Page 43 of Good Duke Gone Hard

“I should have told you.”

“Yes,” his concession was reducing her momentum, but she was still fired up. “And then when you came back, you didn’t even tell me everything.”

“I told you everything in the drawing room.”

“Yes, you told everyone, Jonathan. But what about me?” She knew she was beginning to sound whiny. She knew she shouldn’t have any of these expectations on him. She knew he was a free man. A single man. She knew he was her man. She knew she loved him. Again.

“Oh my god, Jonathan.” She cried out in anger. She couldn’t tell him she loved him. Not now. Not while they were fighting. Not while he still wasn’t treating her as if she were the star of his world and the wind in his soul. Not now. She just…couldn’t.

“Come here, darling.”

“I don’t want to.” She almost stamped her foot.

“I know, but come here anyways.”

She slowly shuffled toward him as he made a stride to fully close the distance.

He put his arms around her waist and she rested her head reluctantly, but comfortably, against his chest.

“I should have told you first. I wanted to tell you. I just hadn’t decided when to do so. Forgive me.”

No excuses. Just a simple apology. Could it really be this easy between them? Sometimes there were lines in life that once crossed couldn’t be uncrossed. She had already walked this line with Jonathan. Could she do it again?

“Here’s the thing darling. I learned a great deal in London. But in particular I realized one important fact. You’re too much for me.” She began to push away from him, but he held her tight. “That’s not the best part yet. The thing is, I’ve got nothing.”

She struggled again.

“Margaret, don’t you see? You’re too much, I’m not enough. Let’s just meet in the middle darling.”

Chapter 16

HEWASSTILLTALKINGbut she wasn’t hearing a thing because all she was thinking about was whether that was the best line or the worst line she had ever heard.

Then she looked up and found Jonathan staring at her as if he could read her eyes. “It doesn’t matter,” Jonathan said.

“What doesn’t matter?”

“Exactly,” Jonathan released his hold on her and stepped away to where he had left a package. He picked up the small wrapped box and handed it to her. “This is for you.”

“For me?” Apparently her capabilities were limited to mirroring his words at the moment.

He gave her a lopsided grin. “Just open it.”

Margaret managed to make her fingers listen to her will, and slowly they peeled back the wrapping.

Her eyes beheld the most intimate gift she’d ever received: a custom set of paints ground and mixed by a colorman, and it included crimson lake and ultramarine. How did he know her so well? She had never even talked about these colors, had she? Had she ever mentioned the singular joy it would be to have colors mixed for her by someone so talented? She was sure she had never told anyone. How did he know? How did this man, who, truly, didn’t know her at all except for the last few weeks, actually know her? He had no working memories of them from before a few weeks ago, yet he could read her and know her. Her heart. Her eyes. Her soul.

She felt again some inextricable unexplainable tie to his soul.

She didn’t want to disturb the moment, but she needed to express the depths of emotion she felt. Her heart was pounding so loudly she was sure he could hear it, but she couldn’t tell him what her heart was saying, she was too scared. There might never be a perfect time. Was this as close to perfect as she would ever get?

She couldn’t answer any of her own questions. But she couldn’t hold in the one question, the one word, that she had laboriously restrained from leaving her body.

So she whispered, “Johnny?”

JONATHAN STOOD DUMBSTRUCK. THE sound of the name floated on a breeze through his soul. Two syllables was all it took and everything crashed down around him. Or was it more like everything rose up within him? The walls crumbled, the shell was shed. In its place arose hundreds, thousands, millions of minutes of memories. He wanted to clutch them all fearing they would disappear.

Even if there had been time to catch them all, there was no assurance he could keep them, so he resigned himself to watching the memories spring up and out of his mind like fugacious dreams.

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