Page 653 of From Rakes to Riches

Especially not if she eloped with Caius’s brother. People would say she had bamboozled poor Beech into marrying her.

He seemed to finally hear the irredeemable truth about her. “Devil take me.” He drew away.

“Yes. So, you may put away your need for justice, and ask yourself if you still think we should marry now that you know all the sordid details that only I possess. If you truly want a ruined wife.”

He took another deep breath. “What I ought to ask myself is if I wantyouto wife.”

“Yes.” Straight to the dark heart of the matter. “You deserve better.”

He leaned closer, as if he were trying to see her more clearly in the shadowed bed. But it was she who saw him more clearly—saw the light of something more ferocious than justice lighting his eyes. “Now, don’t makemeout to be a saint, Pease. I have my own selfish needs as well.”

For a wonderful moment she thought he was speaking of attraction, of that marvelously giddy feeling of glad rightness she felt when she had been in his arms.

But then he touched his empty sleeve again, in that involuntary, instinctive gesture of reminder.

And she understood.

The truth stung like a slap, hard and unforgiving.

“Oh, Beech. That’s what you think, isn’t it—thatyou’rethe damaged goods? That you’re so altered, that only someone like me—who has no other choice—would ever agree to have you.”

The yawning gulf of silence that stretched out between them like a chasm was his answer.

“Oh, Beech.” Penelope had never felt more defeated. She ached for him—and for herself. “A fine pair of idiots we are.”

His laugh was tinged with suppressed pain. “And that, my dear friend, is my solace and my hope—that we are indeed a fine pair.”

He shoved his hand through his disheveled hair, as if he were quite literally getting a hold of himself.

“Ihaveasked myself that question you posed, and I find that I do wantyou, and only you, for a wife. No matter your disadvantages or my disabilities. No matter what society, or my mother, or your father may say. Only you will do. Of this I am sure—I will have you or no other. But only if you will have me.”

Hope was a persistent flame that sparked hot and hungry. “Do you really mean it, Beech?”

“I always mean what I say, Penelope.” He met her eye squarely, no trace of mockery in their grey-green depths. No evasion. “Always.”

“Beech.” A month ago, she would have leapt at the chance to secure such a man. But the long weeks of her humiliation had taught her not to be so hasty or reckless. And he wassuch a man—an honest man whom she liked very much. Almost too much.

“I am tempted, Beech. Beyond thought, beyond reason. If I were to consult only my feelings?—”

“You can trust me, Penelope.”

“I want to, Beech. But—” Trouble seemed to follow her like a dark angel. Bad decisions, impulsive action, disastrous results.

“Do you doubt your constancy? Do you think you will stray to another man—a whole man?”

“No!” Of this she was sure. “Your arm, or lack thereof, has nothing to do with it. It is my own lack—lack of prudence, want of character—that would make me a terrible duchess.”

“I don’t want a duchess—I want a wife.” He closed his eyes, as if he were consulting some internal barometer. “Do you know, that for all the years that I was away, I never suffered homesickness?

“My fellow midshipmen, and later my fellow officers, often talked of home, of the family or loved ones they missed. I never thought of Warwick, or my family like that. I frankly felt relief to be away from Caius. I liked being forgotten for the most part—it suited my sense of freedom and independence. Even when I was injured, I had no thought of going home.

“But when I received my mother’s letter about you and Caius, my peace was absolutely and irrevocably shattered. Shattered,” he repeated as if he still could not fathom why. “But I did not have enough time to understand why before I received another letter, calling me home. The whole of the trip I feared the event that precipitated such alarm was your marriage. You cannot imagine my relief—my horrible, guilty, profound relief—when I found the cause was instead Caius’s death.”

“Beech.” She wanted to warn him to stop, to cease with such useless remorse.

But he went on. “Imagine me, if you will, receiving the news that I was now the duke—that I was now the one who needed to marry.”

Anticipation, astonishment, and even a little fear began to beat hard in her chest.

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