Her laughter sliced painfully through him and he quickly released her, a hurt expression filling his eyes.
“You were jealous!” she exclaimed, beaming in her joy. “It was pure, simple jealousy.”
“Of course I was jealous,” he said, puzzled by her reaction. “Watching Belton cozying up to you at every opportunity? It nearly drove me mad.”
“And are you certain that it is not madness driving you now?” She searched his face, looking desperately for a final sign of his sincerity.
He leaned down and softly brushed her Ups with his. “If it is madness, I welcome it gladly.”
She stepped back once again, and he saw the apprehension in her eyes. “Lord knows, you have cause to doubt me, Kate. I do not know what else I can do to convince you. I can only ask for your trust.”
“If you so much as touch another woman, I will cut your heart out.” Her smile belied her words.
“And I will willingly hold the knife for you,” he said, pulling her into his arms once again. “My dearest, darling Kate, say you will.”
She smiled up at him, her face lit with a radiant joy. “I think, my Lord Knowlton, that you have yourself a wife.”
He stopped any further words with a kiss.
Some minutes later, when he at last released her from his arms, Knowlton slipped his arm around her waist and guided her slowly back to the house.
“It there not something you are forgetting, Lady Knowlton-to-be? ”
“What is that, Edward?” How wonderful to speak his name again.
“You have yet to say you love me.” His voice was low and husky.
“And are you so certain that I do?” Katherine could not resist the impulse to tease him. She loved him all the more for his newly revealed vulnerability.
He stopped and looked at her in mock despair. “Do not say you are marrying me only for my title!”
“Or your money?” Her mouth curved in a teasing smile.
“Or my body?” He raised an impish brow.
Katherine laughed and wrapped her arms about his neck. “I love you, Edward Beauchamp, foolish as I have often thought that to be. I have loved you for a dreadfully long time, and if you love me half as much as I do you, we will deal together famously.”
“Impossible,” he said, leaning down for another kiss. “No one could possibly be more filled with love than I.” He lifted her in his arms and twirled her in dizzying circles. “Kate, Kate, my lovely Kate,” he murmured over and over until they were both breathless and laughing with love and hope.
The Defiant Miss Foster & A Highly Respectable Widow Page 49
