In a remarkable contradictory show of disloyalty, Aria gave an enthusiastic nod. “You will,” she silently mouthed.
Yes, later. But for now, she wanted to be alone and away from the questions and demands. From all of it.
With her mother and sister left gaping at her, Sybil stalked past them, out into the hall. By servants hurrying about with valises and trunks. “The bloody library,” she muttered as she reached that much talked about room. “As though I give a jot about what damned books I’ve forgotten or might forget.” She pushed the door open. “I…” The words trailed off and she cocked her head. She’d spent these past two days so often thinking of him and dreaming of him, that she’d surely conjured him. Sybil blinked several times. But no matter how many times, the sight remained. Gloriously blond and tall like that golden angel Michael, who’d cast the darkest sinner outside the gates of heaven Nolan stared back.
“Sybil,” he murmured, that husky baritone washing over her, warming her when she’d been so very cold these two days.
“Nolan,” she whispered, glancing around. “What—?” He withdrew a sack from his sapphire jacket and her heart lurched.
“This is yours.”
This is why he’d come. He may as well have slapped her for the sting of pain that lanced her heart. Lifting her palms, she warded off that damned sack. “It is yours. As is the thousand pounds,” she said, the words coming as though they belonged to another. “I…” I cannot say hired. Not when it would sully what they’d shared. “It was wrong of me to ask you to,” she scrabbled with her skirts, “help, but help me you did.” And showed me more happiness in those handful of days.
He rocked on his elegant black heels. “I wanted to thank you.”
“Thank me?” she echoed dumbly.
“For instilling in me the courage to speak with my siblings about my,” he touched the back of his head. “About my injury. My brother and I have spent the past two days examining business ventures. Lucrative ones.”
Nolan looked at her. What did he expect of her here? Something was expected but through the tumult of her emotions, she couldn’t puzzle it out. She dampened her lips. “Indeed?”
He nodded.
After years of cloaking himself in guilt and shutting out all, including his siblings, he’d let them inside. This is why he’d come. To thank her for that. She drew in a shuddery breath, feeling petty and selfish for this not being enough. But she was grateful just the same because she’d brought something positive and good to his life.
“We will struggle,” he went on. “Creditors will continue to come…but in time…”
Sybil let her hands fall to her side. “I am so happy for you, Nolan.” For he’d found peace and there was nothing more important than that. Other than love…
“Would you please sit, Miss Cunning?”
Miss Cunning? Her heart ripped. That polite address stripped away all of the tender warmth shared between them.
He gestured to the leather button sofa closest to him. “Will you please?”
That entreaty brought movement back to her limbs, only stopping when she’d reached the indicated seat. Sybil searched his face but found no hint of emotion.
“You are a woman of logic and reason.” He looked at her.
She wetted her lips. “I was.” Until you.
“You know precisely what you want and how you will live your life.”
I thought I did. You showed me I know far less. Unable to humble herself with that truth, she remained silent.
“As you are logical and practical, Miss Cunning.” He reached down and picked up a thick sheet of vellum on the table beside him. “You know all the reasons I would make you a rotted husband.” He discarded that sheet, setting it down on the rose-inlaid table beside him.
She froze. And then it made sense. “This is why you’re here,” she said flatly. He’d come not only to share about his healing with his family but also to convince her that she was better off without him. She wasn’t. Her life was fuller with him in it. “I’m not looking for you to marry me,” she said, proud of that even deliverance when, inside, she was breaking.
Nolan nodded somberly. “I feared as much.” He picked up another sheet. “However, I would be remiss, if I did not at least provide you every reason you should marry me. Or, at the very least, consider it.”
At that romantic request, a shuddery gasp broke from her lips and she buried it in her fingertips. Love for this man filled her as she looked between him and that page.
Then, like the most skilled governesses who’d held her riveted with their scholarly lessons, he carried on. “We laugh when we are together. We aren’t afraid to tease one another, Miss Cunning. Which means we would never have one of those dull, formal affairs where we referred to one another by our titles. Unless you wish to refer to one another by proper title.”
