“I know,” he whispered back and also drew closer to her. “I lied.”
She blinked. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, I lied.” He reached down and grasped her hands in his. “Insulting your cakes was the only way I could think of to get you to come up here. God knows, ordering you never works.”
“Phillip!” she cried before she remembered there were thirty-six sets of eyes on her. She tried to jerk her hands away. “My lord, what are you doing?”
He kept a firm grip on her hands, ignoring all his guests, his attention fixed on her and her alone. “I wanted you here, Miss Martingale,” he said, loud enough for everyone to hear, “because we have some unfinished business to discuss.”
“Unfinished business?”
“Yes. About our conversation this morning.”
Her cheeks grew hot, and not for the first time, she cursed her fair complexion. “Phillip,” she whispered with a frantic glance down the table, “now is hardly the time—”
“On the contrary,” he said in a voice far louder than hers, “this is the perfect time. In our discussions this morning, there were certain things I failed to tell you. I intend to remedy that now, in front of all these people.”
She tried again to pull her hands away, but he held them fast.
“As everyone in this room knows, I am a gentleman. A gentleman does not declare his feelings in front of others. A gentleman does not reveal his heart to the world. A gentleman doesn’t confess to his secret wishes and desires in public.”
He paused, and the tenderness in his eyes made her heart twist with a pang.
“But,” he went on, “I’m saying these things in front of these people because I want what I feel to be known to all my acquaintances. And yours as well.” He paused, gesturing to Prudence and Emma. “I believe the Duchess of St. Cyres and Viscountess Marlowe are friends of yours?”
He spoke with slow, deliberate emphasis, but though she could not quite determine why he was calling attention to her friends, she nodded in confirmation. “Yes. Very dear friends.”
“Excellent. Several of my friends are here as well. I want all of them to witness what I am about to declare, Miss Martingale, because a public declaration is the only way I can think of to convince you of the depth and sincerity of my affections.”
She stared at him in utter astonishment. Phillip making a public declaration? Of his feelings? It was so unlike him, she couldn’t quite take it in.
“I don’t care about the difference in our backgrounds,” he said. “I don’t care that I’m a marquess and you’re a woman who owns a bakery. And if you want to own that bakery for the rest of our lives…” He glanced at the guests lined up and down the table, then returned his gaze to hers. “Do it. I don’t care about that either.”
“You seemed to feel differently earlier today,” she felt compelled to point out.
“And I was wrong. Maria, I don’t care that position dictates you can’t own a shop. I don’t care that in the eyes of society we would be an imprudent match. And I don’t care if the world thinks you’re not good enough for me. I know you’ve always believed that’s what I think, but it isn’t true.” His hands tightened around hers. “I have never thought you weren’t good enough for me. The fear I have always had, deep down in my heart, is that I’m not good enough for you.”
Murmurs of astonishment rippled through the room, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“You see, I was never the one who could make you laugh.” He glanced at Lawrence, then back at her. “I was never the one who made coronets of rosebuds for your hair and told you that you were pretty.” He swallowed hard, and his chin lifted a notch, telling her as clearly as any words how difficult it was for him to reveal himself this way. “I always wanted to say those things, do those things, but I couldn’t, for a gentleman is not supposed to behave that way. A gentleman is not supposed to fall in love with the chef’s daughter. But right now, today, I don’t give a damn what gentlemen do. I’m just a man, and the only thing I care about is you.”
“Then why did you send me away?” she cried, still afraid to believe. “If you loved me, why did you send me away all those years ago?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“Damn it, Phillip,” she cried in vexation, “nothing you do is ever obvious to me.”
“I like to think that’s part of my charm,” he said gravely.
She bit her lip. Her heart hurt. “Don’t tease. You never tease. Don’t start now.”
