Page 56 of Loving a Beast of a Marquess
“Then I shall remain.” She took a deep breath and pressed a hand against his chest, feeling the rapid beat of his heart. “As your friend. Your lover. Your future wife.”
He kissed her again, slowly this time, like he wanted to savor every second their lips touched. His hand cradled her face. “Tell me it’s real,” he murmured. “I need something real.”
“It’s real.”
He pressed his forehead against hers, and she stroked his hair. How had she never appreciated how soft it was before now? As she threaded her fingers through it, he sighed and pulled away, lying back on the bed and staring at the ceiling. Evangeline remained sitting, looking down at him as he swallowed, throat bobbing, and frowned at the canopy above them.
“I never thought him capable of such a thing,” he said after a moment. “He was my age when my father died—an event he orchestrated.”
She laced her fingers together, so she would not say a word although she was tempted to say several. It was not possible a man who claimed love could do such terrible things. Was it?
A memory from earlier that day, when she had confronted the Earl in the drawing room, sprung into her mind.We all do the strangest things for love, do we not?He had asked, and she had agreed, not knowing then that the strangest things he did encompassed a crime of such a serious nature.
Yet she had seen his anguish, the way he had told Zachary he loved him. Whatever his crime, it had come from a place of love. There were whispers of the late Marquess’ cruelty, of a temper that took aim at his wife and son. Knowing those rumors, it had been easy for her to believe Zachary had committed the crime of allowing his father to die.
Percy had not killed him purely out of hatred; he had done it, at least in part, from love. She could condemn his actions, but not his motivations. Not when she understood them so completely.
“I don’t know if I can ever forgive him,” Zachary said, “though some part of me wishes I could.”
“He did something terrible,” Evangeline said once her voice was calm again. “If you can never forgive him again, that would be understandable.”
“Yet he stuck by me for so many years.”
“He did,” she conceded. “From love and guilt. Whether you can forgive him for that is up to you.” And part of her hoped he could, though—seeing Zachary’s grief at learning of his friend’s betrayal reminded her of what it was to lose a father.
Zachary stared at her, his blue eyes dark in the gloom, and he frowned as her tears splattered his face. “Evangeline—”
“I beg you would not concern yourself with me and my feelings when yours are the ones which have been hurt,” she said, hating that she was crying over this when he was hurting not she.
Zachary sat up and took her in his arms. “We can both be hurt,” he said gently, gathering her against his chest and kissing her forehead in a tender gesture that made her heart hurt. “And you have lost your father too—more recently than I.”
“This is not about me,” she said though she made no effort to leave his embrace. She had needed this, she realized, all those lonely nights when she had lain awake and cried over the loss of her father. “You have been forced to acknowledge the worst of betrayals tonight, and I came here to comfort you.”
“Knowing that you feel my pain so deeply provides me with more comfort than you know.”
Evangeline looked up into his face. The strong jawline she had traced on so many occasions. The eyes that often looked like the sparkling sea though tonight they were the storm-heavy sky. His mouth that she knew as intimately as her own. All the pieces of him were there, and they were hers. He was hers.
“Of course, I feel your pain,” she said, her voice choking a little on the words. “How could I not when I love you so?”
He froze against her, his hands trembling on her shoulders. “You… love me?”
Evangeline’s heart thudded into her mouth. Her mind stopped. This hadn’t been how she’d intended on telling him. In her mind, there had been some sort of grand gesture. She had done something that demonstrated, more than words could ever do, that she adored him beyond all reason.
Instead, there was this. She had come to comfort him and had wound up in his arms, tears in her eyes, and every vulnerable part of her heart exposed.
“I do,” she said, the words bursting from her mouth in a rush of air. “I have for a long time. Longer than I ever intended. I never meant to hand you my heart, but you have it regardless.”
He drew her closer if that was possible, and his mouth found hers in the darkness. “Say it again,” he whispered. “Tell me you love me again.”
“I love you.”
His kiss deepened, opening her mouth. His hand cupped the back of her head, and she wrapped her arms around her neck. She wanted to be closer—to lose herself in him until they became one. It was almost violent, this overflowing of emotion that demanded she find a way to be closer.
Zachary broke the kiss, panting a little, but although she felt evidence of his arousal against her leg, he merely stroked her face tenderly. “I intend to do this properly,” he said. “You are worth more to me than a single night.”
“But—”
“Evangeline.” He pronounced her name reverently, his tongue curling around the syllables in a way that made her blush though his mouth had been so recently pressed against hers. “I want to love you as you should be loved. Not illicitly, in the middle of the night, but boldly, with you as my wife.”
