Page 75 of Lady Diana's Lost Lord
“I know, darling. It’s quite all right.” Or at least—itwouldbe. God willing, there would be no more goodbyes in their future. “I’m just so very glad to see you,” she said, snuggling into that warm embrace, even though the motion shoved Hannah’s bony little knees straight into her stomach.
“Iknewyou would be,” Hannah said, twisting in her arms. “We’re going to get married, and you’re going to be my mama, and we’ll all be happy—”
Ben muffled a snort, swiping at his face with one hand. “I’m sorry,” he said to Diana. “I don’t think she quite understands what a proposal is meant to be.” He swung the bouquet down into his hand as he crossed the floor. The sweet scent of roses permeated the air as he knelt there on the floor beside them and reached out to gently tug one of Hannah’s plaits. “I have to askher myself,” he said.
Hannah wrinkled her nose. “But why?”
“Because that’s how it’s done.”
The rapid click of heels upon the marble floor of the foyer suggested that the footman had gone off to inform Lydia that a strange man had come calling with flowers and a small child in tow, and Diana was not at all surprised to see her sister-in-law come sailing into the room mere moments later with a sense of urgency about her.
“Diana—oh.” Lydia paused there in the doorway, laying one hand over her chest as she realized what must be occurring. Hannah on Diana’s lap. The flowers. Ben upon his knees.
“Lydia,” Diana managed to say. “May I introduce Benjamin Gillingham, Earl of Weatherford, and his daughter, Lady Hannah?” Ben’s brows had pinched together at that, but he said nothing torefute it.
“Oh. Oh, yes, indeed, it is a pleasure. No, no—” Lydia gave a little dismissive wave when Ben made to rise. “I beg you, don’t go to any trouble on my account. You must have—er, matters of great importance to discuss.” She summoned a bright smile, her green eyes twinkling with barely-contained mirth. “Hannah, dear, would you care to join me for some tea and biscuits?”
Hannah gave a little wiggle, instantly enamored with the idea of biscuits. “Oh,” she said, her face falling in realization that she would have to leave the room for them. “I can’t. We’re proposing.”
Lydia pursed her lips around a smile. “Are you? How delightful. Do you know—I think proposing is something a gentleman is meant to do on his own. I’m certain your papa won’t mind if you let him do the hard work and come have some biscuits instead.”
Ben breathed a sigh of relief and mouthed a ferventthank youat Lydia, who stretched out her hand to Hannah. “Onlytwobiscuits,” he said to Hannah as she hopped off of Diana’s lap to slide her hand into Lydia’s.
“You’re very pretty,” Hannah said, peering up at Lydia.
“And you,” Lydia said with a light laugh, as she walked the child from the room, “are absolutelydarling.”
A comfortable silence descended once more as their footsteps receded into the distance. Diana said, “She’s going to ply Hannah with as many biscuits as needed to keep her occupied, you know.”
“I thought as much. She seems the sort.”
“Areyou proposing?”
“I was getting around to it.” He laid the bouquet across her lap and raked one hand through his hair. “The problem of it all is, I haven’t got any right to ask you. I haven’t got any right even to come here to you.”
But he had. Hehad, though he’d long sworn he would never return to London. Despite everything, hehadcome. He had fought for her, just as she had fought for him—and he didn’t know it yet. The wrapping paper crinkled in her hands as she picked up the bouquet and buried her face in the silky soft blooms, breathing in the fresh scent of the roses. “Where have you been?” she asked. “It’s been so long. I thought you had reconsidered—that you’d decided it would be best not to write at all.”
Ben laid one hand upon her knee, the warmth of his palm seeping through the thin fabric of her gown. “All over,” he said. “We’ve never had an opportunity for honest travel, for leisure. I suppose we did enjoy it, in a way. We found places that ought to have been perfect. There was a time theywouldhave been perfect. Better, even, than those small dreams we built together.But you weren’t in any of them.”
Surreptitiously, she swiped away another inconvenient tear.
“The truth is,” he said, “you are an essential part of our happiness. We can’t find it without you. So we never settled.” That warm hand squeezed her knee. “We talked it over,” he said, “and we came to the conclusion that we didn’t want to keep searching for something we knew we would never find without you. And I know that if you agree, you will be lowering yourself to marry me. I am coming to you with nothing but my name, my daughter, and a bank draft that will likely see us through a few years at best. I can’t give you the sort of life you deserve. But I am asking anyway, because I love you so damned much. We both love you.”
Oh, he was so wrong—he was coming to her witheverything. Everything she had ever wanted. Everything she had never dreamed she would have.
He rose as she did, and a lock of hair fell over his forehead, giving him a boyish sort of air, almost sheepish. “I don’t know what will happen,” he said, as she lifted the letter free of its place tucked within her abandoned book. One step after another, he followed, like a sheep after a shepherd. Interesting, that. “Probably—probably there will be scandal.”
She crossed into the foyer, and she doubted he had even realized it. Still he pursued her as she led him effortlessly toward the staircase. “My family has seen its share of scandal already,” she said lightly. His hand gripped the bannister as he climbed the stairs after her. “We’ve weathered them before. But I don’t think there will be much of one now.” Unless one counted an unnecessarily expeditious wedding, which she did not. She had wasted enough years already.
Ben reached the landing a few steps behind her. “It’s impossible to say what the future holds. But I would rather—wewould rather—face it with you. No matter what anyone says of us. I want all of your tomorrows, Diana. I want you to have all of mine.”
Her bedroom door opened beneath the light pressure of her fingers, and she slipped inside, laying the bouquet upon the surface of her dresser as Ben came in after her. “I wrote you a letter,” she said softly as she turned to push the door closed behind him, twisting the key in the lock until there was a satisfyingclick. With one hand she extended the folded bit of paper to him. “I’ve kept it on me,” she said. “So that I could send it off to you the very moment you wrote.”
In the dim light he peeled it open, squinting to read the words uponthe page.
I love you both. It’s safe. Please come home.
His shoulders sank with relief, and a shuddering sigh slipped from his lungs. “Does this mean—you will—”
