Page 18 of The Duke’s Absolutely Fantastic Fling (The Notorious Briarwoods #15)

She bit her lip, then said, “I don’t know. I want…”

“Yes?” he prompted.

“I want to be with you.”

He sucked in a shuddering breath. “Good because that’s what I want. So say it,” he urged.

She held onto him tightly. “That I should be with you? Yes, I want it more than anything in the whole world. But what shall we do if—”

“What shall anyone do, Josephine, if things grow difficult?” He leaned towards her and took her other hand in his. “They help each other. Isn’t that what everyone in the Briarwood family does? They help each other?”

She nodded. “You are making me feel quite silly.”

“I don’t intend that.”

“Well, I have a war going on inside me if you must know.”

“Let me help you win it,” he growled.

She swallowed and closed her eyes. Here it was.

The time to be honest or run, and she could not run.

She never had and she never would, for it was no part of a true Briarwood, and she had become a Briarwood through and through.

“A part of me tells me that I should marry you immediately. You are the man for me and I… I love you.”

His eyes lit with hope.

“Wait,” she said. “But another part tells me that I’ll be terrible for you, and I cannot bear it if I’m terrible for you. I have been given such blessings by my family. I would hate to throw them away and give misery where I have been given joy. What if I am not for you ?”

He let go of her hands for a moment and pushed the chess set aside and then, much to her dismay, the queen pieces tumbled to her coverlet.

Was that another sign? Surely not. She would not be such a fool as to think so.

He took her hands in his and pulled her into his lap, cradling her as if he could shield her from the world. “You will always be a blessing, Josephine, to me, to anyone who knows you. So let us marry,” he insisted.

Her heart nearly burst at his beautiful words. Did she dare? She had to, didn’t she? She would be a fool not to. So, instead of protesting or letting her fears pull her down, she declared, “Let us marry.”

“But wait,” he said.

Her heart skipped, suddenly fearing he had some strange new condition. “What?”

“I don’t want you to give in. I want you to want me fully. For me . As I want you.”

And then she smiled slowly at him, understanding that he was just a man, a glorious, good man, who longed to be loved.

“Oh, Your Grace, there’s no doubt about that.

I think I might even want you more. I have wanted you since Scotland, but I left with my family as I had to, though it was for the best. But you pursued me here.

So I am going to pray with all my heart that the voice inside me that says you are the one is the Briarwood voice, my family’s voice, the one that is always right, and I won’t look back. ”

He wrapped his arms about her, tilted her back, and kissed her. Their lips touched in a kiss that was more than passion. It was two souls, surviving an unkind world, searching for peace, for union, for a life that could be an escape from the bitter trials that the world brought to one’s door.

And that kiss wove them together, slowly, passionately, with fire and hunger.

And yet even as she felt herself becoming one with him more and more, there was something at the back of her mind, something she couldn’t name that sowed fear. She did not know how to make it stop. She did not know how to fight it.

Perhaps she could fight it day by day. She’d have to. It was the only thing that would work. Because as the Season was coming to a close, and the last balls were upon them, she knew she could no longer run from this.

Their affair, which had given her so much joy, even as her fears had been awakened, was at an end.

And the answer had to be yes. How could it be anything but yes? Because her heart hungered for him so. She only prayed it wasn’t the greatest mistake of her life.

That kiss, his kiss, his wonderful lips coaxing and teasing her to life with his adoration was everything that should make a young lady feel loved. And she did feel loved. She felt luckier than anyone in the whole of the world.

She only hoped that that luck would never run out.

“Josephine,” he whispered against her mouth. “Stop.”

She tensed. “What?”

“You’re frightened.”

“I am,” she replied.

“You don’t need to be frightened.”

She pulled back, tensing. “You’re right. Your shadow? Your sorrow? You have it, but it isn’t like mine. I thought it was, but now I see the difference. You’ve never truly been frightened, have you?”

“What do you mean?” he asked, stroking his hand along her back, soothing her.

She looked away for a moment. “You’ve never… You’ve never…” She swallowed. “You’ve never known if you would live to see the next day, the next hour, the next moment, have you?”

“No,” he said honestly, his voice raw at her suffering, “I have not. I watched my mother and father die, but their deaths were rather normal. And of course, Ellie’s husband died tragically.

Illness. But I have never had to fear for my own life, except for maybe when Calchas was trying to murder me the other night,” he teased.

She laughed softly, grateful that he was trying to make her feel better. And yet how could she make him understand?

“This is what I worry about,” she said, licking her lips. “I’m bringing something to your life that you cannot even understand. And worse, I fear that—”

“Don’t,” he gritted. “Do not fear, for I shall always be there, your shield and your sword.”

She nodded, grateful for her shield and her sword.

But what if something took them away? Because life was impossible and terrifying.

One might go to sleep safe in their bed one night above a shop with parents who loved them, and then wake up with a world ablaze outside and have everything ripped from one’s grasp.

And that was what terrified her more than anything, that all she had gained could be ripped away.