Page 18 of The Duke Who Dared Me (Wayward Dukes’ Alliance #31)

She shook her head, then slowly walked up the stairs with her chin held high.

Damn it all if it was a lie. Nothing mattered anymore.

* * *

Alistair found her just as the footman hoisted her trunk onto the back of the coach. She stood beside it with her back to him, straw bonnet askew and fists clenched.

“Verity.”

She turned slowly. No surprise. No fury. Worse yet, indifference.

“Miss Baxter will do.” She spun back toward the footman. “Don’t drop that corner.”

He stepped closer, his voice low so only she could hear. “I left you earlier with fewer clothes on.”

“Remember the closet, Your Grace? I’ll make good on my promise and break that nose of yours if you keep speaking.”

Right. He was a prized idiot.

Alistair scrubbed his face, his stubble scratching against his palm. There hadn’t been time for a shave this morning. “Where are you going?”

She whirled around, pointing an accusing finger. “Far from you. You thought you could help my brother fix his mistake and supply me with a dowry? That would be a convenient fix, wouldn’t it?”

“Good God, man. Let me…” He jumped up onto the sideboard and grabbed the trunk from the struggling footman. But instead of settling it onto the roof, he placed it down gently on the road between them. “Leave us,” he ordered.

The footman scurried away, then the driver, once Alistair leveled him with a glare.

“I’m leaving, and I will ride this coach if it means I have to strap that trunk to the roof myself.”

“You’re upset. I understand.”

“Do you?” Her words were bitter, and it broke his heart to see tears in her eyes. He never wanted to make her cry.

She turned back toward the coach, but he reached for her wrist. Her pulse fluttered wildly beneath his fingers.

“I only meant to be gone an hour this morning. Last night…” His voice dropped to a rough whisper. “These past few weeks have been equal parts frustrating and beautiful. I was trying to do things properly. I thought if I returned with flowers and a plan, I could convince you to?—”

“To what? Overlook the fact that you disappeared after the first time we…” She glanced around at the passing wagons and the surrounding townhouses. “You didn’t even leave a note, Alistair.”

“I know.”

“I woke up thinking it had all been a mistake.”

“It wasn’t. I told you, you’ve never been a mistake.”

“You pretended as if nothing had happened at that inn. This morning you were gone. Then I found out about the dowry.”

His voice broke. “I thought you wanted your independence more. I was trying to help.”

She walked up to him and whacked him against his chest, her nose scrunched, her mouth pinched. “All these years, and still an ignoramus.”

“You can call me anything you like if you stay.” His voice cracked. “Don’t leave London, Verity. Please.”

“There’s nothing here for me. I don’t belong. My own family wants me gone. I’m too much.”

“Too much?” The words tore from his throat. “Verity, you’re not too much. You’re everything I never knew I needed.”

He caught her hands, holding tight when she tried to pull away. “Do you know what I see when I look at you? Fire. Pure, brilliant fire that everyone else is too weak to handle. They want you dimmed, contained, made safe. But God, Verity, you were never meant to be safe.”

Her eyes widened, but he wasn’t finished.

“I’ve spent my entire life being what was expected. The perfect duke, the perfect son, the perfect gentleman. And then you came along with your fierce heart and your refusal to apologize for taking up space in this world. You made me realize I’d been sleepwalking through my own life.”

“Alistair—”

“You terrify them because you’re free in ways they’ll never be.

You say what you think, feel what you feel, live like you mean it.

They call it too much because they're too little. Too small, too afraid, too concerned with what others might say.” His voice cracked.

“I was one of them. I tried to make you smaller, tried to fit you into their neat little boxes because it was easier than admitting the truth.”

“What truth?”

“That you make me want to be more than I am. That loving you doesn’t mean taming you. It means being brave enough to match you. To be worthy of the woman who looks at the world and refuses to settle for anything less than everything.”

He stepped closer. No more distance. No more excuses. “You’re everything I want. Always. I think I even enjoy it when you’re a little mean to me.”

Her mouth twitched.

“Two years ago, I woke up with a start because I had a dream that I kissed you. We were riding in Kent. You looked back at me with this smile, and I couldn’t breathe. And ever since, all I wanted was to kiss you.”

“And now?”

He cupped her cheek. “Now I want to wake up beside you for the rest of my life.”

She crossed her arms, now toe-to-toe with him. Alistair stared down at her, unable to wipe the smile from his face.

“I thought you didn’t want to marry.”

“I didn’t.”

“And now?”

“I want you. I’ll marry you. Today. Tomorrow. Perhaps next week. There’s a special license I’m trying to secure.”

“Ali.”

He pulled a small square of folded paper from his pocket, then handed it to her.

She opened it, brows knitting as she read a wager slip from White’s: " The Duke of Tunstall wagers seven thousand pounds that Miss Verity Baxter will win her wager against him and marry first. "

Her breath caught. “You placed this?”

“I tried to tip the odds in your favor.”

She looked up at him. “You think you are so charming.”

“I know. Someone told me once that I'm insufferable.”

“Once?” She hesitated for a long moment. “You hurt me.”

“I’ll spend a lifetime making it right.”

Verity’s fingers curled around the paper. “You still owe me a proper proposal.”

He dropped to one knee, right there in the street. “Verity Baxter. Marry me. Challenge me, best me, and kiss me into submission for the rest of our days.”

She laughed.

A real one, bright and delighted and absolutely exasperated.

“You are insufferable,” she whispered.

“But I’m yours. And I promise I will love you. If you want me and marriage, you can have it. But I want it to be your choice, darling.”

She reached out and pulled him up by his lapel, then threw her arms around his neck. “I think we both win, don’t you?”

And this time, she didn’t let go.