Page 89 of Lord Ramsey's Red-Headed Ruin
“How?” she breathed.
“You come sit beside me and list all the ways in which you will become your own woman, your own person, wealthy, landed, respected, and you expect me to be happy.”
“I know you are,” she said, ready to cry that he was so forlorn.
“Fantasy.”
She wanted to scream at him, but tried something more logical. “It is fantasy. That you are mine.”
“No.”
Oh, he is stubborn!“Deny all you like. You love me! You would not love me half as much if I were not already my own woman—money, land, or not.”
He did not move. He did not speak.
“You love me,” she repeated in a saner tone. “You have never said the words. But I know you do. Each time your eyes hold me or your arms take me. Each time you have saved me from others, from myself. Whereas I have told you often that I love you. I burst with it, Godfrey DuClare. I belong to you and you do to me.”
“It’s not enough, Amber.”
“I agree. So don’t you think it wise that you marry me? I mean, I know now where my birth is registered, and I understand one must know such things to be married in England in the eyes of church and state. I love you, Ram, and I am asking you to marry me, sir. I am a widow with land and money in both England and France. The French wealth may not be claimed, sadly, while a few ogres are in power, but here in England, I am rather, so say the documents in Aunt Cecily’s packet, a good catch.”
His smile, which had dawned when she first asked him to marry her, was now a broad grin and about to be a chuckle. “A good catch?”
She nodded eagerly. “Quite so. I mean, you have all this here”—she extended a hand to sweep over the beautifully appointed landscape—“but we could administer more, don’t you think? You and I are wise and—”
He snatched her up in his arms. “You tease!”
“Do I?”
He allowed her to slide down his form, held fast within his embrace. “I accept your proposal, Madame St. Antoine.”
She beamed at him. “Merci beaucoup,Monsieur le Vicomte.”
He cupped her nape, while his eyes adored her. “What say you to a wedding next week?”
“So soon? Can we?”
“I will see to it.” He kissed her cheek.
“I need a new wedding ring. One to go with mine from Charleville.”
“You still have it?” he asked as if nothing in the world pleased him more.
“It was a part of you from which I could never part.”
He pressed her closer to him. “Never part from me again.”
She shook her head and grinned at him. “Never a moment without you.”
He kissed her, a ravenous claiming of his fine lips. Then he stroked her cheeks with his thumbs. “We’ll go to London. We must for a special license.”
“Only for the wedding. Not to stay,” she said. “I do not want to deal with theton. Not just yet.”
“You won’t have to. We’ll take Mama and Nana with us for the ceremony. And we’ll invite Kane and Gus.”
“Oh, yes, I’d like that!”
“Then we’ll go on a honeymoon.”
