She blinked at him. Well, that certainly was…brief. Abrupt, even. She rather thought there might be some sort of lead in to the affair. Maybe nerves had made him hasty. Maybe he simply needed a spot of encouragement.
She gave him what she hoped was an exceptionally encouraging smile. “I am delighted that you should offer, Hunter. And there is a very strong possibility that I should like to marry you, but…”
Oh, dear. How to go about asking for what she wanted, without sounding as if she was fishing for compliments?
“But what?” Hunter prompted.
“But I…I would like to hear your reasons for offering first.”
“All right,” he agreed with a single nod. “To begin, I took your innocence not twenty-four hours ago.”
She pulled her hand away. “That’s your only reason?”
“Not my only reason, no,” he was quick to reply. Unfortunately, he was just as quick to add, “But it is a reason, a sound one.”
“It could be the very best reason in the world, but it’s hardly what a woman wishes to hear in a marriage proposal.”
“I suppose it’s not.” He recaptured her hand. “Kate, darling, I have wanted you for my wife for some time. How could I not? You’re the most beautiful, compassionate, and talented woman I have ever met.”
It seemed fishing would only net her compliments after all. Apparently, a direct approach would be necessary. “I am asking how you feel about me.”
This time it was he who pulled away. “How I feel?”
“Yes,” she said carefully, rather disconcerted by his reaction. “About me.”
“I see.” He rose from the settee suddenly, and tugged a little on his cravat. Both very bad signs. “I am very fond of you.”
“Fond?” One was fond of pastries, and sunshine, and freshly washed linens on the bed. “Just…fond?”
“Very fond,” he corrected.
“Like apple tarts,” she whispered in disbelief.
“Beg your pardon?”
She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head to clear her thoughts. When she looked at him again, she was certain her feelings were evident on her face. “You feel nothing more than fondness?”
He licked his lips, another act of nerves she might have wondered at if she hadn’t been preoccupied wondering at his lack of passion.
“Should I?” he asked.
“I…” She swore she could see the edges of her vision grow red. “Should you?”
“What I mean is, is it necessary for us to feel more in order to wed? We’ve—”
“Of course it’s necessary.”
“Very well,” he conceded on a sigh she could have done without hearing. “I have other feelings for you. I respect you. I desire you more than I have any other woman. I…I have a great deal of…of…” He cleared his throat, directed his gaze over her shoulder, and finished on a mumble. “…affection for you.”
“And?” she prompted when he said nothing more.
“And what?” he asked impatiently. “Would you have me list everything I feel for you without offering me something in return?”
She was tempted to point out that she wasn’t the one who had offered a marriage proposal, but only because her feelings were raw. In all fairness, she couldn’t judge him for not declaring himself if she wasn’t willing to do the same.
“No, of course not,” she said. “You’re absolutely right.”
He nodded in a supremely satisfied sort of way, which was something else she could have done without. She let it pass and concentrated on the daunting challenge of admitting her love for him.
“I…I too have a great deal of respect for you.” Oh, dear, this was more difficult than she’d anticipated. “And I too feel a physical…that is…”
“You desire me,” he supplied a bit dryly.
“Yes, thank you. And I…I…” She cleared her throat. “I…”
His mouth curved up in something akin to a smirk. It was all the motivation she needed. She straightened her shoulders, caught his gaze, and held it without blinking until his smirk disappeared.
And then, quite clearly, she said, “I am in love with you.”
Twenty-three
I am in love with you.
Hunter went very, very still. He couldn’t have heard her correctly. He couldn’t have possibly. “I beg your pardon?”
Kate tipped her chin up. “I am in love with you.”
Very well, he had heard her correctly.
He hadn’t expected to hear those words from her. He’d worked to earn her loyalty, her trust, and her affection. Maybe, just maybe, some small, irrational part of him had hoped for her love as well, but it would have made him the worst sort of hypocrite to expect it.
He wished he could move. He wished he could think of something better to say than, “I hadn’t expected that.”
Because, really, there had to be an infinite number of more eloquent things to say in that moment.
Kate certainly seemed to think so. She gaped at him. “That’s all you have to say? I tell you—”
“No, no. I beg your pardon.” Regaining the use of his legs, he stepped forward to take her hand yet again and draw her to her feet. “Forgive me. I’m…overwhelmed.”
He couldn’t ever remember feeling so overwhelmed.
“Oh, well.” She smiled a little, a blush forming on her cheeks. “That’s all right, then.”
He wasn’t certain it was all right. “It’s a priceless gift,” he told her. It was also a tremendous responsibility. “I’m grateful for it.” And afraid of it. “I’ll treasure it.” While it lasted.
“I’m glad it pleases you,” she murmured.
And then she stood there, waiting—pointedly waiting. Clearly, she expected to hear the words returned.
Bloody hell. What the devil was he supposed to do now?
His first instinct was to lie. So were his second and third. But his fourth and final instinct banded with reason and together they declared telling her the truth his best chance at success. Provided, of course, he managed to relate that truth in a way that suited his purposes.
