“I so admire your strength,” he said. “That must have been difficult.”
“Impossible,” she said, and her voice broke, revealing the pain she’d been caused. “And yet I did it. Do you want to know how?”
He nodded. “If I’ve earned any right to hear it.”
“The strength came to me when I needed it.” Her breath shook. “The form it took was your voice, telling me that I was worthy of so much more than he has ever given. Your words in my head, telling me that my nature is not something to be ashamed of.”
Warmth rose up in him. “If something I said was in any way helpful to you, I am forever grateful for that. But your strength has been and always will be yours and yours alone, Katherine. It runs through you like a deep river. I wish I could be like you.”
She held his gaze a long moment and he saw all those things he loved about her. And yet there was still hesitation, despite the good sign that she was here, talking to him. Bringing this painful experience she’d just had to him to share.
“Something brought him to me,” she whispered. “A whisper on the wind. Someone told him that you said you would marry me.”
He froze. When he’d confronted his friends the previous day, he had intended only to halt the gossip surrounding Katherine. And to protect her from advances she didn’t want. But his admission that he loved her, that he intended to wed her, must have been even more shocking to them than he thought if the word was already spreading.
“Did you say that, Robert?” she asked.
He slowly walked toward her. “I have made a vow to myself that I will never lie to you again, Katherine. Yes, I did tell some of my friends that I intended to marry you.”
Her lips parted. “You said that even after what happened between us in Abernathe?”
“My intention is one thing. Your answer is another. Perhaps you will never agree to be mine.” He cleared his throat to push away the pain that thought brought him. “I would not blame you after what I did to you in the past few weeks, what I did to you long before that. But I still want to marry you, Katherine.”
She staggered to a chair and sat down hard in it. “Why?”
He drew a few breaths. All he had wanted since their last meeting was a chance to talk to her. To tell her the truth, all the truth. And the chance was here and now he was gripped by terror that he would answer all wrong. That he would make things worse. That he would lose her.
He supposed that was why they said risk your heart. The risk was losing everything. The prize was winning it all.
“I have never let myself love,” he said. “Not because it was inconvenient or foolish, though that was what I said to the world. I didn’t let myself because it was terrifying.”
Her gaze softened. “Your past does not make that a surprise.”
“To love another, to open yourself to receiving their love, that is the ultimate power,” he continued. “Another person’s happiness at your fingertips. Your happiness at theirs. One wrong move, purposeful or accidental, and your life can be destroyed. I watched that with my mother. I saw the damage it could do. And yet…”
“Yet?” she asked, her tone suddenly breathless.
He reached out and took her hand. She let him, and it was the most beautiful and brilliant moment of his entire life.
“It is worth that risk, isn’t it? Katherine, I love you.”
She jerked and her hand began to tremble, but she didn’t take it away. She just stared at him like he was speaking another language.
“I love you,” he repeated. “I haven’t properly shown it, I know that, because I feared it so deeply. But that didn’t mean I could run from it. I love how you challenge me and match me. I love how you open me, how I trust you to do that in return. I love when you touch me, my body, of course, but my heart. My soul. You have made me see what I’m missing in my life and all of it is you.”
Her breath came shallow now, short, and he kept going for fear she would stop him and turn away.
“I started out so badly with you. If I could go back in time and change everything I did, I would do it in a heartbeat. I would scream at my younger self to marry you. To keep you from ever enduring what you went through because of my cowardice. And I would tell that man I was just a few weeks ago that I was empty and awful when I made that stupid wager.”
“But you can’t go back,” she said at last.
He bent his head. Her voice was shaking, and he was gripped with terror and pain. What he said likely didn’t matter. If she had ever cared for him, he had destroyed those feelings.
“No,” he said. “I can’t. If you despise me, I understand. I will do as you wish, whatever that is.”
“Look at me,” she said. He looked up, meeting her eyes no matter how difficult it was. She reached out and then her fingers were touching his cheek, just as she’d done a hundred times. He leaned into her warmth, knowing it might be the last time he shared it. “It would be nice to be able to go back in time. To fix our mistakes. Only it is the mistakes, the pains, that sometimes take us to where we want to be, isn’t it?”
He blinked. This was not an outright rejection. “Yes, I suppose it is.”
“I could wish my marriage away, but perhaps I wouldn’t be the person I am today without what I went through. We could wish you would have married me that night I came to you, but who is to say you wouldn’t have hated me for trapping you? That you wouldn’t have been ready, nor would I, for what we now share.”
