Page 58 of One Dangerous Desire
Rex.He wrapped his arm around her middle and then tapped the shoulder of the man who’d bumped into her.
“Push her again, and I’ll push you into the Thames.” Rex’s deep voice rumbled in her ear. He’d stepped close, flush enough to warm her from behind.
The gentleman turned on them with a contrite grimace. “Sorry, miss,” he offered, touching a hand to the brim of his top hat.
May turned in Rex’s arms. “You just arrived. It’s too soon to start a fight.”
“What did I miss?” Rex nudged his chin toward her father.
May glanced up to where he stood at the front of the crowd. Reporters were still hemming him in, and she could only make out the tip of his black top hat.
“He’s shocked everyone.” Her voice sounded as wobbly as her legs felt.
“How so?”
“He’s leaving London and going back to New York.” May swallowed hard. “He says he’s leaving me to oversee the London Sedgwick’s.”
Rex’s verdigris eyes went wide, and then he shifted his gaze to the ground. “Does he know I asked you to marry me?”
May moved closer, placing a hand on his chest. “Yes, I told him last evening.”
Rex’s gaze was unreadable when he looked at her. “He wasn’t pleased, I take it.”
“He didn’t dissuade me.” May tugged at Rex’s lapel. “Nothing he says will alter my decision.”
“Not even this? Not even leaving you the store?”
May still hadn’t made sense of her father’s announcement. The prospect of running the store, of managing a business, even with Mr. Graves’s guidance, thrilled and terrified her. Amid jumbled feelings, her love for Rex was an anchor. None of her father’s plans could change her heart.
When she said nothing, Rex clasped her hand and moved forward, clearing a path to her father. He didn’t need to elbow or nudge. The height and breadth of him convinced the men ahead to move aside.
When they drew to the front row, one newspaper man glanced at her before asking, “If your daughter’s still worth her million-dollar dowry, Mr. Sedgwick, why hasn’t she married an aristocrat yet?”
“She’s worth much more.” Rex spoke loud enough to draw the attention of the young journalist. “Take it from the man who intends to marry her without a dowry.”
May felt the pinprick of her father’s gaze as he stared at her and Rex, arm in arm, facing the four or five reporters who’d now turned their attention from questioning him to quizzing them.
“Are you betrothed to this gentleman, Miss Sedgwick?”
Rex gripped her arm tighter when she turned to look up at him. His face had tensed into grim lines, and May barely resisted the urge to smooth her fingers across the lines slashing his brow. She’d have years to take away his doubts, to show him that he was the only man she’d ever wanted.
“Yes, I certainly am.”
“And your name, sir?”
“His name is Rex Leighton, one of London’s most successful entrepreneurs.” Mr. Graves stepped in front of her father to draw up next to Rex.
“You’re an American, aren’t you, Mr. Leighton? Yet you’ve chosen to make all of your money in London.”
“I like London. She’s been very good to me.”
A reporter with a box camera piped up. “You’ll be content without a title, Miss Sedgwick?”
Rex planted his feet wide, as if preparing for battle. May squeezed his arm.
“I think you mean to say that I’ll be content with my title. I’ll be quite happy to be Mrs. Leighton.”
The answer seemed to please the young man. He grinned before bending at the waist and retrieving his polished wooden box from a case between his feet. “Might I have a photograph, Miss Sedgwick?”
