Page 43 of The Hero

“My compliments, Dunhill,” Gideon acknowledged grimly.

“Papa!” Harry raised her head to glare at him as Gideon reached the top of the staircase.

Her father shrugged. “I will see you both for dinner this evening. And, Oxford…”

Harry found herself turned in a circle as Gideon swung round to look down at her father. “Yes?” he prompted.

“It seems I was mistaken in the reason for your visit.” There was a question in his voice.

“I am sorry for that. Do I have your permission to proceed, sir?”

Amusement twinkled in her father’s eyes. “You do.”

“Papa—” Her words came to an abrupt halt as a hand landed on her bottom. Not because the smack was painful, the skirts of her gown and her drawers acting as a buffer. It was more of a shock. “You are a barbarian.” She hit her fists against Gideon’s back. “A monster. A savage—”

“We will discuss my shortcomings after we have dealt with yours,” Gideon told her grimly as he pushed open the door to her bedchamber and stepped inside before firmly closing and locking the door behind him.

“I do not have any short—” Harry was robbed of words again as Gideon sat on the side of her bed and she found herself thrown over his thighs. She let out an indignant scream as Gideon, as he had said he would, began to spank her.

“I have been looking forward to seeing you again for weeks,” he gritted after landing the first smack. “I did not expect to be verbally attacked by you the moment I entered your father’s house.” He gave her another painful smack. “You are an undisciplined hellion.” Another. “A hoyden, sent to try me.” And another. “All I want to do is hold you and kiss you, and instead, I am berated and upbraided the moment—”

“You want to hold me and kiss me?” Harry arched her back as she turned to look at him over her shoulder.

He nodded. “I have thought of doing little else since I last saw you.”

Harry studied him properly for the first time since his arrival, easily noting there were more lines bracketing his eyes and mouth, and that he had dark shadows under those same eyes. His face also looked thinner, as if he had been too busy in recent weeks to have ensured he ate regularly.

She swallowed. “I have wanted that too,” she admitted huskily.

Gideon stilled. “You have?”

She nodded. “More than anything.”

Gideon helped her to first stand and then pulled her to sit on his thighs. “I love you, Henrietta Church.”

She placed her hands on his shoulders as she stared at him in awe. “You do?”

He nodded. “I do. Very much. Would you please grant me the honor of agreeing to become my wife?”

Harry was shocked into silence, unable to believe Gideon wished to marry her.

“Are you sure you wish to take me on as your duchess?” she prompted shyly once she was able to speak. “I am nothing like the other ladies of Society.”

“Thank God,” he murmured his relief.

“But won’t your friends be disappointed in your choice?”

He chuckled. “Ask me that again when you have met their wives.”

Implying, Harry hoped, that those other ladies could occasionally behave as scandalously as she often did. If so, the future promised to be—

“Is it too much to expect that you might…return my feelings?” Gideon prompted hopefully.

“Well, of course I return them,” she chided. “Why else would I have been so angry with you when you arrived all these weeks later without sending me a single word of your health or whereabouts since we were last together?” she reproved. “I have been—”

“Harry.”

“—worried constantly—”

---