“What are you saying?” he asked, truly confused and yet hopeful.
She smiled. And he knew. He knew that she would forgive him even if he didn’t deserve it. He knew that she would love him. He saw it, he felt it, he flew with it, and the world faded away, leaving only her.
“I-I love you,” she whispered. “I didn’t want to. I tried not to. Only you saw me, as no one else has ever done. And I see you, beneath the layers you wear as a cloak for the world, there is Robert. My Robert. Who I love and trust. I was so angry when I heard you talking to Berronburg. But if I walked away from you because of it, I would be tearing out my heart and throwing it away, too. I can’t. I won’t.”
“So what do we do now?” he asked.
“You apparently told the world you would marry me. Will you?”
He laughed, joyful at the unexpected turn of events. “Isn’t that what I am supposed to say?”
“Neither of us has ever stood on convention. But if you want to say it, I would love to hear it.”
He dropped to his knee before her and stared up into her beautiful face. The one that reflected his future. The one that reflected the best version of himself.
“Katherine, I am far from perfect, but I love you so deeply. And I want nothing more than to join my life with yours forever, if you will have my hand. Will you please look past all my faults and marry me? As soon as possible.”
Tears flowed down her cheeks and she reached forward to cup his cheeks. “Robert, I am far from perfect. And we will make ridiculous mistakes, I know. But the fact is that I am truly myself when I am with you. And to walk away from that, from you, would be like cutting away a piece of myself. I will marry you. Today, tomorrow, whenever you like. I love you so very much.”
He lifted up on his knees and she leaned forward. They met in the middle, lips colliding, arms crushing around each other in a kiss he had been wanting for days and needing his whole life. And as he drowned in her, he knew that there was nothing else in the world that he would ever need but the woman in his arms.
For the first time, he looked forward to the future. And he couldn’t wait to see what their lives would bring.
Enjoy an exciting excerpt from the final story
The Last Duke
out November 2018
Kit motioned Sarah into a smaller parlor just down the hall from where his friends were gathered and watched her walk inside. She turned in the middle of the room to face him, her hands clenched in front of her.<
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She was trying to be strong. He could see that in the twitch of her cheek, the way her fingers fluttered against each other in their gripped position and how her gaze darted to him and away. Like a little bird flitting back and forth.
She was nervous. She was also very pretty. Her blonde hair was bound simply at the base of her neck, but there were a few honey strands that framed her face, highlighting the angles of her cheekbones. She had full lips that were a warm pink color.
He blinked as those facts rolled through his mind. None were surprising. He wasn’t certain of the first time he’d noticed the young woman standing before him. Certainly they had shared many a ballroom or parlor in the years since she first came into Society. His attention had come fully to her that night of the ball when she’d spoken harshly to Meg, though.
After that, he’d watched her. Noticed when she entered rooms, felt when she left them. When her hairstyle changed. When she had a new gown.
“How is Phoebe?” he choked out, trying to clear his mind of the riot of thoughts clattering around in his head. Jumbled by grief, certainly.
Her eyes widened a fraction, like she was surprised by the question. She cleared her throat. “As well as can be expected, Your Grace.” She hesitated a moment and then her expression shifted a fraction. Softened. “Despite her tender years, she is a very bright little girl. She seems to be a bit easier since you told her she would not be sent away.”
He paled. “God’s teeth, the very idea that she would be. Where would she get such a notion?”
Sarah shook her head. “I cannot imagine. A child’s mind twists in its own way. Some offhand comment or something she saw in a story…who knows.”
“Well, I’m glad that my words comforted her in some way.” He shook his head. “I try to reach out to her, but…”
“It’s difficult,” she finished softly. “You’ve had a great deal to do since…well, since that day.”
He drew a long breath. This was not why he’d asked her here to talk to her. This momentary connection where she comforted him with her gentle words, her soft tone. He took a long step away, putting his back toward her.
“Well,” he said, sharpening his tone. “We will need to be very careful with her for a while.”
“Of course,” she said slowly. He turned to face her and found she had edged toward the door. “Will that be all?”
He arched a brow at the hopeful expression on her lovely face. The fact that she wanted to escape him was evident. It sparked a reaction in his belly that made him set his jaw.
“No,” he said firmly. “My friends will be staying here a while. Is that going to be a problem?”
