‘Darian.’ She moved slightly in his arms so that she might look up at him in the lamplight, noting the dark shadows in his magnificent green eyes, the grey tinge to his tightly etched face and clenched jaw. She reached up now to gently touch that clenched jaw. ‘I am safe. We are both safe.’ Darian was safe. Which, after all, had been Mariah’s only intent earlier, when she hurried across the ballroom in order to reach William Edgewood’s side ahead of Darian.
Her only interest had been to prevent Darian from challenging the other man and perhaps being hurt or killed in the process.
Because, she had realised, she was in love with him.
She loved, and was in love with, Darian Hunter, the Duke of Wolfingham.
And strangely that realisation no longer terrified her. The emotion was no longer something for her to fear. Nor did it make her less, as she had believed loving someone would, but somehow more.
Darian now repressed a shudder. ‘He might have killed you.’
She smiled. ‘But he did not.’
Darian looked down at Mariah searchingly, noting the calmness of her expression and the tranquillity in those beautiful turquoise-coloured eyes.
While he was still a churning mass of emotions. Fear, for Mariah’s life. Devastation, when he had believed her dead. Relief, when he had realised the blood on her gown was from Edgewood rather than her own. Elation, when she had opened her eyes minutes later and smiled at him.
Unfortunately, all those emotions had been followed by anger. That Mariah could have been so reckless as to have put herself in danger in the first place.
‘What possessed you?’ he demanded now. ‘What on earth went through your mind when you deliberately placed yourself in a position of vulnerability by going outside alone on to the terrace with Edgewood?’
Her smile became rueful. ‘I do not believe I was thinking much of anything at the time. It just seemed— It was the right thing for me to do, Darian.’
‘It was the worst thing you could have done!’ he contradicted explosively.
Her fingers rested lightly against the tautness of his cheek. ‘Let us not discuss this any further just now, Darian. It is over. The Prince Regent is safe. The would-be assassins are all dead or in custody. Napoleon himself has been thwarted in his plan to devastate the alliance. It is all finally over, Darian.’
He tensed beneath those caressing fingers. ‘We are not over, Mariah!’ His arms tightened about her. ‘We will never be over!’
She looked up at him quizzically. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Exactly as I say.’ A nerve pulsed strongly in his clenched jaw. ‘We have begun something this weekend, Mariah. Something good. Something wonderful. And I will not allow you to just calmly walk away from that. To walk away from me!’
Leaving Darian was the last thing that Mariah wanted to do. Indeed, she never wished to be apart from him ever again. Wished to spend her every waking moment with him, and her sleeping ones, too, for the rest of her life.
That was how much she had realised she loved Darian. More than life itself. More than any of the fears of love and intimacy that had plagued her for over half of her lifetime.
She looked up at him shyly beneath the sweep of her lashes. ‘Did I say that I wished to walk away from you?’
‘Well. No. But—’ He looked nonplussed. ‘It will not do, Mariah. I will not have you running all over London and putting yourself in danger as you have been doing these past few years. I will not countenance—’ He broke off as she began to chuckle softly at his bluster, a dark scowl on his brow. ‘I fail to see what is so funny, Mariah.’
‘We are. The two of us.’ She sobered as she saw that Darian was still bursting with anger. ‘We are both so afraid to admit that we might care for or need anyone. In any way. Darian, I will not walk away from you once we are returned to London,’ she assured him seriously. ‘I will be yours for as long as you wish me to be,’ she assured him huskily.
‘You will?’
‘I will,’ she confirmed huskily. ‘Of course there are still many things that need to be discussed between the two of us.’ Her supposed affairs with other men being one of them. Her lack of experience in physical matters being another. ‘But I am sure, once we have done so, that we will be able to come to some sort of arrangement, whereby the two of us—’
‘Arrangement?’ Darian repeated softly, dangerously. ‘I am talking of the two of us marrying, Mariah, not forming an arrangement!’
The shock on Mariah’s face at his pronouncement might have been amusing, if Darian were not so much in earnest. If he did not love this woman more than life itself. If he did not love, admire and respect Mariah more than he had realised it was possible to love, admire and respect any woman.
Except he did. Knew that he felt all of those things for Mariah. So much so that he really had thought his heart had stopped when he looked down at her earlier, covered in blood, and had thought her dead. His own life had ended, too, in those few brief moments. He had ceased to exist. Darian had ceased to live or breathe, in the belief that Mariah Beecham, Countess of Carlisle, and the woman he loved, no longer lived or breathed. All that had remained was a shell, a body, without emotions or feeling.
Until Mariah’s eyes had fluttered open and she had looked up at him and smiled.
It was at that moment that Darian had decided that he was never going to let Mariah out of his sight ever again. Whatever he had to do, however long it took, he intended that Mariah would be his wife, his duchess, and at his side for the rest of their lives.
‘I love you, Mariah,’ he told her now, fiercely, his arms tightening about her. ‘I love you and want to marry you. To spend the rest of my days and nights with you. I love you, Mariah,’ he repeated determinedly. ‘And however long it takes to convince you, I intend having you for my—’
‘Yes.’
‘—wife,’ he concluded purposefully before his gaze sharpened as he realised what Mariah had said, if not why. ‘Yes what?’ he questioned guardedly.
‘Yes, I will marry you, Darian!’ She smiled up at him glowingly, tears now glistening in her eyes. ‘I love you, too, my darling Darian. I love you!’
Darian continued to look down at her searchingly. Hardly daring to believe—to hope that—
‘You love me? How can you possibly love me?’ He frowned darkly. ‘When I have been nothing but judgemental of you from the first. So disapproving. Scornful. Critical—’
‘And kind, caring, protective and passionate,’ Mariah spoke huskily. ‘Would you prefer it if I did not love you, Darian?’ she added teasingly as he still looked down at her in disbelief. ‘I suppose I might try,’ she continued conversationally. ‘But it is so very difficult, when I believe you to be so much all of those things I mentioned in regard to how you are with me. I could try not to love you but— Darian!’ She gave a strangled cry as his mouth finally claimed hers, his arms gathering her in so close against him it felt as if he was trying to make her a part of himself.
And perhaps he was, because for the next several minutes there was nothing else between them but those passionate kisses interspersed with words of love and adoration.
‘I intend that we shall be married as soon as is possible,’ Darian finally warned as he continued to hold Mariah tightly in his arms, as if afraid, if he let her go, she might disappear in a puff of smoke. ‘I believe the least we are owed, for helping to foil this plot against the Prince Regent, is the granting of a Special Licence. Unless, of course, you would prefer to have a big grand wedding, with all of the ton in attendance?’ he added uncertainly as the idea occurred to him that Mariah had never really had a happy wedding day. ‘I suppose I might