Page 53 of Snowy and the Seven Doves
Snowy looked worried. “If you are set against the idea, we can try to get the paper to print a retraction, or just leave people to think what they will, and go about together as if we were betrothed until some other scandal takes the ton’s fickle attention.”
He had thought of all possibilities. It would be easy to take the second option. Dishonest, too. For she wanted to marry him, and with all her heart she hoped he would still want her when he knew the truth.
“I am not… I would like to be your wife.”
He reached for her hands but she waved him off. “There is something I must tell you first. And if you do not wish to marry me after you hear it, I will understand. In that case, I would be grateful if we can just let things slide, as you suggest.”
He inclined his head. “As you wish, but I do not think my heart will be dissuaded, Margaret.”
Very well then.She took a breath. “Martin was not lying.”
His eyes widened, and then narrowed. “Martin was lying about all sorts of things. May I take it you mean the rotten cad took advantage of you?”
That was it in a nutshell, though it cast all the blame onto Martin. It was true he had persisted even though she saidno, but she should not have been alone with him, as her father and brothers had repeatedly pointed out. “I am to blame for allowing myself to be alone with him,” she said.
“With a man who had promised to marry you. He had promised to marry you, I take it? He is that sort.”
Margaret nodded. “But when he approached my father, it was not to make an offer for my hand, but to ask for half my dowry to keep his mouth shut about the fact that I was no longer pure.”
“And your father did not shoot him then and there?”
“My father believed the blame was entirely mine,” Margaret confessed.
This time, when Snowy reached for her hands, she allowed him to do it. “I cannot claim to be pure either, Margaret. I can promise that, if we marry, there will not be another woman as long as we both live. I will be true to you, and if you will be true to me, that is all I have a right to ask.”
She looked at him, assuming she would see deceit in his eyes. Instead, they showed kindness and sincerity. “But how can you not mind?”
“I mind,” he said, grimly. “I mind that that unmitigated piece of slime took advantage of you. I mind that your father did not protect you from him. As to what you did—Margaret, Aunt Poppy follows all the Society news, and one of the things she has noticed is that at least a quarter of first children are born within six months of their parents’ wedding. If one in four Society brides are with child at the altar, how can you blame the girl you were for believing the lies of a charming and personable man?”
He was right, and she had never seen it before. A number of the girls with whom she came out had had what they calledearly babies. Indeed, her own mother had joked about how honeymoon babies took much less time to arrive than later children.
Snowy lifted first one hand to kiss it, and then the other. “Margaret,” he said. “Darling Margaret, will you do me the very great honor of becoming my wife?”
The tears were running freely down her face, but she managed to nod vigorously while choking out a fervent, “Yes”.
*
What could Snowydo but take her into his arms and attempt to kiss away her tears?
He was fairly certain Margaret was no watering pot. He had seen her calm and contained in the direst of circumstances. Her upset was an indication of how worried she had been about the possible scandal, or perhaps about his reaction to her revelation.
He kissed her hair and murmured she need not worry about anything. “Whatever comes, we shall face it together,” he assured her, and the thought brought warmth to his own heart.
It did not take her long to bring her tears under control, and he thought she would then insist on leaving his lap, but she stayed snuggled against his chest, allowing him to wipe her eyes one-handedly with his linen handkerchief while he kept his other hand forming circles on her back.
He followed up with a couple of gentle kisses to her temples, hoping she would look up so he could reach her lips.
“Pauline is waiting for us,” she said, but she didn’t move.
“A few more minutes,” he suggested.
She raised her chin to face him. “I have stopped crying,” she assured him. “I am truly not the weepy sort.”
“I did not think you were,” he said, as he lowered his head, stopping when his lips were a few inches from hers, to give her time to turn away or object.
Instead, she stretched up to him. Her experiences with Horrible Hungerford-Fox had demonstrably not included the joys of kissing, but she immediately put into practice what he had taught her last time, opening her mouth immediately for his tongue, and even stroking her own into his mouth.
Having her on his lap for this was not the best of ideas. The kiss was enough to send his blood pumping to his groin. Hell, when it came to Margaret, being in the same room with her was enough.
