Page 45 of The Duke Who Dared Me
“You pretended as if nothing had happened at that inn.This morning you were gone.Then I found out about the dowry.”
His voice broke.“I thought you wanted your independence more.I was trying to help.”
She walked up to him and whacked him against his chest, her nose scrunched, her mouth pinched.“All these years, and still an ignoramus.”
“You can call me anything you like if you stay.”His voice cracked.“Don’t leave London, Verity.Please.”
“There’s nothing here for me.I don’t belong.My own family wants me gone.I’m too much.”
“Too much?”The words tore from his throat.“Verity, you’re not too much.You’re everything I never knew I needed.”
He caught her hands, holding tight when she tried to pull away.“Do you know what I see when I look at you?Fire.Pure, brilliant fire that everyone else is too weak to handle.They want you dimmed, contained, made safe.But God, Verity, you were never meant to be safe.”
Her eyes widened, but he wasn’t finished.
“I’ve spent my entire life being what was expected.The perfect duke, the perfect son, the perfect gentleman.And then you came along with your fierce heart and your refusal to apologize for taking up space in this world.You made me realize I’d been sleepwalking through my own life.”
“Alistair—”
“You terrify them because you’re free in ways they’ll never be.You say what you think, feel what you feel, live like you mean it.They call it too much because they're too little.Too small, too afraid, too concerned with what others might say.”His voice cracked.“I was one of them.I tried to make you smaller, tried to fit you into their neat little boxes because it was easier than admitting the truth.”
“What truth?”
“That you make me want to be more than I am.That loving you doesn’t mean taming you.It means being brave enough to match you.To be worthy of the woman who looks at the world and refuses to settle for anything less than everything.”
He stepped closer.No more distance.No more excuses.“You’re everything I want.Always.I think I even enjoy it when you’re a little mean to me.”
Her mouth twitched.
“Two years ago, I woke up with a start because I had a dream that I kissed you.We were riding in Kent.You looked back at me with this smile, and I couldn’t breathe.And ever since, all I wanted was to kiss you.”
“And now?”
He cupped her cheek.“Now I want to wake up beside you for the rest of my life.”
She crossed her arms, now toe-to-toe with him.Alistair stared down at her, unable to wipe the smile from his face.
“I thought you didn’t want to marry.”
“I didn’t.”
“And now?”
“I want you.I’ll marry you.Today.Tomorrow.Perhaps next week.There’s a special license I’m trying to secure.”
“Ali.”
He pulled a small square of folded paper from his pocket, then handed it to her.
She opened it, brows knitting as she read a wager slip from White’s: "The Duke of Tunstall wagers seven thousand pounds that Miss Verity Baxter will win her wager against him and marry first."
Her breath caught.“You placed this?”
“I tried to tip the odds in your favor.”
She looked up at him.“You think you are so charming.”
“I know.Someone told me once that I'm insufferable.”
