Page 102 of Duchess Material

Lucy spoke first. “Tony, take me home now!”

“One second, alright?” Winston turned down a lane.

He put on the parking brake and shut the engine off.

“I am sorry, Luce. I… I didn’t expect that from him. Even though he’s an absolute tosser most days, I didn’t—”

Lucy finished his thought. “Call me a gold-digging whore while sitting next to a woman half his age?”

“Yeah, well. It’s wrong. You’re not. I am sorry he doesn’t understand you’re wonderful. I am at a loss for words, my love. I regret everything—”

“You did warn me.”

“I did. I didn’t anticipate this, though. It’s worse than I could have imagined in my wildest dreams.”

Winston began to rummage around the car, leaning over and going through his glove box.

“What are you doing?”

“Getting you a bloody tissue, Lucy.”

“Oh.”

He handed her a stack of tissues. “I love you, Luce.”

“But does it matter?”

“That I love you? That I want to marry you? That we’re both ludicrously happy apart from our fucked-up family drama? Yes, it does matter. At least, to me.”

“They will never accept me, Winston. Do you not see that?”

“That’s not how any of this works.”

“How would you know?”

“Because my godmother was maligned by her mother-in-law for years and has a reliably divisive mother who still calls her fat. Yet, she’s probably the most beloved person in the royal family. Lucy, whatever your father and mine see, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that anyone who knows you loves you. When George peace’ d out, we rallied for you. Why?”

“Because you secretly wanted to get into my pants.”

Winston smirked. “That is a simplified answer for me. The honest-to-God answer is that we loved you. All of us—Gerry, Sheena, Natalie, Cousin Vanna, Mummy. We wanted you to be happy. Because you’re a gem. The rarest kind. I couldn’t do this without you, Lucy.”

“You did before me—”

“I did, but now that I’ve got every day with you, I don’t want to go back. I would marry you standing next to a bin fire in central London traffic.”

He was on the verge of tears.

“What do we do?”

“We get married, Lulu.”

“And your father and mine? They ruin the wedding and bring me to tears? I can’t survive it. I love you, but I don’t want to subject your family to that. I don’t want your father doing the same.”

“So, we don’t invite either?”

“No, that won’t fly. It would be better to elope. Not that that’s an option…”

Winston looked confused. “I thought you wanted the big wedding?”

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