Page 7 of Harrowing Hall
“And I do so like that.” She smiled warmly at him. “It says much for your people. For your clan, as you call them.”
“It does, and I’m glad you think so.” He meant to keep walking, to show her the entire hall, but somehow this moment seemed too perfect. Not the setting but the look in her eyes. The way the candlelight set her aglow. “Because I would like to do the same for you, Maude.”
That said, he did what he had wanted to do for some time now.
Chapter Five
Maude had beenwalking on a cloud since arriving at MacLauchlin Castle but never so much as when Blake sank to a knee in Harrowing Hall, looked up at her with his heart in his eyes, and said words she had only ever dreamt of. “I have adored you,lovedyou, since the moment we met.” He held out a ring the likes of which she had never seen. “Will you marry me, Miss Maude? Will you become my wife?”
Here? Now? With possible ghosts abound?
Well, why not?
The proper thing would be to accept immediately, because she was a commoner and he titled, and this opportunity would never come along again, but she did not go about things like her sisters and would not start now. Not when his proposal made little sense. When she could offer him nothing.
So she ignored her slamming heart, tried not to swoon despite the hallway darkening a bit around the edges, and…thanked him. Then promptly moved on. He was a sweet man, but she thought this just, well, whathadshe thought it?
He caught her wrist before she got away. “Maude?”
“Yes?”
“That is no answer.”
He walked her back against the wall and cupped her cheek, sending all sorts of unusual sensations through her.
“Why are you running,mo leannan?”He searched her eyes. “Why, when you had to know that I brought you to my home for a reason? That I—”
She put a finger to his lips, unsure what she was doing. Only that she feared the moment and said as much.
“Because as right as this feels,” she managed, “it also feels…too good to be true.” She swallowed hard and tried to gather her thoughts. “Why, Blake? Why me when you could have anyone? Ladies with far more standing. Titles. Women who could—”
He gave her no chance to go on but cupped her other cheek and closed his lips over hers. Kissed her for the very first time. And oh, what a sensation. Gentle and coaxing, it was everything she imagined yet more somehow. Warmth curled up her neck. Down her torso. Spread everywhere. Down to areas that ached more often than not around him.
“Why you?” Blake murmured against her lips. He rested his forehead against hers and inhaled deeply as though pulling in her scent. “Because you are alive in a way no one else is, Maude.” He pulled back enough to gaze into her eyes. “And because I love you deeply. Since the moment I met you at Hastings Castle and saw firsthand the way you look at the world, I knew I had to have you.” He brushed his lips across hers again, then locked eyes with her, quite serious. “You are exceptional and different and everything I want in my life. The key to an exhilarating future.”
She was fairly certain he would be hard-pressed to find others who agreed with him, but he seemed genuine. More than that,hewas everything she had ever wanted. But he needed to understand what that meant.
“I am not orthodox,” she warned. “I tend to speak without thinking, which surely makes me unfit for the peerage. I’m positive they will detest me, for as you know, I have a lot to say about many things. I tend to hear scandalous tidbits, rarely hold back my thoughts on said tidbits, and—”
This time Blake put a finger to her lips and smiled. “I think you just single-handedly described why you might become the most popular lass in theton.” He traced his thumbs over her cheekbones and looked at her in that toe-curling way he was so good at. “Yet, you have not answered my question.” He seemed to think about it. “So that but begs one question before all others.”
“It does?”
“Aye.”
“And what would that be?”
He sank to a knee again and held out the ring. A glorious swirling silver band with bits of ruby. “Do you love me as well?” The devilish twinkle she had grown to adore lit his eyes. “If so, will you marry me?”
She swore she did not breathe as their gazes held. As everything she longed for dwindled down to that singular moment. To the way he looked at her. How he made her feel.
“Yes,” she whispered, simply unable to say anything else. Feel anything else. “I do…and I will.”
His voice thickened with emotion as he slid the ring onto her finger. “Aye?”
“Aye,” she assured, trying to sound properly Scottish.
The next thing she knew, she was wrapped up in his arms while he spun her and laughed. Then soon enough, she was laughing, too.
