Page 155 of Dukes for Dessert

Sebastian. Thank God.

She wriggled and writhed until he loosened his hold and took his hand from her mouth. “I came to find you.”

“Dammit, Veronica, I could have been in the middle of—”

She seized his lapels. “Tell me Weller is still alive.”

“Why?” He eyed her skeptically. “There’s no decent reason to wish him so.”

“I realized something when I woke and you were not there,” she panted, noting an indefinable flare in his eyes as she struggled to regain her breath. “You’ve been going about this all wrong.”

His gaze became as flat as his tone as he replied, “Is that so?”

“Weller may be higher up in this Shanghai operation, but he’s not the head. Perhaps the neck, or even the hands—it doesn’t matter.” She waved the metaphor away. “What is important is the information he could give you. If your design is to dismantle the entire system, you’ll need names, places of contact, ports of refuge for these criminals. You are an earl with a seat in this empire and a voice that demands to be heard. Not only are you wealthier than most men can imagine, but you are a born leader.” She shaped her hands to his jaw and stared hard into his eyes, willing him to mark her. “You have power, Sebastian, use it. Use it to do good. To be better.”

He covered her hands with his, pulling them away from his face and encompassing his fingers in her own. “I told you, I’m not a good man. I’m wicked and—”

“I know!” She jerked her hands from his grasp. “But you can be wicked and still do the right thing sometimes. Yes?”

To her amazement, he laughed. Low and rich with a mercurial glimmer in his dazzling eyes.

“I fail to see what is so funny,” she said testily, trying not to lose her hope.

“I can’t lie to you, my lady.” He reached for her hand again and brought it to his lips to press a reverent kiss on the knuckles. “The authorities are holding Weller in Venice until Scotland Yard can send someone to oversee the extradition. He will be tried for his crimes…and interrogated as to his associates.”

Stunned, she stared at him as the lights of the Italian coast played havoc with his skin and bounced off the fair streaks in his untidy hair. They’d not spoken of this. Last she knew his plan was to murder the man. “Why—why did you do that?”

“Because I knew you’d want me to.” Sliding his thumb into her clenched fist, he pried her fingers open and dragged his lips against her open palm.

“Ohhhhh…” She hadn’t meant to moan that.

“And…” He drew the word out between playful samples of the delicate skin on the underside of her wrist. “Because it was the right thing to do.”

“The—the right thing?”

He released her hand and took a step back, holding her only with a solemn gaze that sat stark and strange on a face as splendid as his. “I realized something as well, Countess, when I woke to find you beside me.”

Lanced by anxiety, she hitched in a preparatory breath. “Oh?”

“I know you never want to feel beholden to another man, and that is your prerogative. But I am yours, Veronica Weatherstoke. Body, heart, and soul. I give myself to you freely and without reservation, to do with whatever you wish.”

Her heart sputtered, stalled, and then kicked over in her ribs twice as fast as before. Surely she was misunderstanding. “But…you have often said you are not a man who wants to be tied down.”

He shrugged. “Historically—metaphorically—that’s been true, but in the strictest sense of the word, I very much like to be tied—” With one look at what must have been a distressed expression, he apparently decided not to finish the thought. “We can discuss that later. Listen. Veronica...I’m in love with you. I think I have been since that time you slapped me on the Devil’s Dirge.”

She shook her head in disbelief. Love? Him? Could he truly love anyone but himself?

“I thought I’d already lost any chance at being with you because of all the reasons you have so eloquently stated against me,” he continued, with a wry quirk of his brow. “But I wonder if we could move past all that. If we might see where this journey could take us.”

Just as she’d begun to recover her breath, it was taken again. “Where…where would you want it to go?” she fretted. “Neither of us really have a home.”

“I never have, and I believe your spirit is much like mine. We don’t have to settle anywhere, you and I. We can make the entire world our home if we like. Or we can plant our flag if we reach a place that calls to us.”

“Sebastian…think about what you’re saying. About what this would mean. Can you truly be a faithful man? Because that is what I want—what I need. I have a plan already, one that involves my work. I love what I do, and I only want to get better at it. I cannot allow a husband to eclipse that part of myself. The fashion world would certainly bore you.”

His arms stole around her, and she stepped into the embrace, daring to hope this wasn’t all a fever dream called forth by her inner most yearnings. “I am a sailor, a drifter, and all I need is a North Star, someone to guide me when it is dark.” He feathered kisses over her temples, her brow, her hairline, and worked his way down to her lips. “But I am also a man of my word. I will walk in your wake and watch you take flight. I will never raise a hand or even a voice to you. I will cherish and adore you and try to make you fall in love with me every day until you do. I’ll let you win arguments at least eighty percent of the time, even though I’m usually right. I will give you two orgasms at least to every single one of mine—”

A harried giggle escaped her, and she pressed her fingers to his lips in order to take a silent moment to listen to her heart. “What would I do with such a wicked man as my—?”