Page 101 of Enticing Odds
Rickard looked toward the stairs behind Matthew. The stairs Lady Caplin had climbed immediately upon their return, proclaiming that her clothes must be burnt.
Matthew lowered his head.
“I see,” Rickard said.
“I mean to…” The deed to Cookham Place in his coat seemed to emanate heat, but perhaps that was just the worry and fear coursing through his body. “I mean to ask her.”Again.
“You might not like the answer,” Rickard said, his tone uncharacteristically conciliatory.
“Perhaps,” Matthew replied, lifting his head. “But I cannot live with myself if I do not.”
Rickard studied him for a moment, then nodded.
Matthew watched his friend descend the steps and enter the waiting carriage. He shut the front door, doing his best to latch it properly.
Then the gravity of the next moments hit him as squarely as a locomotive tearing across the countryside. His future hung in the balance; he would either end the evening as hopeless and lonely as he’d ever been, or… well.
Matthew was not hopeless. Not quite.
He looked up at the massive staircase before him, a wide, curving, gothic thing.
Standing at the top was Cressida, her hands folded, her hair hanging loose and damp, clothed in a simple wrapper, looking somehow even more elegant in her simplicity, freed from her jewels and trimmings.
Not Lady Caplin; just Cressida. The woman he loved with all his heart.
His body flooded with warmth as he took the first step, his touch light upon the banister. In the dark her eyes appeared even larger, reflecting the light from the lamps around them.
She’d risked a massive amount of money for him, not to mention her safety in the odd corners of the city. Gaffed dice were not a certainty—they did not land on the same side every time; their weighting only increased the odds that they would. She’d staked a significant portion of her and her sons’ living on one throw of them.
And she’d done it for him.
He ran a hand through his hair as he reached the top, pausing a few steps below her so they stood nearly eye to eye.
“Dr. Collier,” she said with a slight smirk.
He took her hands in his, his chest rising and falling rapidly with each shallow breath.
“Cressida…”
She opened her mouth to speak again, but he shook his head.
“Please, allow me, for if I don’t express everything… all that’s in my heart and the truth written upon my soul, I fear I never shall.”
Her eyes widened.
Matthew caressed her hands in his. They felt warm, no doubt from her bath, which had also lent a girlish pink to her cheeks.
“You nearly forfeited so much of what you hold dear. I know I’ve no title, no noble heritage, but I damn well know the value of a pound. That you would risk your comfort, your happiness—hell, yoursons’happiness—for me…” He paused as his voice began to tremble, and he waited, studying her hands in his, until he felt he could speak steadily. “I asked you before, and I daresay you saw it as the last act of a desperate man and rejected me out of hand, but I assure you…”
He looked up, his eyes glassy. He couldn’t help it. The emotion within him demanded it, and he found himself incapable of stamping it out.
She should see it. She should know how he felt.
Cressida watched him, her face inscrutable.
“I assure you I wish for nothing but your happiness. And to be the man to provide you with that happiness, to do whatever you ask, but to be at your side, to be your husband, to be with you, to merelybe… with you…”
He trailed off, surprised by the force of his words. He cleared his throat, then reached inside his coat and withdrew the papers.
