For surely she did. He was Harry. Familiar, beloved, the architect of her greatest misery. The keeper of her greatest happiness.
“You’ve never been frightened of a little mud before.” He smiled a little at this.
Still difficult to resist his smile, especially when it was all for her.
And so because the duke was nowhere near, she didn’t resist. She smiled, too. They basked in each other’s smiles for an instant.
“I might even lay down a cloak for you to walk over puddles. Like Sir Walter Raleigh.”
“Well, if you insist on muddying your clothing, who could resist an invitation?”
And so they went for a walk.
It was muddy.
Not everywhere, but the grass squished beneath her boots, and all the fallen leaves were now plastered like wallpaper to the road in the lane.
“I don’t know where we’ll walk, Harry. We shall need a gondola.”
He didn’t laugh. He in fact said nothing at all. She turned to look at him, and saw he’d gone white in the face.
“Harry, do you need to cast your accounts?” After all, she could only imagine what kind of debauchery had taken place over the game table last night.
“For heaven’s sake.” He sounded pained. “No.”
She thought of the duke, how still he’d held himself when he’d issued his . . . suggestion of marriage. And then she knew.
The thought had only detonated in her mind when Harry impulsively seized her hand.
“Genevieve . . . Oh God. I’ll just say it. It’s you I’ve loved. It’s you I’ve always loved. I love you.”
Oh.
She stared at him as she had the first time. As though she surely must have heard him incorrectly. For she’d heard those words in her dreams and in her imagination in his voice countless times, and the possibility remained she was still dreaming.
And yet:
“As your dearest friend?”
Well. She’d surprised herself. Where had that sarcasm come from? For it was unmistakably that, and it had been reflexive.
He did flinch. But he didn’t relinquish her hand. For a moment when she glanced down at it she was confused, for he wasn’t wearing a signet ring, and then she reminded herself it was Harry’s hand.
“As a woman,” he said firmly.
They stared at each other.
Well, then.
The words reverberated through her. She wasn’t certain anymore whether they were thrilling . . . or whether what she felt was the echo of an old thrill.
“I wish you would say something.” He smiled faintly.
His smile faded when she remained silent.
“Are you finished saying what you wanted to say, Harry?”
This clearly wasn’t what he’d wanted her to say. He stared at her, smile gone.
Surely she oughtn’t be so cool? Where was the Genevieve Eversea who would have thrown herself into Harry’s arms?
“I suppose not,” he allowed. “I could go on and say I’ve been a fool. And a coward, Genevieve. I know nothing about love, you see, only that I’ve loved you.”
“But I thought you intended to propose to Millicent?”
“Millicent hasn’t a clue I ever intended to propose to her.”
Millicent never really did have a clue about many things, bless her heart.
“Given my financial position, I never thought you would accept me and I didn’t dare trouble you with a proposal. And now . . . well, things have changed and I thought I’d risk it. Do you care for me?”
Trouble her with a proposal? Dear God, had he no idea what he’d done to her with the news he’d wanted to marry Millicent?
But of course she cared for him. Of course she did. For everything was the same. He was the same. Same blue eyes. The sun did the same things to his hair: set all the colors in it gleaming. Same hairs in his nose and eloquent planes in his face and the same fine mouth that had kissed the hand he was now gripping so tightly.
To think she’d extrapolated from one kiss on her hand a world of pleasure. She’d never dreamed of the universe of pleasure that lay beyond that.
Moncrieffe had still never kissed her hand.
But something was different. She’d expected her heart to stop, and then leap skyward. It did skip. But she wasn’t certain whether it was joy or surprise. Or . . . trepidation?
That was wrong. It was an entirely different word from anticipation.
More déjà vu: She was once again staring at him without speaking, and entangled in emotions she could never hope to sort. They chased each other ’round and ’round, and she couldn’t grasp any of them to begin sorting them out.
If he doesn’t issue a proposal . . . she thought.
Never mind; he would do the speaking, as he had before. He continued into her silence.
“And I hoped . . . I hoped against hope . . . you would consent to spend the rest of your life with me.”
“As your friend?” Why was she bedeviling him?
He was crimson now, and blotchy. “As my wife.” He said it almost defensively.
She’d launched a “yes” at him before. “Yes” had been in her heart every time she looked at him.
But now it seemed she’d forgotten how to form the word.
“Genevieve, please. You must tell me. Do you love me?”
She’d never seen Harry . . . wretched before. It was fascinating. And she of course, as always, wanted to save him from suffering.
“I love you.” The words were hesitant. They didn’t feel untrue. But they felt strange in her mouth. Not like the words to a song she’d sung for ages, which is how they’d once felt. Like words to a song she was remembering.
But relief and joy suffused his face with light and relief that was almost holy, and she watched it with awe. She wondered how her own face looked to him.
“And will you be my wife?”
She would be choosing the rest of her life with the next sentence. She’d dreamed of this day her entire life. Or perhaps it was just the rest of her life had just chosen her, as she’d once told the duke. Love chooses you.
