the money at cards.”
She stood. “There it is. You know everything. Your friend Longmore thinks we’re the devil, and he’s not far wrong. You couldn’t ally yourself with a worse family. We seduce and swindle, lie and cheat. We have no scruples, no morals, no ethics. We don’t even understand what those things are. I did you the greatest favor in the world when I said no. No one in my family would understand why I did it.”
She started for the door, still talking, unable to help herself. It was the last time, perhaps, they’d ever speak.
“They’d see you only as a pigeon ripe for plucking,” she said. “But you needn’t believe I was being noble and self-sacrificing in declining your proposal. It was pure selfishness. I’m too proud to endure being snubbed by your fine friends.”
“You could endure it.” His low voice came from behind her.
She hadn’t heard him rise from the sofa. She’d been deaf and blind to all but despair, and too busy trying not to fall apart. She wouldn’t turn around. Nothing he said could make any difference now. He was trying to be kind, probably. She couldn’t bear kindness. She continued toward the door.
“You can stomach the obnoxious women and their demands and their treating you like a slave,” he said. “You have no trouble handling them. You have Lady Clara eating out of your hand.”
Hope was trying to claw its way up out of the dark place where she’d buried it. She stomped it down. “That’s business,” she said without turning her head. “That’s part of the guile and manipulation. My shop is my castle. But the beau monde is another world altogether.”
“It’s Lucie you’re protecting, not yourself,” he said. “You insist you have no redeeming qualities, but you love your daughter. You’re not like your mother. Your child is not an inconvenience.”
She paused, her hand on the door handle. Her chest was tight, a sob welling there, threatening to get out.
“Perhaps you don’t own the usual set of scruples and morals and ethics and such,” he said, “but you don’t cheat your customers.”
“I manipulate them,” she said. “I want their money.”
“And in return, you give them your utmost. You make them better than they think they can be. You gave Clara the courage to stand up to her mother and to me.”
“Oh, Clevedon, you’re such a fool. You’re blinded by love.” She turned to him then. “Do you think, because you can find a redeeming quality or two in my black heart, that all of the ton will see the same? They won’t. They’ll see that you married a Dreadful DeLucey—”
“The Earl of Hargate’s son married one, and her daughter married an earl.”
“I’ve heard that old story,” Marcelline said. “You’re talking about Bathsheba DeLucey. She brought Lord Rathbourne a great fortune. What do I bring? A shop. And Rathbourne’s father, Lord Hargate, is a powerful man. You may stand higher in rank, but you’ve nothing like his power. Yesterday he walked into a crowd of bloodthirsty men as though you were a lot of schoolboys. The world respects and fears him. You’re not like that, and you’ve no one like that to throw his weight around on your behalf. You’ve lived on the Continent and in the fringe world of London where idle aristocrats play. You’ve no political power. You haven’t cultivated social power. You can’t make your world accept me. You can’t make them welcome and love Lucie.”
“If you can’t be welcome in my world,” he said, “I’d rather not live there.”
The horrid sob was building in her chest.
“I love you,” he said. “I think I’ve loved you from the moment I first saw you at the opera—or, if not then, from the time you took my diamond stickpin. I’ll admit that matters are sticky—”
“Sticky!”
“But it was a mad scheme to come to Paris and attract my attention, in hopes of getting your hooks into my duchess,” he said. “It was a mad, brave scheme to come to London in the first place, with a small child and two younger sisters and a few coins. It was mad to think you could set up a dressmaking shop by winning money at cards. But you did that before you knew me, before you’d ever thought about the Duchess of Clevedon. And so I’m very, very sure that you’ll devise a mad scheme to solve our present problems, especially with my brilliant mind assisting you.”
She was looking up at him, into those dangerous green eyes, and all she saw there was love. His beautiful mouth curved into the smile that could so easily warm a woman’s heart, and lower down.
He truly did love her. After all she’d told him. He truly believed she could do anything.
“And if I don’t?” she said. “If this sticky little matter proves too much even for my guile and imagination—”
“We’ll live with it,” he said. “Life isn’t perfect. But I had much rather live it imperfectly with you.”
“Th-that is a very f-fine s-sentiment.” The sob was filling her chest.
“I didn’t practice it at all,” he said.
“Oh, Clevedon,” she said.
He opened his arms. she walked into them. There was no choice, no choice at all. His arms closed about her and she wept, stupidly, but it was days and nights’ worth of bottled-up fear and worry and sorrow and anger and hope.
Against all odds, hope. Because she was a dreamer and a schemer, and one didn’t dream and scheme without hope.
“Does this mean I’ve won?” he said. Tears were all very well, but he needed to be absolutely sure.
“Yes,” she said, her voice muffled against his waistcoat. “Although some might argue that you’ve lost.”
“Will you marry me?”
A long pause.
His grip of her tightened. “Marcelline.”
“Yes. I’m simply not noble enough to say no.”
“Don’t be noble, I beg you,” he said. “I think nobleness of spirit…and morals…and ethics…and scruples…those sorts of things are all very well in their place. To a point, you know. But beyond a certain point, I think they make me bilious.”
She looked up at him. Tears shimmered in her eyes but there was laughter as well, and it curved the corners of her beautiful mouth.
“It doesn’t agree with me,” he said. “I tried to be good. I tried not to be my father. I tried to live up to Lord Warford’s standards. Then one day I realized it was pointless, and I’d had enough. That’s when I set out with Longmore on a Grand Tour. But when he decided he’d had enough of the Continent, and wanted to come home, I didn’t think I could stand coming back. Then you came into my life and everything changed. Because you were right. For me. Are. Right. For me.” He slid his hand down her back. He heard her breath hitch.
That was all it wanted. That little sound. He had waited for so long. He’d suffered the tortures of the damned.
He tipped up her chin and untied her bonnet. He tossed it aside.
She winced. “That was my best bonnet. It took me forever to decide which one to wear.”
“You? But you always know what to wear.”
“I never had to confess to anybody before,” she said. “That’s my confession bonnet. I even trimmed it special—and you toss it aside like a soiled handkerchief.”
“You confessed,” he said. “It was beautifully done. Like everything you do.” He quickly untied the black lace thing around her neck.
She caught his hand before he could throw that down. “Clevedon, what do you think you’re doing?”
They’d waited long enough.