Page 36 of Baron in Check
“It’s the opposite.”
Now she grimaced. “What?“
“I’m not helping you for the Earldom.”
“It’s part of me.”
“I know. That was why I couldn’t have you before.”
“You’ve had me.”
He groaned. “It’s not why I wish to marry you. The reason has nothing to do with the Earldom. And people will gossip—vicious tongues will claim I tried to ascend in rank by taking you.”
She hugged herself and rubbed her arms as if it were cold, but the room grew smaller and hotter by the second. “And it’s unthinkable that a Baron would take the fallen girl from 1814.”
“No.”
“Then what is the reason, Greg? What is it you wish to speak to me of besides insulting me?”
He lay his hands over her arms, right where she rubbed herself and stepped closer. “That’s not the reason I want to marry you, and I wanted to make sure that you know it. That’s why I wanted to propose to play for it, so you can best me and keep me away.”
She closed her eyes for a moment. “You think I don’t want you as a full husband, merely on paper, and if I win against you in chess, you’ll keep your hands off me?”
Putting it this way, it doesn’t sound anymore as if his reason had won over his mind. “Yes.”
“That’s stupid.”
“Because you’d always win?”
“Because if I won, I’d want you. And if I lost, I would want to give myself to you. It’s like a coin toss, winner gets all, loser takes everything.”
“There’s a lot more to chess than tossing a coin.”
“To chess, yes. Our arrangement, no.”
“But you’re the daughter of an Earl and I must not take advantage of you.”
“I’ve always been the daughter of an Earl and you took before, why not now?”
“Because I cannot be sure you’d want me to.”
Her eyes grew wide. “Just ask.”
Two simple words hit Greg harder than a blow in training from Caleb Klonimus. She’d said it so easily, yet the answer was heavy with everything that had ever held Greg back.
He tried to speak, opening his mouth, then croaked, “Do you still love me?”
CHAPTER 17
Astupider question had never been uttered.
Do you still love me?
As if she didn’t.
“I’ve always loved you. It didn’t matter that I was considered a child, my instincts knew my heart belonged to you. Then my life was stolen from me when my brother locked me away. All the shame I brought on my family, the scandal that erupted, and the wave of gossip that follows me as my own personal storm cloud faded by comparison to the loss I’d suffered.”
“It was my fault. I was reckless and did exactly what a parvenu would, a selfish heir to a new title. And I soiled you with?—”