“I will be your wife.”
He held her face in his hands and looked into her eyes. In her mind’s eye she saw another man’s arms curled in the shape of a baby. She allowed Harry to hold her face. She saw him too clearly in a moment when she ought not be seeing or thinking at all, but feeling. And there was a flailing moment of dread—surely only nerves—that she already knew all there was to know about him. That he would never surprise her, that he would never teach her anything, that she already knew him too well, that he was too safe, that they were too alike, that he was simply wrong.
Nerves, surely. She’d got what she’d wanted, and naturally it was impossible to believe. She’d wanted safety and certainty.
She’d wanted Harry.
“Genevieve,” he breathed.
She didn’t so much kiss him back as allow herself to be kissed. At first. For he was good at it, and she’d learned about herself that so was she and that she liked being kissed, though she had the presence of mind not to let this on. She also realized her mind oughtn’t be involved at all in a moment where she was being kissed for the first time by the man she loved—certainly she’d done very little thinking when she was in the arms of the duke—but there it was, whirring away, assessing. It was . . . different. Where had Harry learned to kiss? Stop thinking at once, she told herself. And once again she was thinking when she ought to be surrendering to the moment. He took her lips softly with his, and parted them with his own, and spent a moment in soft kissing before he got his tongue between them, and her tongue met his warily, and so their mouths meshed.
It was a good kiss, and she indulged her curiosity: his mouth was different than the duke’s, his . . . approach was different. His arms went around her and hers around him, though this felt strange and new, and she felt the thrumming tension of desire for her in him, and she could feel the start of his erection, which pressed a
gainst her belly.
But nothing was stirring in her.
Yet. If nothing else during the past week she’d learned she was human. It might simply be only a matter of time.
He loved her and wanted her and she would be cherished and safe her life through.
He released her, and he gazed upon her, flushed with happiness.
She gazed back at him with fascination, a detachment that lifted her up out of her body and watched the two of them. He was utterly familiar, very dear . . . and had become a total stranger. She moved her eyes to the buttons on his shirt—no nacre buttons for him—and imagined unfastening them with unseemly haste, sliding her hand inside his shirt. Imagined Harry nude and avid and sweating and plunging again and again into her body and—
Heat stormed her face. She was certain she’d gone scarlet. Was it desire or mortification? Surely one could become the other fairly easily.
Harry stood back from her, in all likelihood assuming his erection was unnerving her.
“I will be gentle, Genevieve,” he said to her softly, interpreting her embarrassment and apparently satisfied with the success of the kiss.
“Gentle” sounded dull.
His face was radiant with joy and relief. He’d gotten through the proposal. His life, as far as he was concerned, was complete. Now that he had her, and always would.
She would be Lady Osborne.
There was relief in knowing the endless tangle of confusion and uncertainty of the preceding days was now over. She inhaled her first peaceful breath in days: her future was now certain. She allowed the rays of his joy to wash over her, until she almost couldn’t distinguish his happiness from her own, because she was always happiest when he was happy, too.
She smiled at him. There was a symmetry, an inevitability to their union that her artistic eye appreciated. She would be happy. Why shouldn’t she be happy when she was marrying her dearest friend?
“Of course we will.”
“Will we go share the news with everyone now? Oh!” He stopped. “And before I forget . . .”
He fished in his pocket and emerged with a fistful of daisies.
“Flowers for you.” He beamed. “The sort you like.”
Chapter 26
Everyone seemed surprised, judging from the silence that greeted Harry’s breathless announcement (had no one ever suspected?), and yet willing to be delighted by the news of their engagement. Her brothers, all looking much worse for wear after the previous night’s debauchery over the card table, and even Millicent, professed delight. Her parents even more so now that Harry had property and a title and a nice pile of winnings to start off their married life, thanks to the duke.
“We’re used to you, Osborne,” was what Jacob Eversea said by way of a blessing, with a clap on the back and a kiss on the cheek for his daughter. Still, he had a faint frown between his brows, even as his lips were smiling. He seemed a bit puzzled.
“What’s that in your hand, Genevieve?” her mother asked, after kissing her on the cheek and giving her a hearty squeeze.
Genevieve proffered the daisies. “Harry gave them to me right after he proposed.”
“Nothing like those flowers on your sampler,” her mother commented lightly, but it was accompanied by the sort of penetrating look that usually resulted in Harriet being ordered to prepare a simple for her.
Genevieve was startled. “No.”
Her mother’s mouth parted as if she meant to say something. And then she closed it again.
“I think you’ll make him very happy,” is what she finally said.
An odd way to put it, Genevieve thought.
“Speaking of the duke,” her mother said, though no one had. “He left something behind for you. Wrapped in paper in the green salon.”
“ ‘Left’ something . . . behind for me?” Genevieve said faintly.
But when she saw how cheerful Ian was, she knew no other event could have made his face so fulsome. Certainly it wasn’t only her engagement.
