Page 54 of The Rake is Taken
He blinked, the one eye not swallowed by the pillow sliding open. “You have?”
“Finley Michel Laurent Alexander, I think it would be best if I make an honest man of you.” She gestured to the disturbed bedchamber. “Seeing as you can’t keep your hands off me. And seeing as I love you more than anyone I’ve ever known.”
Finn’s smile was beatific. “One less thing to worry about in the grand scheme. Except for your expulsion from society, which I’m warning you, will be severe.”
She closed her eyes and took him in, his scent heaven, his toucheverything. He wouldn’t believe how little she cared about being expelled from a group she’d never admired in the first place. “I’ll like living on the outside edge. It’s the finest place to be. Not too close to the sun.”
“The glorious middle,” he murmured, sounding sleepy again. “We shall muddle along. We have support. A viscount who touches objects and sees the past, and a duke who starts indiscriminate fires with his blazing fingertips.”
“Ashcroft,” she breathed, “I forgot all about him.”
A choked laugh escaped Finn at her admission. “Good. Though he’s offered to throw us a magnificent celebration complete with pyrotechnics because he’s known to fancy them, playing the rejected suitor to the hilt, of course. The women will swarm him. And Julian”—Finn snorted softly—“believes wholeheartedly in love. A romantic if there ever was one. He’ll be blinded by excitement over our marriage. You’ll be joining the League in an even greater capacity than he’d hoped. Blocker extraordinaireandsister-in-law.”
He rose to his elbow, leaning over her, his smile dimming. “There is one thing I must ask for. Or two rather. You see, I have a modest estate just down the road from Harbingdon that Piper gifted me on my twenty-first birthday. Brook Cottage. A gift toherwhen Julian stupidly thought they’d never marry. It’s quite lovely. And easily protected. There’s a small conservatory, a stable. Enough chambers for Belle and Simon, who’s as much a son to me as my own could ever be—”
“Yes,” she whispered and brushed the hair she’d trimmed when they were falling in love from his face. Cupping his jaw, she felt his pulse jolt beneath her thumb. “They should live with us. Since my brother’s passing, I haven’t had a family, Finn. Charles was all I ever had. I want one with you. With Humphrey, Piper, Julian. Belle and Simon and Lucien. I want the League. I want to find my place.”
Sinking to the bed with a sigh, he tucked her into the curve of his body. “Simon needs me, and I need him. I need Belle. I don’t know why, exactly, but I do. As much as I need you. And if not for you, I’d have never found her. The dreams make sense now.” He swallowed, the click of his throat echoing in the room. “With patience, some things in life do come full circle.”
“You love me,” she marveled, recalling he’d said it more than once while he moved inside her.
He hummed beneath his breath, his breathing slowing as he slipped into sleep. His voice was soft. “Tu m'aime.” You love me.
She did, with everything in her. Heart, mind, soul.
And she was never letting him go.
Because this rake was taken.
Epilogue
In a very charming part of the country…
Oxfordshire, Six Months Later
Snow battered the charming cottage by the brook, pristine white drifts edging past the windowpanes, the raging storm trapping the inhabitants inside. Victoria shifted her puzzle book into the firelight and bit into the treacle tart she’d baked earlier today. She’d fallen in love with the cozy manor with a fierceness and speed that surprised her, having never felt possessive of a dwelling, cherishing it like she would a member of her family. But cherish Brook Cottage she did.
After all, it was her first real home.
She was surrounded by all the things she loved, a faultless moment in time. Occasionally, she reflected with a warm curl in her belly, her happiness was near to overflowing.
She sat before the hearth, back against the brocade sofa, Finn asleep beside her, his chest rising and falling in a contented rhythm, one of his language texts still clutched in his hand. Simon lay half-on, half-off the sofa, his gentle snores the only sound in the parlor beyond the clack of Belle’s knitting needles. Her sister-in-law was a horrendous knitter, as the unusually-shaped hats and scarves she’d gifted everyone attested to, but she said it kept her hands and her mind occupied. Occupied from what, Victoria wasn’t sure but thought she might be able to guess.
Covering a smile behind her tart, she watched Belle glance toward the door with a troubled expression. Humphrey had gone out to secure more firewood and check with the sentries who patrolled the cottage, and despite what the two of them said when asked, which everyone had gotten around to asking in the past months, he and Belle sparked off each other like wood in a hearth. Hissing and spitting. One moment friends, the next enemies.
Passion moved slowly—or sometimes not at all. Victoria only hoped, if Belle was falling in love with the handsome, hulking, overly-compassionate-though-he-tried-to-hide-it man, she’d be courageous enough to fight for him. Humphrey, for his part, when he wasn’t trying to ignore her, treated Belle like she was breakable.
When love often demanded rough handling.
More a battle than a dance, at least in her experience. But, oh, those longing looks Humphrey threw in Belle’s direction, they smoldered.
“There’s the smile that makes me nervous.”
She turned to find her husband—husband, she repeated with an ecstatic internal giggle—blinking sleepily, his cheeks rosy from the fire. “I have no idea what you’re referring to. None of my smiles should make you nervous.”
He yawned, his lids drifting low. “I couldn’t sell that lie on a rookery street corner for a halfpenny. Would not wager one on it in the Blue Moon.”
She reached, unable to keep from touching him, her fingers finding his and lacing tight. He returned the caress, drawing a slow, sensual circle on the inside of her wrist, a move that made her want to strip his clothing from his body and climb atop him.