Kate might, in the excitement of the moment, believe anything he cared to tell her. That would certainly work to his advantage in the short term. He could have them married by special license within the week.
But in the long run, it would be disastrous. Kate was an intelligent woman. Eventually, she would discover the lie. And then what? If she knew the marriage to have begun on a pretense, would she leave him? Despise him? Take lovers? Use her family’s wealth and influence to obtain a divorce? The idea of any of those outcomes turned his stomach into sick knots.
Better all around if she understood from the very start what he could offer her, and what he could not. And then it was simply a matter of convincing her that what he offered was of far greater value than what he could not. He could do that. He’d conquered greater challenges than convincing a woman of the ton that love was not a prerequisite for a successful marriage.
“There is something you need to understand, Kate. Something…” He shook his head. He couldn’t just blurt the words out. He’d never make her understand that way. He needed to start at the beginning. “Where did you first meet Lizzy?”
She made a helpless motion with her hands. “What on earth has that to do with anything?”
“Humor me, Kate, please.”
“All right,” she said slowly, still shaking her head in obvious bafflement. “I met her in Benton as a child.”
“And?”
“And what? We were children. She was an orphan. My mother offered her a home—”
“The details, Kate. Tell me the details of the day you met her.”
She blew out an irritated breath. “Very well. It was a long time ago, but…” She scrunched her face a little in thought. “But I seem to recall it was winter. My mother was shopping for…I’ve no idea, she’s always about shopping for something. I remember that I was bored, and when I saw a little girl my own
age sitting on a bench in the square, I snuck away and went to sit next to her. She told me she was waiting for someone…someone with an unlikely sounding name. I can’t seem to recall—”
“Puck.”
“Yes, that’s…” Her eyes grew round. “How did you know that?”
“Because…” He swallowed hard. “Because that’s what I told her to call me.”
“I…You…You’re…?” Her mouth continued to work without sound for a moment before she managed, “You knew each other? As children?”
“We both have the misfortune of having spent a portion of our youth at St. Michael’s workhouse in London.”
“A workhouse…but I thought…” She stepped back slowly to retake her seat. “I could have sworn Whit mentioned your father was a merchant, or—”
“He was a linen draper. He inherited a modest shop from his father, along with a comfortable house we shared with my widowed aunt and her son.” He rolled his shoulders. He didn’t like telling his family’s story. He didn’t like remembering. “Modest and comfortable weren’t enough for my parents. They insisted on the best of everything. My mother even saw to it I received an education fit for a peer. She had visions of me becoming a man of law, I think. I might have at that, if my father had been as skilled a businessman as he pretended to be. We lost the shop to debt when I was eight. By the time I was nine, we’d lost everything else.”
“And went to the workhouse?”
“After a time, yes.” After the last of his mother’s jewelry had been pawned and the money it garnered spent. “They separate men and women upon admission, but children of a certain age are allowed to stay with their mothers. We told the mistress I was nearly two years younger so I could do the same.” He smiled wryly. “We were fortunate she wasn’t a particularly observant woman.”
“And Lizzy?” Kate asked, her voice rather stunned. “She was with her mother as well?”
“Her grandmother. The woman was nearly blind, completely deaf, and regularly forgot who Lizzy was. Lizzy couldn’t have been more than four years of age at the time. For some reason, she took to me. She was always following me about.” He laughed suddenly. “She annoyed the devil out of me. She was so persistent. In her presence, her questions, her cheerfulness. I couldn’t make heads or tails of her, and I couldn’t make her go away.”
“She grows on you,” Kate murmured.
“She does. She did. She hardly gave me a choice.” Day after day she’d appear at his side, relentless in her chatter, in her campaign to make him smile. She was always successful. “My mother and I looked out for her. We taught her to read from an old copy of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” The workhouse had claimed a small room as its school, but little to no education was actually provided.
“Puck,” Kate said, nodding.
“She had a lisp then,” he told her. “She had trouble with the ‘r’ in Andrew. We used nicknames instead. Puck and Titania.”
“She did have a slight lisp when I first met her,” Kate murmured. “I’d forgotten.”
“She had a weaker constitution then as well,” he said darkly and wished he and Kate were having this conversation later in the day so he could justify going to the sideboard and pouring a drink. “Poor food. Bad air. Lack of adequate clothing and heating. It was difficult for her. There was an outbreak of scarlet fever. She and her grandmother were two of the first to fall ill. I did what I could for her, for both of them.”
That was when he’d begun sneaking into the kitchen at night to steal extra food. He took to picking the locks on supply closets as well, obtaining extra blankets he put on Lizzy at night and hid away in the morning. He’d even crept into the rooms of staff while they slept and taken money, a pocket watch, even a wedding band. There’d been a great to do when the staff discovered the thievery. Every healthy resident over the age of eight had been punished. He’d felt bad for it, but not badly enough to stop stealing.
“Lizzy recovered,” Kate said quietly.
“She did, but her grandmother did not. Nor did half the inhabitants of the workhouse.” He swallowed past a dry lump in his throat. “Including my parents and cousin.”
