Claiming the Courtesan (31 page)

He injected every ounce of grave sincerity he could muster into his voice. “Verity, be brave again. Be brave for both of us. I love you. Surely that’s worth more than the world’s scorn.”

“Don’t touch me.” She recoiled, although he’d stopped several feet away. “When you touch me, I can’t think.”

For the first time, he smiled. “I know. You must reach this
decision on your own. See what an affliction you laid on me when you conjured honor from my soul?”

She didn’t smile back. Instead, her face was drawn sharp with wretchedness.

“It would be so easy to say yes,” she said bleakly.

“Then say yes,” he coaxed, stealing nearer. “We have work to do to repair the damage my mother wrought on my estates. We have love to share. We have, God willing, children to raise to choose their own path. As their father chooses his own path. As their mother will do.”

He paused, but she didn’t speak. So he plowed on with all the desperate certainty he felt.

He was so sure. Why the Devil wasn’t she? He drew in a shuddering breath. “Be brave, Verity, for their sake, for mine. Above all, for your own.” Then, in a low, intense voice, “Don’t leave me,
mo cridhe
. It tears the heart from my body to think of living without you.”

He stretched out his hand. To his humiliation, it shook. But what did his pride matter now?

She looked away, fighting tears. Frantically, he searched his mind for something else to say, something that would finally convince her to stay.

But words proved such a frail weapon against her will. Instead, he stood grieving, in agony, struggling to accept that he’d failed.

“Oh, hell,” he groaned and turned aside. He couldn’t watch her walk away from him again. And this time, it would be forever.

All hope was gone. He’d lost.

Silence stretched endlessly between them.

His breath caught as he steeled himself to listen to the door open. When it closed, it would close on his every happiness. He strained to hear her soft footfall fade into the distance as she abandoned him to his desolation.

Still she didn’t move.

What was she waiting for? His hands clenched into fists at his sides.

He’d kneel and beg if he thought it would do any good, but he knew in his heart that no plea could change her mind.

He didn’t doubt now that she loved him. The tragedy was that she just didn’t love him enough.

“No.” Her voice cracked on the word.

Of course that’s what she’d say. Hell, hadn’t she tried to escape him ever since he’d first seen her?

She’d flung him back into his perpetual ice. He supposed he should be inured to it, but for one flaring moment, love had beckoned with false promises of life and warmth. So his fate now was impossible to bear.

With a soft crackle, a log crumbled to embers in the grate. The sound spurred him to movement, anything to break this agonizing stasis.

“Heaven keep you too,” he said hoarsely, blindly trying to find his way back to the desk.

“No,” she said more strongly. “Don’t go.”

He felt her fumble at his sleeve like an importunate creditor. He stopped in trembling bewilderment.

Her touch burned like fire through the superfine of his coat. Its heat was alien to the cold creeping death slowly moving through him.

“Do you really love me, Kylemore?” she whispered.

Why did she torture him like this? She must see his overwhelming misery.

Shamingly, his voice broke as he answered. “I die for love of you,
mo leannan.
”

The hand on his arm tightened. “Then God help me. God help us both,” she said huskily. “But, yes, I’ll be your duchess.”

What he heard made no sense.

“What did you say?” His question emerged as a bewildered croak.

He heard her inhale before she spoke. “I love you, Justin Kinmurrie, and I will marry you,” she said clearly.

By God, this couldn’t be true. Had he won after all?

He twisted around and grabbed her shoulders roughly, because in his extremity, gentleness was beyond him. “Say it again.”

Tears glittered on her cheeks, but the gaze that met his was alight with certainty. “I will marry you.”

The bruising force of his grasp eased. “And the rest.”

“Justin Kinmurrie, I love you.” She gave a fractured laugh that chimed oddly with her weeping. “I love you and I’ll take up residence in your barbarian country, and if I can, I’ll give you a pack of wild Highland brats to torment you into old age. And if that doesn’t terrify you, you’re brave to the point of recklessness.”

She tried to make him smile. But he was beyond levity.

“Oh, Verity,” he rasped as he clawed her into his arms. She gave a muffled sob against his shoulder and clung to him with the same possessiveness.

Eventually, he lifted his head and looked into her face. No trace now of the pale, unhappy woman who had come to him earlier. Color flushed her flawless skin, and her silver eyes glowed with incandescent joy, even through her tears.

Her beauty had caught and held him at first. But now he saw so much more. Strength. Honesty. Loyalty. Trust.

And love. So much love it banished the chill from his soul forever.

“I thought I’d lost you,” he said in a wondering voice. “I thought you were going to leave me.”

“Never,” she said fervently. “Never. Never.”

She dragged his head down to hers for a clumsy, passionate kiss that tasted of weeping and happiness. As she drew away,
he caught her face in his hands and looked searchingly into her rain-clear eyes.

At last, no shadows lurked in those radiant depths.

Passion beckoned, as it would always beckon when he was with her. But for the moment, he resisted its urgings. “I swear to make you happy, Verity,” he said gravely.

Her face filled with a love so powerful that it humbled him. “Just love me, Justin.”

“Forever,” he vowed.

“Yes, forever.”

And he did.