Page 34 of A Scandal In July
Lenore couldn’t look away. “I have.”
Rhys sucked in a breath. “Do I know him?”
Lenore threw caution to the wind. “Intimately.”
She held her breath, bracing for rejection as she waited for him to realize the import of what she’d just said. His eyes widened in astonishment, then he frowned, as if questioning his own judgment.
“You might have been right about my brain and all those hits to the head,” he said. “Are you saying the person who makes your heart flutter isme?”
Chapter Sixteen
Lenore nodded, not trusting her voice, but Rhys’s lips curved into the most relieved, wicked smile she’d ever seen.
“Was that when I kissed you, in the wine cellar?”
“Yes,” she admitted. “And every time before that, too. Ever since that very first time we met, in Lady Chessington’s garden.”
His jaw dropped open and she relished his look of shock as he finally understood what she was admitting.
“You love me? Right now? And you’vebeenin love with me for almost an entire year?” His tone was an amusing mixture of triumph and irritation. “Bloody hell, woman! Why didn’t you say something?”
She sent him a laughing, scolding glance. “When did I have the chance? You avoided me at almost every single event. You barely even deigned to talk to me.”
“Because I was in love withyou,” he said, his voice rough with frustration. “And I didn’t want to admit it, even to myself. It was self-preservation. I told myself it was ridiculous to fall in love with someone I’d only just met. I was convinced a woman as beautiful and as clever as you would have nothing to do with me. That if I left you alone, you’d eventually marry some stuffyold duke and I’d just go and drink myself into an alcoholic stupor and die of a broken heart like all the best tragic heroes.”
Lenore let out a peal of laughter. Her own heart was racing so fast she could hardly breathe.
Rhys reached out and caught her face between his palms, his eyes wide.
“You really love me?”
“I’m afraid so. The Davies-Montgomery curse has struck again.”
“Lenore Montgomery, will youmarryme?”
Lenore returned his incredulous smile with one of her own. “Rhys Davies, I’d behonored. And I really don’t care if you don’t have a title, or any money. We’ll manage.”
Rhys actually looked a little guilty. “Ah. About that.”
Her heart dropped. Was he about to admit to a mountain of debt? A slew of illegitimate children? A terrible addiction to gambling or laudanum?
Whatever it was, they would deal with it. Together.
“I’m not entirely penniless. I’m actually quite rich,” he said. “You remember all that wine in the cellar? That’s mine.”
Lenore gaped at him. “But that must have cost a fortune! How—?”
His grin somehow managed to be both shy and cocky at the same time. “Turns out this poor scrambled brain of mine is quite good at investing. I’ve made some decent returns on the stock exchange, and that wine is one of my longer-term projects. Most of those bottles will increase steadily over the next five to ten years. Far less volatile than stocks and shares.”
Lenore stared at him. “I don’t know what to say. I always assumed you were a penniless second son.”
Rhys’s eyes bored into hers. “Say you’ll still marry me, even if I have a fortune. Prove you weren’t lying when you said youdidn’t care about a man’s financial position as long as he loved you and you loved him.”
Lenore let out an exasperated laugh. “Oh, you are impossible! Yes, I’ll marry you, you rogue.” She leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his lips.
He stilled, just for a moment, as if still afraid to trust his good fortune, then he returned the pressure with thrilling enthusiasm.
Lenore groaned as his tongue darted into her mouth, tasting her with an urgency that made her blood sing in her veins. She wound her arms around his neck and tugged him back with her onto the grass, loving the urgent sound he made deep in his chest.