Page 89 of The Counterfeit Scoundrel
She could feel all her cousins’ eyes boring into her, and she desperately wanted one of them to bring her to her senses. But other than tackling her to the floor, she didn’t know how they were going to stop her from following her foolish heart. She was rather surprised by the steadiness in her hand as she placed it in his, as though delivering it home. “I will, yes.”
His gloved fingers closed around hers, and he moved her to the edge of the dance floor. Where they waited, her heart giving such hard lurches that she wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that he heard it hitting her ribs. She had questions, but at the moment all she wanted was to absorb his nearness. She could see the speculative and assessing glances of the dancers as they swept by, and she was relatively certain a few were going to have sore necks on the morrowbecause of all the whipping around of heads that was going on.
“Chin up,” he said, in a low, mesmerizing voice, the one he used when buried deeply inside her.
“It’s the only way I know to hold my chin. It’s the way my aunt taught me.”
“Is her lover our pianist?”
Ourpianist. How could he carry on a casual conversation as though everything between them was as it had once been? Yet it was something they’d shared. In so short a time, they’d shared so much. “He is, yes.”
Although she couldn’t see her aunt, she could feel her watching, knew she would jump into the fray to rescue Daisy from Bishop, if need be. But also knew she respected her enough to give Daisy the opportunity to rescue herself first. However, at the moment, as unwise as it was, she couldn’t claim to want to be anywhere else.
The dance finally came to an end. Another tune began. Only a handful of notes had sounded before she found herself in Bishop’s firm arms, gliding over the parquet, gazing into his eyes.
“I forfeited the game,” he said quietly.
She furrowed her brow. “I beg your pardon?”
“You were right. Of course, you were. I was playing a game with my father, always trying to best him. I’ve ended my association with him completely. He’s no longer in my life. When he walked out, I felt as though I’d taken my first free breath of air after spending years in a dungeon. The air smelled of violets. It smelled of you.”
Oh, God. For a man who claimed not to know how to woo, he certainly gave a fine imitation of knowingprecisely what to say in order to send her emotions into tumult. “Bishop—”
“I’m not quite finished. Those women who came to me were safe, but you weren’t. You made me feel things I’d never felt before. Yet I couldn’t seem to distance myself from you. I love teasing you. I love talking with you. I love walking at your side. I even loved when you were cross with me because of the things I said and didn’t say to Swindler. I know you have no wish to marry, and I understand your reasons. Your father is a dreadful excuse for a human being. He and mine will no doubt become best mates in hell. I will not ask you to marry me, ever. What I would like to ask is that you give me the opportunity each day to allow you to choose me.”
Tears began stinging her eyes. “Bishop—”
“Negotiations aren’t quite done yet. I shan’t interfere with your business. Nor shall I pretend to have affairs any longer. I intend to establish a residence where women can seek shelter. I shall declare to the world that you have reformed me. Should a day come when you don’t wish to choose me, I shall respect your wishes and walk away, without so much as a whimper. Even if it kills me to do so. And trust me, Marguerite, it will kill me. I know that as surely as I know that flowers blossom. And rain falls. And there is no smile in the world as beautiful as yours.”
The last was not true. That distinction belonged to his smile. She remembered the first time he’d bestowed it upon her, and it had been as though he’d delivered sunshine to her soul. But she needed more, because she’d weathered too many storms of late.
“Why?” she asked. “Why are you willing to do all this?”
“Because I love you. And it terrifies me how much you mean to me. You are everything. I can’t promise that if you choose me, someday you won’t realize you chose poorly. What I can promise is that you won’t be shackled to me should that day arrive.”
“The gossip sheets claim it is impossible for me to have been hired by you and not to have fallen under your spell.”
“Yes, unfortunately, I saw that.”
“They were so wrong. I fell under your spell long before you hired me.”
He grinned, the grin that had first taken her breath. “How fortunate for me.”
“It frightened me, what I began to feel for you. It seemed a perilous way to go. You were a scoundrel.”
“A counterfeit one at best, eh?”
“Yes.” Did anyone know him as well as she did? Did anyone know her as well as he did? All the conversations shared in dark carriages and a dimly lit bedchamber. Secrets uncovered. But from the beginning, it was as though they’d each seen the truth of the other, had not been fooled by the facades, but had seen beneath them to the very essence of their souls. “Will you marry me?”
His eyes widened. “Pardon?”
She poured everything she felt for him into her smile. “By choosing you, I’m not choosing poorly. I know that with everything within me, because I love you so very much. I need choose you only once, and it will be forever. So now the question becomes, do you choose me?”
“Every day until the end of time.”
There, within the Earl of Bellingham’s ballroom,where somewhere, she was relatively certain, her aunt was looking on, Bishop took her mouth, and she melted against him. Never had anything in her life felt more right.
This man, here and now. This man, tomorrow and always.
