Page 2 of The Duke's Impetuous Darling
"Not so well that the revenuers could catch him," she complained. He heard her worry that the leader of the band of smugglers was still not captured two months after she'd spotted him here with his gang.
"The Commissioners of His Majesty's Customs are not known for failure, Bee." He curled her close and she nestled her face into the shelter of his shoulder. "So promise me, Bee. One more thing."
She sniffed, testy because she wasn't getting her way. "Another promise? You're becoming aggressive, Captain Demerest."
"I am." He stroked herback. His leave short, he was to return to his troop in a few days for the campaign against Napoleon. But before he left he was determined to carry with him into battle the assurance that Belinda Craymore would be safe.
"I've already said I would not come. I so wanted to catch them and restore my sisters and me from my father's disgrace."
"I know you did. You gave Customs the best information they've had in months about those thieves and they value it. But it's too dangerous for you to come here. You'd expose your interest. Customs patrol the coast. Leave this investigation to them. I don't want you coming here looking for them. Promise me."
She gulped. "I did."
"Good." He raised her chin with a gentle touch. "Now the last."
"Very well." She put her nose in the air, tolerant but teasing him. "What?"
"All these years, Bee, you and I have been friends."
She parted her full pink lips in a mischievous smile. "Yes. From that day when you were fourteen and I fished you from your father's lake."
"I couldn't swim," he said with a helpless shrug. "I would have drowned."
She toyed with the gold braid across his coat."You taught me to ride astride."
"So unflattering," he chuckled. "And now you ride at dawn that way and get yourself in trouble. It's one thing to mistakenly shoot a harmless tenant, my dear, but discovering smugglers and their conspirators is more dangerous work."
"But riding at dawn is the best fun. No one is about. The way the sun splits the darkness and spreads like sweet butter over a meadow. The way birds chirp and put joy in your soul." She dug her fingernails into the fabric of his coat, the way she'd nestled her way into his heart. "Oh, Alastair, you've brought me joy the same way."
He caught one ebony curl that escaped her coif. He tipped his head, his new helmet precariously top-heavy. "That is the finest compliment you've ever paid me, Bee."
"Is it?" she asked, her fair blue eyes clouded with distress. "You must have it now, Alastair, before you return to France. All these years, you've been safe in Spain in the worst of battles. Never a wound. Never an illness."
The rule never to speak of how lucky one was in battle prohibited him from commenting. But they'd never spoken of a future together, either. He'd never had anything to offer her. A second son, he'd had to beg his father not only for funds to buy his commission but also for his uniforms, boots and sometimes even to buy another horse, his other shot out from under him. For more than nine years, he'd collected his army pay and found it bought little more than his rations and his meager enjoyments. Only with the victories of Wellington's army had he earned hope of prize money that might afford him a life that might include a wife.
She was the only one he’d ever wanted by his side, in his arms, in his bed. He’d had nothing, not even hope he might survive the gory battlefields he’d trod. Now, close to the end of these wars, determined to finish off the nemesis that was Napoleon Bonaparte, he vowed to himself he’d live to see the end of all the suffering and conflict. But he heard her fear for him and sought to share his own optimism. "I will return, Bee."
"Come home, please, Alastair. We'll ride together at dawn."
"Oh, Bee." He wanted nothing more than peace and rest from the endless killing that left him sleepless, restless and often helplessly irritable. "After we rout Bonaparte in Europe, I'll have a promotion. In July, I'll have served seven years as captain, two as lieutenant. I'm due to become colonel. That will mean a raise in pay." His older brother's death ten months ago on the field in Toulousemeant he was now Viscount Lowell. But that title brought land long neglected. He hoped he might revive the estate’s production so that it might sponsor a decent living for him and the woman he adored. But his duty was to remain in the Army until Bonaparte’s defeat—or perhaps even afterward to ensure peace.
She put two fingers to his lips. "Speak no more of this."
"I must." Frustrated that she'd stop him from declaring for her after all these years of silently loving her, he crushed her closer. She fit him, body, mind, soul. "I will return and when I do, I'll ask your aunt for her permission for your hand."
She watched him, her brows wide in wonder. "Alastair—”
He cupped her cheeks. “Tell me you’re not surprised.”
“But I—” Her lower lip quivered.
“Tell me that you’ll agree to marry me because I lo—”
She put two fingers to his lips.
He kissed them. “You’ve always wanted me, Bee, as I have you.”
Her blue eyes grew fierce with outrage.
