by C. J. Archer
“My poor lady,” he murmured. “My princess, my baroness. Let me take care of your wound.” He put a finger beneath her chin and tilted her face up so that she had to look at him. “Let me take care of you.”
He didn’t smile, didn’t gloat, didn’t sneer and say, “There, we’re even, now good-bye.” He simply watched her with those bright green eyes that had always sucked her into their depths. This time she couldn’t climb out of the whirlpool, no matter how much she struggled.
And she struggled. She tried to think of something to say, tried to recall what she’d told him yesterday that had made him believe she didn’t love him. But she was hopelessly, utterly destroyed.
“I…you…”
“Shhh, my love, it’s all right. I know what you want to say.”
Oh. Good.
My love?
“I believed you yesterday,” he said. “I believed everything you told me. But I don’t anymore. I know you were trying to protect me.” He kissed her nose. His lips were warm and impossibly soft. “And I commend you for it, in a way, even though your words were like a thousand stab wounds. But it was no less than I deserved after what I said to you.”
“I…I don’t understand.”
He caressed a strand of hair from her cheek and tucked it behind her ear. “I know. Let me explain it to you. Yesterday after I left you here, I got drunk. If I hadn’t, I would have been back much earlier. As it was, I didn’t speak to my mother until today.”
Lady Warhurst? What did she have to do with this? But his lips were on hers, teasing and tasting, and she was rapidly losing herself in his kisses. She had to find herself again before it was too late.
She pulled away. “Leo, no. We can’t. It’s…this…us…we are not getting married. It’s a terrible idea.”
“We are getting married because I love you and you love me too.”
Her heart plunged to the floor. She began to shake. “You… you can’t.”
He laughed at that. “I can and I do. And I know you love me too, so stop denying it.”
He loved her. He loved her. Oh God, it was so much worse than she’d expected.
“Love doesn’t matter,” she said, her voice pathetically small. “It’s irrelevant to marriage.”
“Of course it matters. It’s all that matters. Mother made me see that.” He took her by the arms and brought his face close to hers. He was going to kiss her.
She could not allow that. Kissing him was like falling off a cliff. She would have no control left at all. She leaned back and he let her go.
“You can’t marry me! Don’t you see? It will ruin you, ruin your estate, your people.”
“It’s all right. I have secured investors now.”
Investors? Could it be possible? It was too wild and wonderful to believe. “But the scandal…” she whispered, her body shaking. “I don’t want to drag you down. You may dismiss my concerns now, but what about in a year, five years? Will your father’s enemies truly forget and forgive?”
His face had gone hard again and there was a hint of panic at the edges of his green eyes. “Alice, listen to me. Just listen. Without you in my life I will be useless to my tenants, to my family. I’ll be unbearable. Ask them, they’ll happily tell you.” He wasn’t laughing and she realized he wasn’t joking. “You are my map, Alice Croft. You’re the one who sets me on the right path. You’re my conscience. You’re the other half of me, the clever, sensible half. The best half. I can’t rebuild my estate without you guiding me. I can’t be the best landlord, the best son, the best brother, or the best man without you. Alice, we have money now and I need you to help me spend it in a way that will benefit our tenants, our future.”
Our tenants. Our future.
She swallowed. Hard. Her body tingled all over. She clutched the seat of her chair and held on lest she slide off and end up on the floor in a puddle of skirts.
“Say something,” he whispered. His face grew long, white. His jaw went slack. “Alice?”
“I…I’m so sorry.”
He sat back on his haunches. His nostrils flared and his eyes faded to a dull shade of green. He glanced away.
“No.” She captured his face and forced him to look at her. “I didn’t mean that, I meant I’m sorry for yesterday. I wish I could take it all back. I hurt you, I hurt both of us. Oh Leo, I love you, and if you’ll still have me—”
His mouth cut off the rest of her sentence. The kiss was hot and hard at first but it soon softened and she melted into him until they were tumbling together on the floor, laughing.
He rose above her and kissed her again, still smiling. She squirmed beneath him and dug her hands through his hair. His smile vanished and the kiss deepened and stole her breath.
When they finally came up for air, he got to his feet and helped her up.
“Come here,” he said, circling his arm around her waist and hoisting her against his body. “Let’s go downstairs so I can ask your father for his permission. Then we will announce it to the world.” He took her hand and rubbed his thumb gently along hers. “Are you ready, m’lady?”
M’lady. It sounded so strange. Well, she would just have to get used to it. It might take a day or two. “Yes, m’lord.” She grinned. “I am ready.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photograph by Joe Comito, 2011
C. J. Archer feels lucky to have been able to combine two lifelong loves, history and books, into the crafting of her three historical romances set in Elizabethan England. They include Kiss of Ash, Her Secret Desire, and Honor Bound, the 2008 winner of the Romance Writers of Australia Emerald Award. Under the pen name of Carolyn Scott, she has published contemporary short stories in women’s magazines on two continents, including Take A Break, Woman’s Day, and That’s Life.
While she’s always been a novelist at heart and to her core, at different times in her career she’s assumed the roles of librarian, IT support person, and technical writer. Born in Darwin in Australia’s Northern Territory, Archer grew up in a mining town in Queensland, steeped in the dramatic beauty of the Outback. She now lives in Melbourne, Victoria, with her husband and two children, and when not working on her next novel, she enjoys reading and gardening.
Don’t miss the first book in C. J. Archer’s romantic series about falling in love in Elizabethan England!
Minerva, a penniless playwright cursed to live in an era when women did not write plays, partners with a handsome, mysterious stranger to bring her production to life.
Available now!