The color drained from her face slowly and she swallowed, the action making her throat flutter. Her slender, lovely throat.
“What do you mean, Your Grace?” she asked, her voice catching ever so slightly.
He stepped forward. “I saw you and Isabel talking and you were looking at Simon and Meg. I couldn’t help but think of what I stumbled upon and if that will impact your ability to perform your duty.”
For a moment she merely stared at him, eyes wide, hands trembling. Then she widened her stance a fraction, as if bracing herself for whatever would come next.
“I assume you are referring to the incident that occurred between myself and the now-Duchess of Crestwood years ago?” she asked, her voice surprisingly strong.
He arched a brow. “I am, indeed.”
“I assure you, Your Grace, that we aren’t going to have a problem,” she said. “I know my place very well and what I am expected to do to keep it. Is that all?”
He nodded. “For now.”
She blinked at his answer and a momentary terror entered her gaze. Then it was gone and she nodded. “Very good. If you need nothing else from me, I shall go collect your sister and see if she can be coaxed to try to sleep for an hour or so. She is overwrought, and I think it would do her good.”
He nodded. “Very good.”
She turned and moved to exit the room, but at the doorway, she stopped and faced him once more. “Y-Your Grace, I realize you have been overwhelmed by your duties these past few days. I wanted to tell you again how very sorry I am for your loss. I-I know what it is like to lose a much beloved parent. Good afternoon.”
She walked away, leaving him to gape after her in surprise. Oh, of course he had been given condolences many times in the days since his father’s death. Virtually everyone on his grieving staff had spoken to him and all his friends had done the same. He was certain he would hear many more words like hers in the days, weeks and even months to come, for his father had been much beloved in Society.
But no one had yet framed his loss in the light of their own. No one had expressed empathy of that kind until she had. He looked to the spot at the door where she had spoken to him and sighed.
He didn’t want the woman here. She made him…uncomfortable in ways he could not express in words. But now that she had left him alone in the room, he also felt a little…empty. Like he had missed an opportunity he hadn’t known existed.
He shook his head as he cleared away those odd thoughts. They meant nothing.
Other Books by
Jess Michaels
The 1797 Club
For information about the upcoming series, go to www.1797club.com to join the club!
The Daring Duke
Her Favorite Duke
The Broken Duke
The Silent Duke
The Duke of Nothing
The Undercover Duke
The Duke of Hearts
The Duke Who Lied
The Last Duke (Coming November 2018)
Seasons
An Affair in Winter (Book 1)
A Spring Deception (Book 2)
One Summer of Surrender (Book 3)
Adored in Autumn (Book 4)
The Wicked Woodleys
Forbidden (Book 1)
Deceived (Book 2)
Tempted (Book 3)
Ruined (Book 4)
Seduced (Book 5)
The Notorious Flynns
The Other Duke (Book 1)
The Scoundrel’s Lover (Book 2)
The Widow Wager (Book 3)
No Gentleman for Georgina (Book 4)
A Marquis for Mary (Book 5)
The Ladies Book of Pleasures
A Matter of Sin
A Moment of Passion
A Measure of Deceit
The Pleasure Wars Series
Taken By the Duke
Pleasuring The Lady
Beauty and the Earl
Beautiful Distraction
About the Author
USA Today Bestselling author Jess Michaels likes geeky stuff, Vanilla Coke Zero, anything coconut, cheese, fluffy cats, smooth cats, any cats, many dogs and people who care about the welfare of their fellow humans. She watches too much daytime court shows, but just enough Star Wars. She is lucky enough to be married to her favorite person in the world and live in a beautiful home on a golf course lake in Northern Arizona.
When she’s not obsessively checking her steps on Fitbit or trying out new flavors of Greek yogurt, she writes erotic historical romances with smoking hot alpha males and sassy ladies who do anything but wait to get what they want. She has written for numerous publishers and is now fully indie and loving every moment of it (well, almost every moment).
Jess loves to hear from fans! So please feel free to contact her in any of the following ways (or carrier pigeon):
www.AuthorJessMichaels.com
Email: [email protected]
Twitter www.twitter.com/JessMichaelsbks
Facebook: www.facebook.com/JessMichaelsBks
Jess Michaels raffles a gift certificate EVERY month to members of her newsletter, so sign up on her website: http://www.authorjessmichaels.com/
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