She blinked at him. “W-what?”
He frowned, then tried, not entirely successfully, to banish the expression. “You heard me. You can hardly be surprised…” His frown deepened as he studied her face, her eyes. His jaw firmed. “I want to offer for your hand- whatever the correct form of words is, consider it said.”
She gaped at him.
Del gave up trying to lighten his frown. “Why the devil are you so surprised?”
Surprise, shock-utter astonishment-were writ large in her eyes and invested every line of her face.
“Ah…” Finally she found her tongue enough to say, “I wasn’t expecting you to propose-that’s all.”
“
“The usual sort.”
He stiffened, but then she waved as if to erase the words. “No-wait. Let me explain.”
“Please. Do.” He bit off the words.
He felt almost insulted when, wriggling up on the pillows the better to meet his glare, she vaguely patted his chest as if to calm him.
She stared down the bed, unseeing for a moment, then slanted him a glance-one filled with such uncertainty, such vulnerability, that he nearly weakened and gathered her to him to comfort her.
But he needed to hear what she was going to say. Needed an explanation. Needed her answer to his offer.
Needed to make sure she accepted.
“What?” he prompted.
She bit her lower lip-such an un-Deliahlike action that he nearly broke. “Are you really…I mean, did you really mean…what you just said? That you want me as your wife?”
There was some problem; he could see it in her eyes. Feeling grimmer by the second, he nodded. “I wouldn’t have uttered the words if I didn’t. Why?”
She drew in a breath. Held it for a second, then in a rush said, “Are you sure?”
“Deliah-” He held on to his frustration with an effort. Nodded again. “Yes, I’m sure.”
“Oh.”
When she stared at him, perplexed, he drew patience to him. “Earlier, you said you thought I was the usual sort of gentleman-implying that the usual sort of gentleman wouldn’t want to marry you. Why did you say that?”
“Because they don’t. Gentlemen-the usual sort-never marry ladies like me. I’ve been told that more times than I can count. And-”
“Who told you? Your parents?” Her parents, as he recalled, were strict and highly conservative-and she’d been the bane of her mother’s life.
“My parents, my aunts, my cousins-everyone.”
“Meaning everyone in a tiny pocket of the Wolds north of the Humber.” He caught her eyes. “That’s a very small, isolated, and, in this regard, narrow-minded part of the world.”
She held his gaze, then her lashes flickered and she looked away. “There’s more.”
Looking down, she picked at the coverlet lying over her breasts. “You know I wasn’t a virgin.”
He’d noticed, in passing as it were, and been cravenly thankful he hadn’t had to mute his lust, or hers, to ease her through her first time. “You’re what? Twenty-nine? I would have been more surprised if you had been.”
She flicked him a frown. “It was only a few times with one young man, when I was twenty-one.” Her gaze grew distant; then she looked down. “He was the younger son of a viscount, on a repairing lease, although I didn’t know that until later. He was dashing, and charming, and I thought…”
“You thought he loved you?”
She nodded. “And I thought I loved him. I didn’t-I know that now-but I was young and naive and I thought…so when he wanted me, I agreed. I thought it was all part of our courtship.”
“Only it wasn’t?”
“No. A week later-after quarter day had come-I heard he was leaving, going south again.” She dragged in a tight breath. “I asked him about us-what would happen. He laughed.” Her voice grew bleaker. “He told me I was a fool-that no gentleman in his right mind would ever marry a lady like me. I was a Long Meg, I was too sharp- tongued, too headstrong, too independent. I was too
“He was wrong.” Del made the statement unequivocally. She’d lived with that judgment, that belief, for eight long years. A species of fury boiled up inside him. “What is this younger son of a viscount’s name?”
“The Honorable Melvin Griffiths. But he’s dead now-he died at Waterloo.”
Sparing Del the need to beat the bastard bloody. “Good.”
Her lips twisted; she glanced at him. “That’s what I thought, too.”
He nodded. When she said nothing more, he asked, “Is that all?”
She met his gaze, surprise in hers. “Isn’t that enough?”
“To make me change my mind about marrying you?” He shook his head. “So, will you marry me, Deliah Duncannon?”
She held his gaze for a long moment. Hope and uncertainty warred in her eyes. Then, in a small voice she asked, “Why do you want to marry me?”
He could see all sorts of reasons, surmises, hovering in her mind-waiting for him to confirm them. That he felt he should because he’d ruined her in the eyes of his friends by sharing her bed. That he felt he owed it to her parents-and his aunts-to make an honest woman of her. That…there were dozens of reasons she would consider more likely than the simple truth.
Some part of him was horrified, but he didn’t hesitate.
“I want to marry you because I love you.” Cupping her face in one palm, he looked into her eyes, held her gaze steadily. “I love you, and want you and only you as my wife precisely because you’re not the common sort of lady. You’re more. You’re everything I need, everything I want, everything I must have to build the future I want-a future I couldn’t even see until we met.”
He paused, watched dawning belief lift the clouds from her jade eyes. “We belong together, you and I. Marry me, and together we’ll create a future that’s ours, that’s rich and vibrant, exciting and fulfilling.”
She raised a hand, touched the back of his. “You make me believe.”
“Because I believe-that I love you, and that you love me.” The twin facts were enshrined in his heart. Set in stone and immutable, they simply were. “So-will you do it? Throw your lot in with mine and see what we can make of life together?”
Her lips slowly curved. To his horror, tears filled her eyes.
But she was smiling.
“Yes.” She blinked, blotted her cheeks as the tears overflowed, then laughed at the look on his face. “I told you I didn’t love Griffiths-I know I didn’t because what I felt for him was nothing, simply nothing, to what I feel for you.”
She sniffed delicately, then smiled mistily up at him. “So yes, I’ll marry you. I’ll put my hand in yours”-she suited the action to the words-“and see where life takes us.”
He stared at her for a moment, then the wondrous reality finally impinged. “Thank God,” he said.
And kissed her.
She laughed through the kiss, wound her arms around his neck-and kissed him back.
He was still freely thanking all beneficent deities when, in the wee small hours by the faint light of a waning moon, he stetched an arm from beneath the covers and managed to snag his coat from where they’d left it lying on the floor. Deliah slept on, warm and snug beside him. Quietly going through his pockets, he withdrew the silk scarves he’d poked into them.
