Page 44 of The Hero

“Harry.”

“—as to how you—"

“Harry!”

She startled at the sharpness of his tone. “Yes?”

“Tell me you love me.”

“I do. Very much,” she assured fiercely.

“Enough to marry me.”

“Oh yes.”

“Now kiss me,” Gideon groaned. “Just kiss me, and we will take care of any other of your admonishments later.”

“Gladly,” she assured before lowering her head to press her lips softly against Gideon’s.

A softness that quickly became harder and hotter as the two of them kissed away the frustration of being apart for the last three weeks.

“Now I am finally able to breathe again,” Gideon murmured with satisfaction a long time later as he lay on the bed, Harry beside him. His arm was about her waist as she lay with her head on his shoulder and one of her arms draped across his chest. “These three weeks without you have seemed endless,” he owned.

“For me too.” She raised her head. “I do love you, Gideon. So very much.”

His heart was filled with the emotion. “I have never loved before, nor will I ever love again. You are my forever, Harry. The one and only woman I shall ever love.”

Tears of happiness glistened in her eyes even as she smiled at him. “I know for certain that I feel, and shall continue to feel, exactly the same devotion to you.”

“Then you really will marry me?”

“I will,” she vowed.

They kissed for several more long and pleasurable minutes before Harry realized she had not asked him about the reason he had traveled to London three weeks ago.

“Did you learn anything more about the demise of the Duke of Plymouth?” she prompted gently.

Gideon gave a pained grimace. “What we have learned has posed more questions than answers.”

Harry resettled her head on his shoulder. “Tell me.”

Gideon did not know how to tell her of the deep shock all the Ruthless Dukes and Robert Granger had felt once they had entered the Plymouth family crypt.

In truth, Gideon was still having trouble absorbing the full import of that discovery for himself.

He drew in a deep breath before releasing it as he spoke. “The body in the crypt is not Plymouth’s.”

Harry gave a start, glancing up at him. “Then who is it?”

“We have no idea.”

“Then perhaps it is him. He has been dead for over a year—”

“Suffice it to say, without going into too much detail, an embalmed human body when sealed inside a vault does not decay as quickly as one that isn’t.” He swallowed. “The body, which was supposed to be Plymouth’s, although it had been in the crypt for over a year as you have pointed out, was still viable enough to reveal it did not have a birthmark on its left thigh to identify it as being Plymouth.”

He could still clearly recall the stunned silence in the crypt once the body was revealed to them. It had the same glossy dark curls as Plymouth, and the height and build of the body had also been similar. But there was no birthmark on the left thigh. Which all six men standing in the crypt knew Plymouth to possess.

“Surely someone identified the body after the battle?” Harry prompted gently.

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