“Oh yes. Falconbridge departed outrageously early this morning,” her father told her. “Almost as though he didn’t sleep at all last night after the card game. But then I suppose has to see the little matter of what he lost.” He winked at Harry.
Genevieve was frozen in place. He was gone.
“Well, go see what he left for you,” her mother urged.
Harry followed her into the green salon. The rectangular parcel in question was propped against the settee. She knew what it was before she knelt to unwrap it.
She tore off the paper with trembling hands while Harry silently watched.
And they both dropped to their knees in reverent silence when Titian’s Venus was revealed.
She read the message attached.
With felicitations for your every happiness in your wedded life, and with much gratitude for showing me the true beauty in it.
Your humble servant,
A.M.
Humble. She almost snorted.
Harry was silent.
She read the message again and again. But no matter how often she read those few words, it never said anything else, never revealed anything more to her. She didn’t know why she thought it ought to. She held it tightly, but it didn’t burn her skin, the way his kisses had.
She didn’t know why suddenly things were blurry. And her heart was pounding sickeningly. It wasn’t pounding because she’d become engaged to the man she loved.
It was pounding as though she’d been betrayed.
He’d known. Somehow he’d known Harry was going to propose. But how?
She licked dry lips. “Harry . . . what’s the thing that decided you? That made you propose to me this morning of all mornings?”
Harry was as surprised by the question as he was by the gift.
“I hesitate to tell you but you may as well know as I vow to never keep a secret from you. I won an estate in the card game.”
She sat down hard on the carpet. “You did what?”
“For you,” he reiterated mischievously, laughing at her shock. “I won it for you. And it unnerved me so thoroughly I promise I shall never gamble again.”
She stared at him.
“I suppose I should say . . . well done,” she began cautiously.
Which made him laugh.
“But . . . from whom did you win the estate?”
“From Falconbridge, if you can countenance it.”
Oh God. Just saying his name was almost as good as conjuring him. She wanted to hear his name again and again. The hollow howling in her gut was surely wrong. As were her clammy hands.
Something was terribly awry. The back of her neck prickled in portent.
“I can’t countenance it, as a matter of fact. How did it come about?” Her voice came to her distantly. Her breathing was a little rough.
“It’s a bit of a blur. But I will tell you this: His heart is not so black as one might think.”
Heart. The word heart chimed in her head. The portent only amplified. No. His heart is precious. His heart is worth having.
“What makes you say that?” she heard herself say calmly.
“I will never tell another soul what I’m about to tell you. But during the last hand of the evening, he called my bluff, and I showed him my hand—I had an excellent hand, by the way. I wasn’t simply being reckless. And he took one look and folded after my final wager. He claimed I had the better hand, and he’d lost. I’m a grown man, Genevieve, but I nearly fell right out of my chair, for I had wagered every last shilling I had. And he’d put up his property in Sussex. Rosemont. So I won it. It’s mine.”
Her heart stopped then. She gripped the note until the edges crushed in her fingers.
Harry continued on, obliviously cheerful.
“Well, everything after that was a bit of a blur. Everyone had rather scattered after that hand, including the duke. I never had a chance to shake his hand or say good-bye. I lingered, savoring my victory a bit, as God knows that room has been the
sight of defeats this week. And the servants began to enter to tidy everything. Well, when all the guests were clear of the room, I took a peek at the duke’s cards, out of curiosity. His hand was still lying there, all of it, facedown. And . . . Genevieve, he’d won. He had the best flush. He would have ruined me if he hadn’t folded.”
She couldn’t feel her limbs. “You’re saying he lost to you . . . purposely?”
“I cannot say whether it was purposefully. But it made it possible for me to propose to you. And so I did.”
But we don’t love each other. She’d said that to the duke. When he’d suggested they marry. He’d never said any such thing to her. He’d never agreed. He’d merely absorbed her words, like a blow.
He’d made it possible for Harry to propose to her. He’d given her everything he thought she’d wanted because he loved her. And it was all he could do for her, because he thought she loved Harry.
The greatest pleasure in my life was making sure she was happy and safe, he’d said about his wife.
“Perhaps we can name a child for him. Our first son.”
She didn’t precisely recoil. But she looked at Harry in rank astonishment. Dear God, he truly was oblivious.
He misread her. “Very well. Alexandra if it’s a girl. If you prefer a girl. Anything at all as long as he or she looks like you.”
He loves me. Harry really does love me.
And she found herself thinking a violently heretical thought:
But what does he really know of love?
“Genevieve, what do you think?”
She looked at Harry for a silent moment. She touched a hand to his cheek briefly. The first time she’d done anything of the sort.
He gazed back at her warmly.
“That bastard,” she said vehemently.
And then she bolted.
She dashed past her astonished family out of the house at a run and learned from a shaken stable boy, who was paralyzed by the sight of the furious Miss Genevieve Eversea advancing upon him—she was the quiet one, the sweet one!—and who would have nightmares for a week about it, that the Duke of Falconbridge had told his driver to take him to Rosemont.
What I Did For a Duke Page 28