Authors: Kate Rothwell

Somebody To Love (29 page)

BOOK: Somebody To Love

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“Yes, I admit it. I told her I didn’t believe love existed. More than once I gave her a lecture about the subject. But that was when I was young and therefore an idiot. I have changed. Granted the change is fairly recent, but I most certainly do believe in love.”

Her mouth opened, and then closed. “Oh.”

“At a loss for words for once, hey?”

He grinned down at her, and she traced a still healing cut on his cheek—or perhaps his humiliating dimple. In a choked voice she said, “We can? You will? You do?”

“Yes. I love you. If that’s what you’re attempting to ask me.”

She buried her face against his shoulder again. He wrapped his arms around her, and the exquisite warmth of her seeped right into his bones. He didn’t want to let go, ever.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “And thank you for letting me have it my way.”

“And that is?”

He could barely make out her words. “No money, no contracts. Secret because it will be less difficult that way, but nothing sordid.”

“I never agreed to that.”

She grew still in his arms. “I shan’t be your paid mistress, Griffin. No matter how much I want you.”

“Hmmm. I like hearing that bit about how much you want me.”

“Please. I am serious.”

“Oh, I am too.”

She shook her head, rubbing against his blue jacket. A few curls pulled free and sprang to life around her face. “I can’t. And if you did love me you wouldn’t keep asking me to become your—your employee.”

“Fine. I won’t. I’ll ask you to marry me instead.” She drew back her head, but instead of smiling up at him as she had when she’d gazed at Hobnail, her mouth was an O, and under knit brows, her eyes were wide. A portrait of pure horror.

“Good Lord, no.” She almost whimpered the words.

“Araminta, you just told me that you would be my secret lover. Live a life of shame. Have my illegitimate babies.”

She wrinkled her nose. “It sounds ugly, but I don’t think that anything we’d have could be so . . . so dreadful.”

“Oh, my dearest, silliest Araminta, I heard you talking to Elizabeth. I read your letters—some of them more than once. I don’t know how I could possibly have asked you, of all people, to lead such a life. I know that you would have to hide, and you’ve seen the worst of what happens when people try to conceal evidence of love.”

She closed her eyes and shook her head again. “No. It would not be fair to marry you. Not a man like you. A gentleman.”

“Why not? Because I can’t cook so much as an egg and you’ve been with an expert chef?”

Her brow puckered in confusion, but that almost at once shifted into a glare. “What do you know about Jean-Pierre?”

“Quite a bit, all from your letters. But I don’t know the end of the story. What happened to him?”

“He could not marry me.”

“Why not?”

She bit her wonderful lower lip. “You know that, too.”

“All I know is that the man was obviously an ass.” Her grim scowl softened. She raised a hand, and for a moment he thought she would stroke his face again. Her hand faltered, and instead she brushed a stray dark curl from her cheek. “Griffin, you are only pretending to be obtuse.”

“And you are being a coward.”

“No, I’m not.”

“As much of a coward as your grandfather.”

She turned her head away from him, to stare down the street. She pressed her lips tight. “No. I don’t understand what you mean.”

“Now who’s being obtuse? Here, I shall spell it out for you. You think that because you are colored, our lives wsillbe forever ruined if we choose to make our love public. You know that we will be drummed out of society—a society neither of us cares much about—and shunned by a bunch of snobs. And you think that I will grow to hate you because my Aunt Winifred will refuse to speak to me again. Good heavens, she might even refuse to live off of our money.”

Still seemingly fascinated by a ragged man pulling a wagon full of cabbages, she tilted her head as if considering his words.

“Well?” he demanded. “Am I correct?”

“I . . . I am not sure. But it is hard, Griffin.” She swallowed. “I am not complaining, but you must understand that it’s hard to live with what I am. You would lose the respect of more than your aunt. You would grow to resent—”

“No. Wait. You think I won’t be able to bear up under the strain of loving you? You think I’m as weak as your chef?”

