Wagered to the Duke (BookStrand Publishing Romance) (34 page)

“Thank heavens you’re not calling me Katherine. Yes, I’ve had a bit of brandy, but only for medicinal purposes. The housekeeper gave it to me earlier, but after that I felt so light-headed and warm and—and other delightful things, that I thought there was only one thing to do, and that was to tell her and my mother that I was feeling much better and would dress and go to the ball after all!” And with that, she stood on tiptoe to offer him another taste, teasing his tongue with her own, sending a shard of heat straight to Nathan’s groin. This time they let go of their hands and finally slid their arms around each other, their lips fused together as if neither wanted to be parted from the other again.

Nathan certainly didn’t. As Kate finally broke the kiss and gazed up at him with shining eyes—or maybe that was just the reflection of the moonlight in her spectacles, but he preferred to think her eyes really were shining—he simply said, “Marry me, Kate.”

To his surprise, she asked, “Why?”

“Well, I see I’ll have to talk sense into you after all. As you know, I’m a duke, and because I’m a duke, I can have my pick of brides. And instead of choosing a younger, prettier debutante who will only bore me with her mindless havering and cater to my every whim just to win my favor, at least until after I marry her, I’d rather choose the bespectacled spinster who always has something interesting to say and refuses to cater to my every whim to curry my favor, because she knows she doesn’t need to.”

“No, because I didn’t think I stood a chance,” Kate replied, always wonderfully pragmatic. “Believe me, had I flattered myself by thinking otherwise, I might well have employed a few artifices, though the notion gave me horrors.”

“I’m glad you didn’t. I want to know who I’m really marrying. I want a wife who doesn’t wait for me or anyone else to tell her what to think, but who thinks for herself because she knows what she wants and isn’t afraid to go after it. That’s what you did back in York, and that’s what you did tonight!”

She gaped at him in astonishment. “I did, didn’t I?”

He couldn’t help laughing. “You did indeed. And I’m no longer the stranger with whom you took a daring chance in York. Here in London, I’m the man with whom you’ve shared just about everything—secrets, shirts, meat pasties, washbowls, laughter…” He lowered his voice to just above a whisper. “Even a bed.”

That elicited a gasp from her, and she swiftly averted her gaze. If not for the darkness, he thought he might have been able to see the same blush he saw the morning when he first kissed her, after she’d glimpsed him naked and aroused.

He forged ahead. “So I thought, Kate, since we’ve already lived as husband and wife and we seem to get on so well together—despite a few rough spots, but what marriage doesn’t have those—well, why not
become
husband and wife?”

She continued gawping at him, utterly speechless now.

“And your brother has already given his blessing,” he added. “What do you say?”

Alas, she was still too stunned to respond.

He got down on bended knee, taking both of her hands into his. “
Now
what do you say?”

Her eyes suddenly glistened with tears. “Oh, yes. Oh, Nathan, I thought I’d lost you after our last night at Ellington Hall.”

He rose to his feet. “Whatever gave you that idea?”

“Because you didn’t—you didn’t—well, you know—”

“Believe me, I wanted to. Remember what I said? You were
almost too much for me, my bonny thistle. I didn’t want to ruin you—”

“You already had!” she exclaimed. “I worried that maybe you did it—or didn’t do it—because you didn’t love me and didn’t want to marry me.”

“Well, I do love you, Kate,” he declared, still clutching both of her hands. “And I do want to marry you.”

“I love you, too,” she said, and then she laughed. “Oh, is my mother ever going to be surprised—but so happy!”

He laughed with her. “Now come, let’s go inside, where there’s light and I can see you better. Also, because I want everyone else to see the lady who will be my duchess!”

* * * *

The nervous flutters that had plagued Kate’s insides all the way to Loring House suddenly took flight along with her soaring heart as the man she loved led her into the illuminated front hall with its towering ceiling. Scantily clad nymphs and cherubs gazed down approvingly as Nathan and Kate, still holding hands, paused to face each other.

