The Lady Gambles (21 page)

It was that uncharacteristic uncertainty that convinced Caro she could not be dreaming, after all; even in a dream she would not have bestowed uncertainty
upon a man she knew to be always confident and sure, of both his own emotions and those around him!

And yet Dominic was not sure of her and seemed to have no idea that she had fallen in love with him, too. ‘My dear…’ her voice was gentle, tentative ‘…I am already in love with you—’

‘My darling girl!’ Dominic swept her ecstatically up into his arms before claiming her mouth with his.

Caro was still so overwhelmed by his declaration of love and his proposal of marriage, that for several long and pleasurable minutes all she could do was return the passion of his kisses.

It was some time later before her sanity returned. ‘I realise that the Earl of Blackstone could not possibly marry a woman such as Caro Morton—’

‘I can marry whom I damned well please,’ he told her with a return of his usual arrogance. ‘And I choose to marry you, if you will have me,’ he added determinedly. ‘I do not care who or what you are, Caro. Or what you are running away from. I love you. And it is my dearest wish—my only wish—to make you my wife.’

This, more than anything else, finally convinced Caro of the depth of Dominic’s love for her. He was a lord, an Earl, and yet he was proposing marriage to a woman he had only known as a singer in a gambling club. A woman he had already made love to. Twice!

She chewed briefly on her bottom lip. ‘I should tell you that my mother ran away with her lover when I was a child, and was later shot and killed by him when he caught her in the arms of yet another lover.’

Dominic’s thumb moved lightly across her bottom lip, his eyes ablaze with the love he claimed to feel for
her. ‘I have said I do not care about your past, my love, and I truly do not,’ he vowed. ‘Besides, you are not responsible for your mother’s actions.’

‘Any more than you are to blame for the death of your own mother.’

Dominic released his breath in a deep sigh. ‘I have always felt responsible…’

Caro gently touched his cheek with her fingertips. ‘Tell me what really happened.’

He gave a pained wince. ‘I do not believe I could bear it if, once I have done so, you decided you did not love me, after all.’

‘It will not happen,’ she vowed with certainty. ‘Dominic, I know you to be a man who is honest and true. A man who cares deeply for others in spite of himself— Lord Thorne, Drew, Ben, myself, to name only four. I absolutely refuse to believe that you would ever have harmed your own mother.’

‘I hope you still think that once I have told you what happened.’ Dominic kissed her slowly and lingeringly before speaking again. ‘I went away to school when I was twelve years old. I was not a good pupil. I resented being sent away, and got into all manner of scrapes in an attempt to be sent home again. I do not even remember what the last one was.’ He grimaced. ‘Only that it resulted in my mother having to travel to the school shortly after the Christmas holidays in order to stop the headmaster from expelling me.’

Caro could hear his heart beating rapidly in his chest, the harshness of his breathing as he was obviously beset by the memories that had haunted him into adulthood. ‘I love you, Dominic,’ she encouraged gently.

His arms tightened about her as he continued. ‘Her coach slipped on the icy roads and into an even icier river. The doors became stuck fast and she could not get out as the water—’

‘Do not say any more!’ Caro sat up and placed her fingertips over his lips as she gazed down at him. ‘You were a child, Dominic. A child who felt hurt and rebellious because he felt he had been sent away from those he loved. You were no more responsible for the death of your mother or your father than—than I am.’

Strangely, as Dominic looked up into Caro’s compassionate and love-filled eyes, all of the guilt, the feeling that he was unworthy of being loved, quietly and for ever slipped away.

She shook her head. ‘It is sad that your father felt he could not go on living without her but—loving you as I do, I believe I know something of how he must have felt,’ she added shyly; if Dominic really had been killed earlier today, then Caro knew she would have found it difficult to go on living, too…

He gave a choked groan as he pulled her tightly against him and buried his face in her hair. ‘How was I ever lucky enough to find you, Caro? How?’

Caro did not want him to be sad any more; he had already suffered enough, believed himself unworthy of love for long enough. ‘But you do not know yet whom you have found,’ she reminded him teasingly.

He raised his head to smile at her. ‘First tell me that you will marry me, whoever you are.’

‘I will.’

‘Caro…’ Dominic kissed her for several more love-filled minutes, the happiness on his face when he at last
raised his head, making him look almost boyish as he grinned down at her.

‘But before that can happen,’ Caro murmured ruefully, ‘you will have to obtain the approval of my guardian.’

Dominic’s smile faded slightly. ‘Your guardian?’

‘I am afraid so.’

He frowned. ‘Tell me who this guardian is and I will go to him immediately, assure him that I am a reformed character since meeting you and solicit him for his permission to marry you.’

‘It is not necessary for you to go to him.’ Caro’s eyes glowed with laughter. ‘I believe that he is coming to you.’

‘To me?’ Dominic frowned his confusion. ‘But how—?’ His eyes widened as he became still.
‘Westbourne?’
he breathed in disbelief.

‘I am afraid so,’ Caro admitted.

Dominic stared down at her, absolutely dumbstruck for several long seconds, and then he began to smile, and then finally to laugh. ‘Westbourne!’ He sobered suddenly. ‘It is because I had told you I was expecting him to arrive in England any day that you were leaving London so hurriedly earlier,’ he realised incredulously. ‘Yes.’

‘What I should have added is that Gabriel does not intend to remain in London, but travel almost immediately to Shoreley Hall.’

‘Oh dear!’ Caro cringed now at the thought of what her sister Diana would have to say to Dominic’s friend when he arrived.

Dominic seemed to suffer no such worries as he
chuckled, once more diverted by the thought that he had stolen a march on his friend and whipped one of his possible choices of bride out from under his nose. ‘And which Lady Copeland will I have the pleasure of making my wife?’

‘Caroline—I am the second daughter.’

‘And you decided to run away to London after refusing to even contemplate becoming Westbourne’s bride?’

She gave a delicate shudder. ‘I could not possibly marry a man I do not love.’

‘And your sisters? Have they run away, too?’

‘Oh, no, I am sure they have not.’ Caro shook her head, firmly pushing away the flicker of doubt in her mind about that girl in the park who had looked so like Elizabeth. ‘I am the rebellious one, I am afraid.’

‘Something I will be grateful for until the day I die,’ Dominic assured her lovingly.

Dominic loved her just as much as Caro loved him—and she was blissfully certain that he would obtain his friend’s permission for the two of them to marry as soon as it could be arranged.

She wound her arms about his neck as she arched up into him. ‘Would you care to show me how much you are grateful, Dominic?’

‘Gladly!’ he groaned as his head lowered and his mouth once again captured hers, the two of them quickly forgetting everything and everyone else but the love they felt for one other, now and for always.