Her gaze shifted, going perhaps as far as his collar before she restlessly fiddled with the pearl button on her bodice. “No, I know you’re strong. You sweep me away. No one else has ever done that.”

He had to pull her in for a kiss. A fast brush of her lips, for almost at once, he put his hands on her shoulders and held her back so that he could look into her eyes, which were unfocused and blurry from even that tiny kiss. She still wouldn’t meet his searching gaze, but at last he could read her again.

He loved her bemused, shining eyes—Araminta’s dazed expression, which he had christened “rising passion,” was one of his favorites. He had many favorites—nearly as many as her expressive features could show.

He’d nearly won and decided to gloat at his victory.

“I know why you won’t agree that you are wrong and we should marry. You simply do not wish to say, ‘Yes, Griffin, you are correct.’ Get used to the words, my love—you will have to say them on occasion.” He crowed with pleasure. “Oh, I had not thought of these marvelous advantages to our marriage. Hearing you admit on a regular basis that I am right. And even better, never having to darken Aunt Winifred’s doors again.”

The corners of her mouth twitched slightly, and she finally met his eyes. For a moment, his throat closed and his chest ached with the unbearable heaviness of love.

When he managed to speak again, he went on. “Of course, you shall have some fun as well. There will be plenty of occasions to remind me that I am a cold stick.”

He raised his voice to an outrageous falsetto. “ ‘Until I came along, Griffin, you did not know how to laugh or love or even how to eat properly.’ ”

Her brow furrowed and she studied him. “Wait. I have never said those things.”

“No,” he agreed. “I did. And it’s true, every word. Just like the rest of . . . what you said. You have always been too sharp for my own good. Hearing you say those words aloud. About my, er, nature.”

He seemed to have some difficulty dragging up the right phrases to tell her what he meant. “Those words of yours seemed entirely ludicrous, yet somehow they echoed through me. . . .”

He shook his head to clear it. “If you do not agree to marry me, Araminta Woodhall, I shall be surrounded by nothing but yea-sayers who will allow me to become outrageously arrogant until I am as impossible as the man you thought I was to begin with. And Aunt Winifred might actually get her way and marry me off to one of her creatures.”

Her mouth curved into a real smile at last. “What on earh was that about?”

“Never mind. I’m not sure. I need you. Marry me. To hell with your grandfather—if he isn’t there already.”

Araminta’s smile broadened and lit with a sparkle he could see even in the fast-falling darkness. “No, I don’t think he ended up there,” she said. “My mother’s prayers on his behalf had to have saved his wretched soul. My prayers, too.”

Of course she’d forgiven the old idiot. Her heart was large enough. “Araminta. My love.”

In the middle of the sidewalk on a busy street, he pulled her to him, and they exchanged the sweetest kiss that he’d ever tasted. Nearby, a man who’d been pushing a wheel down the street and shouting his singsong advertisement for knife sharpening broke off in mid-chant to shout, “Will you look at that?”

When the kiss ended, Griffin drew back a few inches and smiled at Araminta. He moved his hands to her waist, and he gave the lightest of shakes.

“Listen, I am not your blasted grandfather. And I will not allow anything about your past or your ancestors or my ruddy ancestors to keep me from my chance at happiness. Araminta. Love. I will make sure you are happy, even if I have to beat every usher in New York into a bloody pulp.”

Her small hand stroked the back of his neck. “My kiss brings out vicious behavior?”

“Your kiss inspires a need for more kisses. Will you walk back to your home with me? I want to show you how inspired I am.”

She nodded. As they walked toward her house, she allowed him to intertwine his fingers with hers in front of God and all the costermongers.

Just as they reached her doorstep, a fountain of gold and silver appeared in the distant sky. And a shower of gold, blue and green stars lit the horizon. The sky pulsed and glowed with a huge display of fireworks set off to end the day’s celebration.

For a few minutes, Griffin watched the distant show. But he soon tugged at Araminta’s hand. He’d already visited the Eighth Wonder of the World that day. He was ready to discover love, the most interesting wonder he’d yet encountered.

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ISBN: 978-1-4201-2526-9