“At Trevor and Susannah’s I thought you looked like a thistle in your green gown and purple flowers,” he said as he swept his admiring gaze over her new gown of silver satin trimmed with exquisite lace and white, silk flowers. “But now you look like a duchess.”

Joy filled her heart. “And you look like a duke.” For he did. He wore a black evening coat and matching breeches, with a waistcoat striped in a pale blue and silver. Yet strands of his black hair still fell over that broad brow and curled around his blinding-white collar.

“You’re beautiful,” he murmured, the two words like a breath as he stroked the back of his hand over her cheek. “Almost too beautiful for a clumsy half-Scot who still isn’t sure how to be a duke.”

She smiled. “Well, I’m not sure how to be a duchess and I’m just as clumsy as you, but we’ll stumble through it together, won’t we?”

Still clutching her hand, he led her into the ballroom, where couples were already dancing. Kate suddenly felt dizzy, not only from the sight of all the endlessly twirling couples, but from all that had transpired in the past few moments and maybe even from the brandy she’d quaffed earlier.

“Oh, look, there’s my brother and sister-in-law. They’re over by the musicians talking to that highly plumed lady.”

“That highly plumed lady is none other than my Aunt Verity,” Nathan replied. “She’s been most anxious to meet you.”

“Does she know exactly how we met?”

“Of course she does.”

“And she wasn’t at all scandalized?”

He threw her a teasing grin. “Pray, my lovely thistle, what is so scandalous about the two of us having met at your stepfather’s dinner table last summer?”

Kate nearly froze in her tracks. “Is
that
what you told her?”

“Well, that is how we met, isn’t it?” He paused to take both her hands into his again. “You know I could never have chosen as my bride someone I won at the gaming table or met in the public room of a wayside inn. So I chose someone I met when I stayed overnight at an earl’s estate. As you might say, all very dull and proper.” His blue-gray eyes twinkled mischievously. “And I certainly wasn’t looking for love then. Were you?”

She burst into laughter. “No, because the last place I ever wished to find it was at my stepfather’s table. How unromantic!”

At that moment, Anthony and Georgiana swept up to them, along with Nathan’s Aunt Verity. Georgiana hugged her sister-in-law upon hearing that Kate had accepted Nathan’s offer of marriage.

“Nathan, I couldn’t be happier about this,” said Aunt Verity. “I’m relieved you won’t be marrying some younger, sillier debutante and her mother.”

“So am I,” he replied, squeezing Kate’s hand. “I’d like to make the announcement right after this dance.”

Aunt Verity frantically waved her fan at him. “Oh no, not so soon, dear boy. They’re likely to all go home afterward.”

“That suits me,” Nathan said as he drew Kate closer to his side.

“You must wait until midnight,” Aunt Verity said firmly.

“Oh, must we?” Kate tried not to sound too wheedling.

“Such announcements are always made at midnight,” Georgiana chimed in.

That was almost three hours away! Kate wasn’t so sure she could last that long in this crowded ballroom, especially since she still had no intention of dancing or even stumbling.

Well, maybe the stumbling, as long as it was with Nathan.

“Let’s step into the garden for some air,” he suggested, and she eagerly agreed, hoping they could stay out there all night in the cool dark.

Once they’d slipped outside into the chilly shadows, he turned to her and whispered, “May I kiss you again?”

She shivered, from the evening chill as much as from the almost unbearable joy of being with him. “You may do more than that.”

“Any more than that means we should probably go somewhere else. And since we have almost three hours until midnight…” He tugged on her hand. “Come, I know of a secret side entrance that leads from the garden directly to the master bedchamber.”

“Won’t anyone miss you?” she asked anxiously as he guided her down a flagstone path, away from the brilliant lights of the ballroom.

“They’re too busy dancing and gossiping and draining my wine cellar to wonder or even care about what I’m doing,” he assured her. “They never bothered with me before I became the duke, and if they want to bother with me now—well, it can only be because I
am
the duke.”

He led her to a door hidden behind some shrubbery and up the secret back stairs to his bedchamber, where they swiftly undressed each other and fell back on his wide, long bed, kissing and caressing each other all over until he brought her to the peak of ecstasy and then he entered her, thrusting in and out of her as she undulated beneath him, clinging to his shoulders and whispering his name over and over until—just as she had the first time they made love—she became too much for him, only this time he climaxed inside of her.

