Page 106 of To Bed the Bride
“It isn’t?”
He shook his head. “I’m all for revamping the prison system in Scotland. It’s not something most people want to hear about, but a little scandal might mean that the newspapers would be more willing to listen to me.”
She stared at him in amazement as he smiled back at her. Nothing had the power to disturb Logan if he didn’t choose to let it.
“There’s a way you could spare me some of the gossip, although I doubt you and I will ever be totally free of it.”
“Is there? What is that?”
“You could marry me,” he said.
She could only stand there wordless.
He nodded. “It’s the best answer, don’t you think?”
Not one word came to mind.
“It’s not the same in London without you,” he said. “I doubt I’ll be able to get any work done for worrying about you.”
She really did need to say something, but she couldn’t think of a thing to say.
“Nothing’s really been the same since that day on the hillside. I keep hearing your voice and I turn and you’re not there. I dream of you and I’m angry when I wake because you’re not beside me.”
“The same things have happened to me,” she said. There, a few words she’d actually been able to speak.
He smiled. “See? We should marry.”
“Is that a sufficient reason?”
“I don’t know of one better. I want to live with you for the rest of my life. I want your problems to be my problems. I want to tell you when I’m annoyed and have you save me from those interminable political functions.”
“You want to marry me because you’re bored?”
His smile faded. He reached her, placing his hands on her waist, and drew her forward.
“I want to marry you because I love you, Eleanor Craig of Hearthmere. My life is worthless without you. I’m worthless without you. I want you and I need you and I sincerely doubt that I’ll be able to live without you. I might even pitch a tent in your garden and have my secretary bring my correspondence there.”
She reached up with both hands and placed them on either side of his neck, her thumbs just behind his ears. For a long moment she only looked at him, trying to find the words that would convey everything she felt.
“It would be very cold there, Logan. I couldn’t, in all good conscience, allow you to live there. At the very least I’d show you to a parlor.”
“Marry me,” he said.
She felt buoyant, as if she was a cloud blown by the wind. The words that were so difficult to say were much easier now.
“I didn’t expect you,” she said. “You gave me a puppy, but you gave me so much more.”
His smile was back in place.
“I love you, Logan McKnight. I love you for a dozen reasons and more. I love you most of all, because with you I feel whole, as if you’re the other half of me missing for so long.”
When he leaned forward and would’ve kissed her, she shook her head.
“I need to finish this and when you kiss me I can’t think of anything at all.”
His smile disappeared again.
“I love you because you’re kind and generous, intelligent and loyal. You treat people with dignity, even those who can’t do anything for you. You make me laugh and think. You challenge me and comfort me, and having you love me was the greatest experience of my life.”
