felt his breath stir her cheek before he bent his head and kissed her.
She lifted into him immediately. What else could she do when he was the only solid thing in a world that seemed determined to keep flipping on its head? She clung to him and surrendered as he deepened the kiss, slowed it, reminded her of all he could do to make her quake.
When he drew back, he steadied her on her feet before he let her go. “Don’t overthink it, as I know you are wont to do.”
She glared at him, though she felt no animus at his teasing. “You do know how to ruin a mood.”
He smiled. “I do my best to keep you on your toes that way. We’ll talk a great deal more about the marriage before the wedding comes. But now there are arrangements to make. I promise you, Abigail…I promise…it’s going to be well. I will make it right for you and for me.”
She blinked. For the past six years, nothing had truly been right. Erasmus was undependable even when she’d thought he cared. But this man, this man she had spent so much time actively hating…he said he would fix things. And she wanted to believe him.
Even as she watched him walk out the door without any idea what exactly they would be to each other or how he could possibly make it well.
Chapter 10
Nathan strode out of the parlor, fists gripped at his sides, and out the front door. His carriage was still parked on the drive and he moved toward it, but hadn’t yet given his direction to the driver when he heard his name from the house behind him.
“Gilmore! Gilmore, wait!” Rhys called out.
Nathan ignored him and said a few words to his man. He got into the rig, but Rhys would not be stopped, of course. He hurtled himself in behind him and slammed the door, locking them in together as the carriage began to move.
“God’s teeth,” Nathan ground out. “I don’t need you scolding me again, Leighton.”
Rhys’s brow wrinkled. “I have no intention of scolding you. Did you two work it out?”
“We’re marrying.” Now that he said it out loud to a third party, the truth of it hit him. “We are marrying. Abigail and I are marrying.”
He rolled each word on his tongue, finding them foreign and odd…but not entirely unpleasant.
“I do understand the concept,” Rhys said softly. “You needn’t repeat it.”
“I think I do so that I’ll accept it. This time yesterday I was dealing with twenty last-minute problems with the ball and answering a letter from my sister about her arrival next week. Now…this.”
“I can imagine, though I must point out you did do this to yourself.”
“Thank you. Very helpful,” Nathan said with a glare. “You think I don’t know it? You think I don’t know how complicated this all is? She dislikes me and also likes me against her will. She wants me and pushes me away. It’s all push and pull with us, it always has been.”