Page 35 of A Wallflower Takes a Duke

“Do not say anything from here on out that you will regret later, or I will personally finish what the earl started.” Mina’s natural father clenched and unclenched his hands.

“I don’t care what you do to me. I deserve to be beaten senseless.”

Something in Julian’s voice must have convinced Mina’s father because he finally relented and pulled a pocket watch from his waistcoat. “You have precisely fifteen minutes before Miss Walsh and I return.”

After the door shut and they were alone in the candlelit room, he nearly lost his nerve. He’d never seen such a beautiful woman. Her skin was rosy from her ordeal in the snowstorm and the massive number of candles Hugh had somehow had brought to the dining room now surrounded her in a soft glow.

All he could think to say was, “Do you want me down on my knees like that fool Westfalia?”

“Stop,” Mina said and came forward to enclose his huge cold, muddied paws in her warm ones. “I’ve had enough of hulking, cork-brained men protesting undying love today, thank you very much.”

“But I’m the one you should believe.”

“And why is that?”

“Because I’ve loved you ever since you danced across the balcony with me when you just a bit of a girl.”

“Yes, I remember, and I also remember you promised you’d never let me fall.”

“Yes, I’m a miserable brute, I don’t deserve you, but I find I cannot live without you. I’ve loved you all the while you’ve been growing up before my selfish eyes, but I’ve missed the most important thing.”

“What is that?”

“You are now, and always have been, my truest friend.”

And then he did collapse the considerable distance to his knees and beg her to accept him as her husband.

“What about all your mistresses?”

“I have none. You drove Maria off.”

“How so?”

“She likes you better than me.”

“And you won’t stay away in London and leave me alone at Edgewood with no one but Beesley to keep me company?”

“Actually, Beesley is quite fond of you.”

“But not as much as you?”

“No—not nearly as much as I love you, you imp.”

With that, he silenced her questions with a long kiss designed to push all possibility of rejecting his suit from her head.

Before Julian’s kiss, Mina had experienced a few, furtive stolen kisses here and there during the Season, but nothing like his warmth and lingering touches that stretched on and on. Their first tentative brush of lips turned into a deep questing and exploration of the warmth of his tongue and mouth. She wanted more.

When his arms wrapped tightly around her, Mina felt her body slide against him as if she’d found her way home.

Finally, she broke away and gave him the impudent stare version of her blue gaze. “Is this what we’ve waited for all these years?”

Julian’s response was more a gutteral cry of agony when he tried to pull her back.

She moved a step away from his arms. “I will marry you on one condition.”

His face paled.

“You will never have another lover but me.”

He pulled her back for another long kiss.

THE END