Page 121 of Lessons for Marquesses
“It has been the longest week of my life,” she whispered.
“Ah, love. Mine as well.”
He brought her mouth to his again. With both hands, as if she couldn’t have enough, she struck through his hair and moaned softly at his lips. She laid a hand upon his shoulder, boldly spanning the expanse to his collar. His heart hammered in his chest as she undid the first two buttons of his waistcoat.
What had she said the night in the Green Chamber when she had found him with René Durand’s ghost? All they had were the moments put in front of them, and then they were gone. And if he stopped her now, he knew what would replace them.
“Would you do something for me?” he asked as she continued her unbuttoning, as he controlled the urge to lose himself in her then and there.
“Anything,” she whispered.
Bending to his coat, he shook out a box, feeling the weight of her gaze as he opened it.
“Many, many, years ago, one of my long-ago grandfathers, a knight of Richard I, traveled to the Holy Land. He was shipwrecked off the coast of the Kingdom of Sicily. In the stormywaters, most of the crew were lost but my grandfather, he risked his life and rescued a prince’s daughter from the black sea and battering waves.”
Nicholas took her hand. Both of their hands were shaking. He slid the Margate Ruby on her finger. “And for his bravery, he received this and the love of a prince’s daughter.”
Pigeon blood, red and clear as crystal, the ruby glinted in the firelight.
“Be my wife, George. That is what I ask of you.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
“Kitty was right,”Georgiana whispered as she beheld the ruby ring. Effusive, romantic Kitty had been right.
Nicholas offered a serious, much too serious grin. “What was Kitty right about?”
“That you wished to marry me.”
He slipped his hands around her neck, holding her gaze. “I love you, George. Georgiana. Ana. Georgie. I want to share the remainder of my moments with you.”
“Nick, Nicholas, Wolf. I want that, too. I want everything. To love you, to laugh with you, to touch you. And if I must cry, I’d rather with you than anyone else.”
His white teeth gleamed with his smile, and his dark brow smoothed of its worry. It was the kind of smile following unexpected fortune. He pressed a kiss to her mouth, and the taste of it was heady like a nip of wind on her face. His lips were a canvas where she could shift her mouth to create a scape of her choosing. Rain-battered windows and candlelight and taking chances.
He slipped his waistcoat and shirt from his body. She caught her breath at the sight, not afraid but breathless just the same.Her fingers started at his left shoulder where the hard slope dipped and met the muscled cap merging into his arm. Cupping her hand, her thumb traced the biceps.
She measured the breadth of his elbow, the muscle curling about it to his forearm. “You are beautiful.”
Her palm moved down his chest, over the round peaks and hard valleys of his stomach. What could be had in him? Exhilaration, a hundred times over. Kissing was like climbing into him, sinking farther as she went, her mouth searching for an end and never wanting to reach it.
His hand traced down her neck to her binding. He found the pins and threw them aside. She listened to thetinkof their fall and realized the sound of undressing could be alluring. He unwound the linen and lofted it aside.
She shut her eyes.
“Look at me,” he said.
She opened her eyes. The way he watched her, the sweep of his lashes, the curve of his lips, was as if he had never seen something as special. He did love her and there was no wrong in what they did. She could not fear this love.
He cupped her shoulder, sliding to her upper arm. His hand easily overlapped it. “This,” he breathed in the silence, “is the most finely wrought arm I have ever seen or felt.”
He swept up, leaving gooseflesh where he touched. “And this shoulder. A work of art. God’s blessing of perfection.”
She dipped her chin, fumbling for his left hand and drawing it to her lap, nervously entwining her fingers with his. “I am far from perfect.”
“What is perfect?‘Everything that grows holds in perfection but a little moment.’”
“Shakespeare was referring to a flower,” she said, her mouth quivering.
