Page 85 of An Earl Like You
Her stomach knotted.
Hugh looked at her with yearning in his eyes. “He loves you—so much that he has no morals or compunction when it comes to doing what he thinks will make you happy.”
Papa had not apologized. “He was wrong,” she whispered. “What he did was terrible.”
Hugh nodded. “I am well aware. But he said something that almost made me want to forgive him.” Eliza tensed. “He said he only wanted me to look at you. That if I knew you, I would see what a treasure you are.” He paused. “In that, he was absolutely correct. And while I hate his methods, I cannot hate him for introducing you to me. For my actions after that... I take full responsibility. I was wrong to deceive you, no matter what he demanded from me. I was wrong to court you with such calculation.” He raised his hands and let them fall. “But I am not sorry I married you.”
She wanted to run to him so badly her toes curled inside her shoes from the effort of not moving. “You have my dowry, you know,” she said, striving for cold sense and logic. “No one can take it away. You don’t have to say anything you don’t mean.”
His jaw hardened and his eyes flashed dangerously. “Your father coerced me with eighty thousand pounds. I intend to pay him back, every damn farthing of his bloody bribery. He can leave the rest of his fortune to the Foundling Hospital for all I care. I didn’t come after you today for money. Ididfall in love with you, in spite of your father and his schemes, and I don’t want to lose you because I was too stupid not to have fallen in love with you the first moment you landed at my feet, wet and dirty from Willy’s bath.”
Her heart pounded in hope and anxiety. “Is that true?”
“Every word,” he said in a low voice. “There is nothing but truth between us now, forever.”
Of their own volition her feet started walking. Hugh took two steps and caught her in his arms, clasping her to him. Eliza clung to him, burying her face in his neck, breathing deep of his familiar scent. Had it only been a day? The hours had stretched until it seemed an eternity since they’d gone to the Montgomery ball.
He took a paper from his pocket and pressed it into her hand. “Keep this,” he said raggedly. “Keep it until I have repaid all the debts your father bought and held over my head. Then you may give it back to me or rip it up and leave. But please... Give me a chance to prove myself to you.”
Her heart lodged in her throat as she recognized a copy of their marriage lines.
He tipped up her chin until her gaze met his. “I want you for you, my love. If you no longer want me—”
“I do,” she said, blinking back tears.
“Keep this,” he repeated, folding his hand over hers, still clutching the record of their marriage. “Until you are sure.”
Eliza thought she would always be sure, but she nodded. He rested his forehead against hers and exhaled. “Thank you,” he whispered.
She gathered him to her, sliding her hands into his hair, smiling at the way it curled around her fingers. Perhaps he was right. What her father did was inexcusable, but not unforgivable—some day. If Papa could be right about both of them—that Eliza would have hidden at home forever with her garden and her dogs, that Hugh would fall for her if only he got to know her—perhaps she could forgive him.
Not now, when her heart still ached from discovery, but some day. Perhaps.
“I’m glad you came after me,” she whispered. His head had come to rest on her shoulder, and she turned her face and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Thank you.”
Hugh’s shoulders shook with silent laughter. “If I had been remotely hesitant in doing so, I would have been pursued from London by my furious family. They want you to come back, too—I daresay more than they want me back, after I confessed what I’d done.”
She blushed. “No, of course they want you...”
“Eliza.” He cupped her cheek. “I never told them how badly off my father left us. I thought I was protecting them, but really, I was only lying to them. You, on the other hand, never did. You were your kind, thoughtful, loving, considerate self, and—like me—once they knew you, they loved you.” He paused. “Well, not at all the same way that I love you, nor even as much, I’d wager, but they were adamant that I should do everything in my power to persuade you to come home.”
The wedding record crinkled between them.
“You’ve already said everything you needed to say to persuade me,” she told him.
His lips curved. “May I say it again?”
She nodded.
“I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you.” By the last time, her lips were forming the words in time with his. Hugh grinned, his dimple showing. “My lady. My beloved wife.”
“My beloved lord husband.” She went up on her toes and pressed her lips to his. “Take us home.”
Epilogue
Fourteen months later
Rosemere House
