Her eyes narrowed. “An irresponsible jackanapes who had the nerve to go tell a sheriff to let me out of jail or you’d be displeased. And then act as if he ought to cower in fear at the thought!”
“He should have,” said David. “My next plan involved detonating a powder keg outside the building and snatching you from the rubble.”
Vivian choked on laughter at the ridiculousness of the idea. “You’re daft,” she said.
“Don’t laugh,” he replied. “I’ve done some very daft things.”
Proposing to marry her had to be the daftest of them all. That’s what this was, then, another lark. She sighed, bittersweetly. Her first—and perhaps only—marriage proposal, and it was a joke. For a moment, just a moment there…“No,” she said, glad to hear her voice sounded normal. “Of course I won’t marry you.”
He looked severely disconcerted. “You won’t? Why not?”
“Better to ask why you thought I would,” she retorted. “What a ridiculous notion, me marrying you. Why, you already know I’ll let you under my skirt. What more do you want?”
Instead of a smart answer, David cocked his head to one side and just looked at her, a slight frown on his face. After a moment Vivian drew back, unsettled by his silence. “I like that part, you know,” she rattled on. “It’s quite…”
Heavenly,
she thought longingly. “Nice.”
David got to his feet. “Nice?” he echoed.
Her face burned, and she scrambled to her feet and out of his reach. “Lovely,” she said. “Pleasurable! You know what I mean.”
He took a step toward her. “No,” he said. “I don’t believe I do.” She made to retreat, to put some distance between them, but he caught her hand and wouldn’t let go, even when she tugged. “I have never declared my love to a woman, asked her most sincerely to marry me, and been refused. Not just refused, but mocked even for asking.”
“Mocked?” She twisted, trying to get away from him as he slowly pulled her closer. “It’s just your vanity hurt from being refused.”
“My vanity,” he said. Vivian lost the tug-of-war between them then, and stumbled into him. His arm went around her waist before she could recover her balance. She put her hands against his chest and pushed, uselessly. “Assuming I had any vanity left after baring my soul to you just now, it would have been well nigh crushed when you said it was merely ‘nice’ and ‘lovely’ to make love to me. It’s not nice for me. It’s not lovely. It’s as close to paradise as I’ve ever been.” He caught her chin with his fingertips, snaring her gaze, even though Vivian couldn’t have looked away if she had wanted to. “I’ve been under enough skirts to know the difference,” he said softly. “I never cared for any other woman the way I care for you.” He paused, searching her face. Vivian felt all a-jumble, wanting to laugh it off and push him away before he made her cry, and at the same time wanting so much to believe him and fling her arms around him and accept what he was offering her. “You don’t have to be afraid,” he whispered.
She blinked. “I’m not afraid!” she almost shouted. “Not of you, not of…” Her voice trailed off as he put his finger on her lips.
“Aren’t you?”
She was. Deathly afraid. Afraid this was too good to be true, that he would change his mind, that he would realize how terribly unsuited she was to his life and society and family. Afraid of losing him, after she’d gone and lost her heart and soul to him. “Not much,” she whispered.
“Well,” he said. “I took you prisoner once before. Perhaps I shall do it again, until you say yes.”
Her face grew hot. “Simon—”
“Oh, Simon may come and go as he pleases,” David said easily. “He’s my guest and, I hope, future brother-in-law. You, however, are not going anywhere.”
“Your family won’t approve,” she said.
“It won’t be the first time. They’ll come around.”
“But your brother is a duke!”
“You mustn’t hold it against him, love. He truly had no say in the matter.”
Vivian gave a gulp of hysterical laughter, that he could say such a thing at a moment like this. “I’m just a novelty to you! You’ll grow tired of me.”
“Perhaps, in a few decades,” he conceded. “Although I should like to tire you every night in the meantime.”
“People will be scandalized,” she said. “They’ll laugh at you.”
He laughed. “Why, that I married the Danish princess?”
Vivian scowled. “Don’t laugh at me! I’m trying to make you see reason.”
David stopped laughing. “Vivian,” he said. “If you don’t want me, say it. I won’t tease you if you truly don’t wish to marry me.”
“That’s better,” she said, only to be cut off as his hands began wandering over her back, holding her against him. “Stop it,” she protested, weakening as always.
“I shan’t tease you but I shall try to persuade you.” He cupped her cheek, his eyes moving intently over her face.
“I’ll sleep on it,” she said, in one last effort to resist. If he truly wanted her…why shouldn’t she say yes? Perhaps they would never be a fashionable couple, but Vivian didn’t care for that. It was too tempting. Who could fault her for accepting him, especially when he asked so nicely?
His smile grew faintly wicked. “But you’ll never sleep apart from me again, darling Vivian. Say yes.”
She blushed. “When have I ever said no to you?”
“Hmm. First you said I should go to the devil. For days you said nothing at all. Then you said I was a wretched, lying guttersnipe—”
“But you hadn’t kissed me then,” she cried, putting her hand over his mouth to stop the recital.
He smiled under her hand. “Oh, is that all I had to do?” With a thump he sat back on the sofa, pulling her down into his lap and holding her tightly. “Marry me and make an honest man of me in my butler’s eyes.” He kissed her. “Marry me and save me from having to chase loose women for the rest of my life.” He kissed her again. “Marry me, darling,” he said once more against her lips. “Because I adore you.”
She pulled back to look at him. “Do you really?”
He stopped, tracing the curve of her lower lip with the tip of his finger. “I do. Really, truly, I do.” Her chin began to tremble. A trace of that cocky smile crossed his face again. “Just as much as you adore me.”
She rolled her eyes upward, swiping at her eyes. “Don’t be daft.”
“Now, that’s why you’ve got to marry me. You keep saying things you know will only provoke me to do worse.” He flipped up a handful of skirts. “For instance, shall I prove just how much you adore me?”
She gasped, then laughed, then simply sighed as his hand slid up her leg, over her knee. “Worse? This is your meaning of worse?”
He laughed. “No, but it can get even better.”
Vivian knew that. She let her head fall back against his arm and stared up into the face of the man she did adore. “All right, then,” she said on a sigh. “I’ll marry you. Just kiss me again.”
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Copyright © 2007 by P. F. Belsley
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ISBN: 1-4201-0395-4
Caroline Linden earned a math degree from Harvard College and worked as a programmer at a financial services firm before realizing that writing romance novels is much more interesting and exciting than writing code. She threw away her actuarial textbooks, unchained her Inner Vixen, and never looked back. She lives in New England with her family. Please visit her online at www.carolinelinden.com.