Page 69 of Her Wicked Highwayman
“How do you do that?” she asked.
The corners of his eyes crinkled as he looked down at her. “Do what?”
“Make me feel safe.”
“I do?” Rafe paused in the doorway of the library.
“Yes, you do.”
“Good. I always want you to feel safe with me.” He leaned down to kiss her again for a long, delicious moment. The pain in her arm vanished, and all her dark thoughts faded away.
“Marry me,” Rafe whispered as their lips parted. “Marry me... Diana.” His blue eyes burned bright, and she lost herself in the color of the summer sky they held. “Marry me when you choose. When you feel ready. I’ll take you as my wife the moment you wish to have me as your husband.”
Diana’s throat tightened. “I...” She so badly wished to say yes. “Rafe, you know my estate is struggling. Surely you must take that into account before you ask me to marry...”
He smiled and brushed a lock of her hair from her cheek.
“I would take all the struggles in the world as long as I could call you mine.”
She saw and heard only truth in his response.
He stroked a fingertip over her lips. “Take your time.”
“Miss Fox!” Isla’s excited shout reminded Diana of why she was here. “You must see the fort!” The girl rushed over to take Diana’s hand and pull her away. Diana glanced back at Rafe as she knelt at the fort’s entrance. The look of love and longing in his eyes healed her very soul. How could she refuse him? She held out a hand. Rafe came to her and got down on his knees next to her, one arm sliding around her waist. She tilted her chin up and drew in a soft breath.
“Yes.” She whispered the word, and sweet lightning shot through her limbs.
His lips kicked up in a full smile that held the warmth of the very sun in it. “Yes?”
“Yes.” She tried to still the wild beating of her heart. She would have to say goodbye to her mask and the midnight rides, but after the last one, she was more than ready. She and Rafe would find a way to save her home without resorting to theft. Perhaps the investments from the deposits she’d given Rosalind would start to bear fruit.
Rafe pressed his forehead to hers and kissed her deeply. After a long, tender moment, they were reminded by a polite cough that they weren’t alone.
“Does this mean you’ll be my new mama?” Isla asked, clutching her doll to her chest.
“Yes . . . would you like that?”
Isla’s eyes filled with tears and she threw herself at Diana, who held the crying girl in her arms and hushed her.
“I’m sorry, I don’t have to be your mama,” Diana said.
“But Iwantyou to be!” Isla said between sobs. “I want a mama... I wantyou.”
“Well then, I think we shall both be happy with the decision,” Diana said. She lifted her face to Rafe’s as he pulled them both inside the blanket fort to sit.
“It shall be the three of us from now on.” Rafe’s gaze held Diana’s.
“The three of us,” Diana agreed. She was ready to open her heart fully and completely to Rafe and to everything that would come from loving him.
CHAPTER 16
“Ihave news, my lord.”
Andrew Caddington glanced up from the papers on his desk with a scowl.
“It had better begoodnews, Phelps.” He’d had enough bad news since his coach, protected by four armed guards, had been attacked by highwaymen and his money lost. One of the fools he’d hired had been killed during the struggle, not that Andrew cared, but at least he now had a murder he could hang about that blasted Tyburn’s neck once he caught the bastard.
Phelps had been sent to covertly watch Andrew’s coach from a vantage point in the woods. When he hadn’t returned straightaway with the men who’d been in charge of the coach, Andrew hadn’t worried. Phelps was known to go underground while he did his work, whatever it may be that Andrew asked of him.
