Page 66 of Winter's Waltz
“It does if one desires it badly enough.” His countenance was earnest.
He was serious, bless him.
“Spoken like a man who has never been anything but a future duke with all the advantages of a lord.” She tried to keep the bitterness away, but it was nigh impossible.
“Spoken like a man who loves you,” he returned.
She froze. “You cannot—”
This time, he pressed a finger to her lips in an echo of her actions, staying her words. “Stubble it. I can. And I do. I love you, Gen. I don’t want to marry anyone but you. Be my wife.”
How she wished they were not naked, cocooned beneath the bedclothes, close as two people could be. It rendered her resistance that much more difficult. Necessary. But so damned hard.
She forced herself to pluck away his finger. “I’m a bastard. I own a gaming hell. I wear trousers. I can’t dance. Hell, I can’t speak properly. If you think the duke was furious over all the blunt you lost, how do you think he’d respond to a bastard Winter marrying his precious heir?”
“I do not care about any of those things. I will be the duke one day with or without my father’s approval.”
“So you say, until your fancy society turns their backs upon you because of me.”
“My sisters are married to Winters and they have survived.”
“Not unscathed, though. Doors have closed to them.”
“Society can overlook a great many perceived faults for the right incentive. My sisters are finding their place,” he insisted.
Wealth, he meant. And power. It was true that Dom had become a powerful man, with many important men indebted to him.
But they were arguing and accomplishing nothing. Arthur shifted at their feet and let out a yawn.
She forced herself to be cold, to tamp down all her softness, and with it, the love, the hope, the foolishness. “You are thinking with your prick, Marquess.”
“Is that what you intend to do?” he asked, recoiling. “You are going to turn what is between us into something vulgar?”
“It already is vulgar. I’m a bastard, and we aren’t married.”
“You are the woman I love, and I want to marry you. Don’t do this, Gen. Don’t turn your back on me. On us,” he implored.
His heart was there, in his eyes, on his lips. He was offering it to her, surrendering everything. How she wished she could take it. But she could not. Later, he would thank her.
She disengaged from him and slid from the bed. “Morning is here. Time for you to return to Mayfair where you belong, Marquess.”
