Page 98 of Seduced

Abruptly, he sat up in the bed, his long hair falling about his shoulders. Poppy moved to support him, because his face went extremely pale at the movement, but he pushed her away and raised himself up until he was on his knees. He was wearing a clean shirt and a light pair of cotton breeches underneath, as if he were ready to leap up and start working again at any minute, in spite of the doctor’s orders.

He pushed the covers aside, sweeping his long hair around his neck, his knees pressing into the feathered mattress, his back straight as a rod.

He fixed her with those eyes—they were on the same level as hers as he knelt on the bed—and her breath stopped at the hope she saw in them.

“Marry me,” he said.

“I beg your pardon?”

She must surely have misheard.

“Marry me,” he repeated. His lips were shaking; he pressed them together to make them stop and just stayedwhere he was, on his knees, watching her, naked emotion leaping from his face.

“Well, if you’re going to mock me,” Poppy started the painstaking process of standing up on her aching legs, but he leapt at her as soon as he saw what she was going to do, and took her elbow to stop her.

“No!” He shouted it, almost savage in his desperation. “I am more serious than I have ever been in my life. Marry me, Wyatt.”

“You…you’re serious?”

“I am.”

“You can marry anyone you want.”

He laughed incredulously. “That is news to me,” he said. “But even if it were true in the slightest, it’s you I want.”

“You should marry a Slavic princess, and then your father and all the other princes who chased your mother out of her home will come crawling back to you. You’ll get back the power they stripped from you, my lord.”

“Is this the first time you are thinking of this?” Alexei asked, eyebrow flying up. He nearly smiled.

Poppy shook her head. “I’ve thought it through; it’s perfect. The perfect solution, the perfect revenge. You would…”

He lifted a hand to stop her.

“Let me tell you something, and I need to be extremely clear: I do not mean to marry anyone that isn’t you.” He spoke in a tone she hadn’t quite heard him use before: firm and determined, but extremely quiet and gentle. Intentional, that was the word to describe it. His eyes were still on hers, peering into her very soul. “Understood?”

Poppy licked her lips. “No.”

He opened his mouth but no sound came out.

“Why not?” he said finally.

“Because you are out of your mind,” Poppy said frankly.

He smiled wolfishly. “Always,” he said. “Why? Tell me.”

“Because…I’m too broken.”

And you are too, she thought, but did not say it. By the look on his face, he thought it. The light went away at once.

“I won’t marry,” she added more softly. “I don’t know if you are still half-drowning or in jest, but I am telling you the truth. I do not intend to marry. Ever.”

Alexei looked at her, still without speaking.

“I am completely in earnest,” he said at length. “And I was not half-drowning as I said it,” he added slowly. “I am now.”

“I’m—I’m sorry.”

Poppy did not know what to say, but before she could cast about for something, some excuse, anything to stop the pain she saw shining out of those eyes of his, her legs seemed to make the decision for her, already standing up, putting space between her and his bed.

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