Kate thought she saw heaven shining between them, and her heart thrilled with love for him.

For a long while he knelt over her, panting for breath as she continued to wrap her limbs around him, combing her fingers through his thick hair as he nuzzled her own tresses.

“I’m afraid we’ll have to marry rather quickly now,” he said as he finally withdrew and flopped over next to her. “We can go to Scotland and—”

“Oh, no!” she exclaimed. “I did not come this far, all the way to London, risking all that I have, losing my portmanteau, my virtue, my wits, and even my heart, only to turn around and go back the way I came—especially if—”

He swiftly rolled over to silence her with another passionate kiss. “Ah, that works just as well as it did the first time.”

“But we don’t need to go all the way to Scotland. You need only obtain a special license.”

“I was teasing, my love. Though I should warn you that if you do marry me, you can expect to spend a great deal of time in Scotland. But we wouldn’t be there all year round. We’d spend part of the year in London, because of my new responsibilities—which is why I’m here in London in the first place. Well, that and because you’re here.”

She slid her arms over his shoulders and pulled him down for another kiss. “Married to you, Nathan, I do believe I could even endure living at Bellingham Hall all year round.”

“But we won’t,” he hastily assured her. “However, we will have to spend time at the other estates I’ve inherited. I’ve discovered that I really don’t mind traveling as long as you’re with me. We may be traveling constantly, Kate—but that only means our life together will be a journey that lasts till death do us part.”

She laughed softly. “That’s just the sort of adventure I’ve always wanted. I must apologize for behaving like a fool up in Derbyshire, but then that would require me to apologize simply for being myself.”

He kissed her again. “Don’t apologize for being yourself, Kate. Never apologize for being the reason I fell in love with you. I love you so much, I would have given all I have if that’s what it took to get you back.”

“I’m glad it didn’t come to that, for I’m not sure I’m—”

“Oh, yes you are worth it,” he said firmly.

“How did you know I was going to say that?”

“Doesn’t that prove how well I know you, silly lass?”

She cupped his face between her hands and gifted him with a tender kiss. “I trust you’ll continue to know me well.”

“As for the heart you risked and lost, just who do you think holds it now? I do! Do you think I’d let you lose
that
,
after you lost your portmanteau and your wits and everything else?”

“It might interest you to know I eventually found all those other things I lost,” she said. “Well, maybe not my virtue, but I did recover my portmanteau. The most important thing is, I found
you
,
Nathan…when I wasn’t even looking. I love you.” Happiness welled inside of her at the realization that she’d found true love at last.

“I love you, too. And you have my word, Kate, that your heart will always be safe with me. Now we’d better get up and get dressed again before the stroke of midnight.”

Rather than summon the servants, they helped each other dress, and Kate managed to fix her hair. They were about to leave the bedchamber when Nathan made an abrupt detour to his dressing table, where he opened a small box and drew something out.

“Before we go back downstairs,” he said, “I want to give you this. Or more specifically, I want to put it on your finger myself.”

She drew her breath in at the sight of a sparkle in his hand as he approached her with a broad smile. “That reminds me—I still have your mother’s wedding band.”

“I know.” He took her left hand into his and slid a diamond ring onto her third finger. “But as long as you still have my heart…”

“It will always be safe with me,” she declared as their lips came together for another kiss.

THE END

WWW.KARENLINGEFELT.COM

Born in Forks, Washington, Karen Lingefelt probably dreamed of being a writer while still in the womb. As a preschooler, she scribbled with crayons in picture books to put her own spin on the text. In school she sat at her desk defiantly writing stories when she should have been working on her remedial math assignments. Later she joined the Air Force, and when she wasn’t traveling overseas, she spent her off-duty hours banging out epic sagas on a portable typewriter. Even after leaving the service to become the stay-at-home mom of three special needs children, she eked out a few minutes to continue pursuing her lifelong dream.