Dazed, she shook her head.
He grinned. “Splendid. May I continue?”
“Please,” she whispered. Her love for him swelled all the more.
He swiftly handed her over that page. She took it with shaking fingers and read the words inked there. Nolan grabbed another sheet. “You’ll never have to give up your scholarly pursuits. I would only ask that you include me when you’re conducting your studies.” He handed over the sheet.
Tears flooded her eyes. She blinked them back, alternating her blurred gaze between Nolan and those beautiful words.
“I’ll teach you how to ride a horse because, well, you really should know how to ride a horse.”
She took that inked promise and lovingly stroked the pledge he’d made there.
“And swimming. Egads, Sybil, you really must swim again and naked,” he carried on, startling a laugh from her. “But only with me. Also naked, of course.” He followed that with a wink.
A shocked gasp filtered into the room from the hallway, momentarily distracting them. They looked to the door.
“Come away, Lady Lovell.”
“But, Lord Lovell, he said…”
Sybil’s father ducked his flushed faced inside the room. “Uh, you must forgive me. You know your mother.” He hastily pulled the door closed behind them.
Sybil stifled the mortified laugh on her lips. “They knew.”
He nodded.
She giggled again. So that was the reason for Mother’s insistence. The viscountess had been correct. “I really must apologize to—” She gasped.
Nolan sank to a knee. “If I were a better man, that interruption from your parents would have bothered me. But I’m not. I’m just a man hopelessly and helplessly in love with you. Asking you to marry me. I—”
She hurled herself into his arms, knocking him back. He collided with the table and Nolan grunted as they came down hard on the floor. “There are more reasons, love,” he said hoarsely, as he levered them up.
“Yes,” she rasped, taking his face between her hands.
“Yes, you’d hear more reasons or yes you’ll marry—?”
She leaned up and kissed him, willing him to feel all the love she carried for him. Nolan drew her close. So much emotion spilled from his eyes, her chest swelled. “I love you,” she whispered.
All hint of teasing and his composed self were gone. He cupped her cheek in his warm palm and she leaned into that touch. When he spoke, his words emerged hoarse. “Again, if I were a better man, I would show you the other list.” He shot an arm out and dragged those pages over. “I would remind you of all the reasons why you should never be with me. But I am not. So I come and ask you to be with me, not just for a winter, but forever.”
Sybil yanked those offending sheets from his fingers. Wadding them in her hands, she tossed the sloppy, haphazard ball aside. “I don’t want a man who is perfect. I want a man who is real and, more, a man who loves me as I am.”
Nolan dropped his brow atop hers. “I would have you no other way.”
Her lower lip quivered. “Nor I you, Noel Pratt. Nor I you.”
“Then, let us s
eal this bargain with a kiss, love.”
And that was just what they did.
The End
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“The Spy Who Seduced Her”
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A widow with a past… The last thing Victoria Barrett, the Viscountess Waters, has any interest in is romance. When the only man she’s ever loved was killed she endured an arranged marriage to a cruel man in order to survive. Now widowed, her only focus is on clearing her son’s name from the charge of murder. That is until the love of her life returns from the grave.
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His Duchess for a Day by USA Today Bestseller Christi Caldwell
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It was never meant to be…
That’s what Elizabeth Terry has told herself while trying to forget the man she married—her once best friend. Passing herself off as a widow, Elizabeth has since built a life for herself as an instructor at a finishing school, far away from that greatest of mistakes. But the past has a way of finding you, and
now that her husband has found her, Elizabeth must face the man she’s tried to forget.
It was time to right a wrong…
Crispin Ferguson, the Duke of Huntington, has spent the past years living with regret. The young woman he married left without a by-your-leave, and his hasty elopement had devastating repercussions. Despite everything, Crispin never stopped thinking about Elizabeth. Now that he’s found her, he has one request—be his duchess, publicly, just for a day.
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A Little Winter Scandal: A Regency Christmas Collection Page 45