“Maria, listen to me. I sent you away because I couldn’t have borne it any other way.” He let her hands go and slid his behind her neck. He leaned close to her as gasps of astonishment rippled down the length of the table, and in his eyes was all the blazing intensity that she’d seen when he had first confessed his desire for her. “I couldn’t have borne it,” he told her in a savage whisper against her ear, “that my brother would be the one to have you instead of me. I should apologize for sending you away, for separating you from him when you loved him, but I can’t. Because I don’t regret it. I’m not sorry. I’d do it again. I couldn’t have borne having you so near to me, and yet out of my reach.” He leaned back to once again look in her eyes. “Don’t you see?”
She did. And she understood what it must have cost him to do what he had done. She cupped his face in her hands. “I’m glad you’re not sorry,” she whispered back. “I’m not sorry either. It was all infatuation, you know. Lawrence and me.”
His hands slid away from her neck to once again clasp hers. “My feelings, however, are not. I want you to be my wife,” he said, loud enough for everyone to hear, “I want you to be my marchioness, the mother of my children, and my lifelong companion and partner. And if it takes the rest of our lives and seventeen hundred proposals to convince you to marry me, then that’s what it takes, and I don’t care about that either.”
Still holding her hands in his, he sank to one knee in front of her. “I love you, Maria Martingale. I have always loved you, from the very first moment I saw you, and I will love you until the day I die. Will you marry me?”
As she looked at him, she felt the strangest feeling, as if she had just stepped back in time to that day when she’d looked at him, stuck out her hand and introduced herself. The feeling that he was her friend, that she could always depend on him to stand by her. He was asking her to be a part of his world, and though it was a world she’d often sneered at, she knew she had to revise that opinion, for she could not imagine any world, any life, without him.
“Yes, Phillip, I will.”
And as she gave her answer, she felt everything in the world shift into place and come right again. Joy welled up inside her—joy so powerful, it hurt.
“I was afraid, you know,” she confessed still in a whisper only he could hear. “I was afraid of falling in love with you, because if I did and your feelings were a fleeting infatuation, you would eventually abandon me, as Lawrence had done. Or, worse, you would send me away again. But when I found out about the ribbon, that you’d carried it all these years, I started to understand that your feelings for me were far deeper than I’d ever imagined. And yet, despite even that, I was still afraid. This morning, when you were talking about the shop, you caught me so off guard. You rattled me, for I hadn’t been thinking about the shop at all, and it was all happening so fast, I panicked.” She took a deep breath. “I still didn’t quite believe you.”
He smiled tenderly and his hands tightened around hers. “And now?”
“I love you,” she said, her voice catching on a sob. “I cannot imagine life without you now. I realize that wherever I go, you will always be beside me. And that’s why I shall give up the shop, for I need to always be beside you. You have become everything to me.”
His hands freed hers, and he cupped her face. “As you have always been to me.”
He tilted her face upward as if he meant to kiss her. Shocked, Maria resisted, glancing toward the people at the table, some of them smiling, s
ome disapproving, some thoroughly appalled. She looked back at him, doubtful. “Does a gentleman kiss a woman in front of other people?”
He tilted her head back. “This one does,” he said and captured her lips with his.
About the Author
LAURA LEE GUHRKE spent seven years in advertising, had a successful catering business, and managed a construction company before she decided writing novels was more fun. The author of fourteen historical romances, Laura has received many literary awards, including romance fiction’s highest honor, the RITA® Award, and her books routinely appear on the USA Today Bestseller list. When she’s not tapping away at her keyboard, Laura spends her time relearning how to ski, mastering the wakeboard grab, and trying to actually hit a golf ball, much to the amusement of her friends. She loves hearing from readers, and you may write to her by visiting her website, www.lauraleeguhrke.com
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By Laura Lee Guhrke
SECRET DESIRES OF A GENTLEMAN
THE WICKED WAYS OF A DUKE
AND THEN HE KISSED HER
SHE’S NO PRINCESS
THE MARRIAGE BED
HIS EVERY KISS
GUILTY PLEASURES
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
SECRET DESIRES OF A GENTLEMAN. Copyright © 2008 by Laura Lee Guhrke. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub © Edition AUGUST 2008 ISBN: 9780061982200
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