Her hand went to chest. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Your aunt?”
“She survived.”
“I’m very glad you had someone,” she said softly.
A part of him wanted to nod and leave it at that. But a greater part of him wanted her to know everything, and all of him wanted her to understand. “I didn’t have her for long. After the sickness passed, she discharged herself from the workhouse.”
“Discharged? You mean, she left you there?”
She’d walked through the front gate while he’d begged her to take him and Lizzy with her. Bloody well begged. He cleared his throat. “Yes. She was grieving for her child—”
“That isn’t an excuse to abandon another.”
“No. It isn’t.” But he’d always preferred to think of her as a tragic figure—a woman who’d lost her mind after the death of her husband and only child. Better something be horribly wrong with her, than something be lacking in him. He cleared his throat yet again. “At any rate, she disappeared. I waited until Lizzy grew well again and then I took her away. I thought she’d not make it through the winter.”
“You brought her to Benton.”
“We were merely passing through.” The money from the stolen goods had only purchased passage as far as Benton. “I wanted us farther from London before we stopped for any length of time. Getting out and away from London had become…important to me.” It had become an obsession. He’d wanted Lizzy away from the poverty, the filth, the disease. From everything that could take her from him. “I went in search of food and told her to wait in the alley behind one of the shops. I should have known she wouldn’t sit still that long. I returned to find her sitting on a bench speaking with you and your mother.”
“I saw you, didn’t I? I did. I did,” Kate repeated. “You were staring at me from the other side of the square.”
“I couldn’t stop staring at you,” he admitted. “It had been a long time since I’d seen a girl with hair like yours.” And he couldn’t ever remember seeing someone give away the shoes on her feet, not willingly.
“I realize it’s not the most pertinent bit of information at the moment, but I can’t help but ask, weren’t there any children at the workhouse with blonde hair?”
“There weren’t any children at the workhouse with clean hair,” he clarified. “Blonde doesn’t look blonde when it’s filthy.”
“Oh, I see. I’m sorry.”
He shook his head. “What do you remember after that?”
“After your staring? I looked away for a moment, trying to get mother’s attention. And when I turned back again, you were gone.”
“Moved some, but not gone. I was still watching. I saw your mother hold out her hand. And I saw Lizzy take it. And leave.” He’d told her to wait, told her not to leave, and she’d walked away.
“You said nothing?”
“Lady Thurston’s reputation has always preceded her,” he explained. “I knew Lizzy was better off.”
Kate licked her lips, studying him. “You must have been very angry.”
“Not at Lizzy or your mother. At life. At the unfairness…She was the last person on earth I…the last person I cared for.” He’d loved her. And it had broken his heart, cleanly split it in half, to watch her walk away from him into a life he was certain he could never give her. That heartache had translated into an impotent, helpless fury. And that fury had driven him not to simply prosper over the years, but to acquire wealth and power beyond the dreams of most men. Never, never again would he find himself in a position where he was impotent, or helpless, or heartbroken.
Kate would understand that. He opened his mouth to ask if she did, indeed, understand, but Kate spoke first.
“I remember Lizzy speaking of you. Mother had people search for anyone who might be looking for her, but…but we assumed you were a
creation of Lizzy’s imagination. After a time, she believed it too. I…” A line suddenly formed across her brow. “Why are you telling me this now? I’m glad to know your connection to Lizzy of course, but why now?”
He stepped forward to crouch down in front of her. “Because I want you to understand. I won’t do it again, Kate. I can’t. I’m not capable of it.”
“Not capable of what?”
“Of what you’ve offered me, but—”
“What I’ve…You mean love?” Her face paled. “You’re saying you’re not capable of love?”
“There are so many other things—”
“Would you be capable of it if I were someone else?” she asked in a thready voice. “Someone—?”
“No.” He reached for the hand she had twisted into her skirts. “No, there’s only you.”
“Only…” She swallowed hard. “Only I’m not enough.”
“You are. You’re more than enough. You’re everything I’ve always wanted.”
She stared down to where their hands were joined. Slowly, she pulled hers away. “You courted me, made love to me, and offered for me knowing all along you would never love me?”
She asked it quietly, but it wasn’t a question, it was an accusation. He searched for the words to defend himself and found he hadn’t any. He tried evasion instead. “Kate, sweetheart—”
“Why?” She shook her head. “Why did you court me at all?”
“I’ve told you why. I’m fond of you. I desire you. I can offer—”
“You could feel those things for any woman,” she cut in, the first hints of anger tinting her voice.
“I want you.”
“And I you. But apparently, neither of us wants in the manner the other needs.”
“I…” He stood up and dragged a hand through his hair. “What the devil does that mean?”
“It means I need your heart along with…everything else. And you want everything else, but need to keep your heart.”
He didn’t find the workings of her mind quite so fascinating now. He found them frustrating. And terrifying beyond measure. Was he losing her? He couldn’t possibly be losing her. He’d explained, hadn’t he? They should be at the point of understanding now. They would be at the point of understanding if she would just be reasonable.
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