They locked gazes, stubbornness against pride against determination. Finally the earl nodded, exchanged glances with his wife and then walked from the room.
Just like that. The truth—well, some of it—had been revealed. He had stood up to the tyrant and emerged unscathed.
Before he’d completed the thought, his mother approached, water still dripping from her kohl-darkened eyes, leaving tracks down her cheeks. The crack of her palm connecting with his cheek resounded through the room chased closely by the echo.
“How could you be so heartless?”
Justin stared into eyes the same color as his own and gave her the only reply he could think of.
“I learned from the best.”
Chapter Nineteen
The rest of the day passed in a haze of preparations. Justin didn’t have time to think as it all happened at once. He had to make the funeral plans, write an announcement for the morning paper, sort the two households. Sometime around ten o’clock he realized Carmalina had left the room and never returned. He’d assumed she had to have a moment’s privacy or had gone to ask for breakfast since they’d both been awake all night.
When he enquired as to her presence, the butler said she’d ordered a hack and left.
Justin was too exhausted to run the distance back across the park to his house.
His house.
It would take time to get used to all of the changes. Time he didn’t have. Proposing marriage the way he had, had obviously been a mistake. Carmalina hadn’t gone back to his home to sleep. He knew it in his gut.
He had to convince her of his love. He had to make her see he wanted her in his life no matter what. He had to make her see it didn’t matter what his name was, what her name was or who she was. He wanted her in his life.
He loved her.
She was the first person he would ever really say those words to. He’d said them to Oliver because he knew it was what he needed to hear as he lay dying. He hadn’t not meant it. He just hadn’t known what love was.
Now he did.
When they weren’t together, he hurt. He thought about her constantly. When they were together he didn’t just want to bed her. He wanted to sit before the fire and swap stories. He wanted to lie with her on the grass in the sunshine and revel in her companionship. He wanted to wake up next to her every day and wrap her in his arms every night.
They could live wherever she wanted. He didn’t care. As long as they were together and happy, he would live in the desert or even Scotland if he had to.
Another half an hour passed and Scotland seemed better and better every second while he waited for his carriage. Before the conveyance stopped, he jumped through the door and raced up the stairs, throwing the entry doors wide, bellowing her name.
“Carmalina!” he roared. “Carmalina!”
“The lady is in her room,” Newberry informed him with a worried look on his normally placid face.
Justin didn’t wait for anything else. He took the main stairs three at a time and burst into her bedroom in time to see her pull the last catch on her suitcase.
She turned to face him, tears streaming down her cheeks.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
Carmalina stared at him. For a long time she didn’t speak and then, “I am leaving.”
“You tried that before,” Justin reminded her.
“This time I’m going. You can’t stop me.”
“You’re right.” He turned and fled into his own rooms.
* * *
Carmalina’s heart sank to her feet as she watched him leave. He could have at least tried to stop her, fought her, begged her to stay, wished her well. Instead he had run.
She had to press a fist to her mouth to stop her anguish from growing into wild hysteria. He had to choose now to run away? Right when she’d been ready to crumble at his first “please.” Only he hadn’t said a thing.
Gathering up her single battered suitcase, she felt a keen sense of déjà vu. Once again she left behind the strongest reminders of what she walked away from. The red velvet dress. The pale purple silk from the masque the previous night.
The last week felt like an eternity but once again, she had grown complacent. God had taken something else from her that she’d wanted.
But you weren’t truly happy.
No, she hadn’t been.
She stopped, dropped her case to the floor and dug a linen from her pocket to wipe her nose. All of her life, every time she’d been happy, she’d lost it all and there hadn’t been a damned thing she’d been able to do about it.
This time she had some power. He’d asked her to marry him. He couldn’t just take that back. What if she’d said yes? What if she had agreed to his hastily planned last-moment attempt to upset his mother? Would he have explained it away later? How could someone do that?
Fury wrapped around her crumbling heart as the realization hit her. He wasn’t the one walking away. She was.
The choice was hers now. God couldn’t take away what she didn’t have and Justin Trentham had no right to treat her the way he had.
From the start, she’d told him not to fall in love with her. He’d broken their agreement several times over yet still she played the part of his shameless lover. He owed her. Justin now had what he wanted, but what about what she wanted?
What do you want?
“I want respectability,” she said to the portrait hanging on the wall. “I want to live.”
Marching back into her rooms, she charged through the connecting door to find Justin packing a suitcase of his own.
“You can’t make me leave,” she said, hands on hips, toe tapping.
“No one is making you leave,” he replied, turning to meet her angry stare.
“You are a despicable excuse for a man,” she shouted, fighting to keep the insults in a language he would understand.
“You knew that already.”
“You used me in your schemes.” Her voice grew louder and louder. “You have what you wanted, but what about what I want?”
“What do you want?” Justin asked, bemusement making his lips curl upwards.
“I want you to marry me.”
“What?”
“You asked me to marry you for the sake of your scandal. You did it in front of your mama and papa expecting, no, knowing, I would say no. Well. I changed my mind.”
“You have?”
“Absolumon, signor. Our agreement no longer stands. I want more than a house in the country.”
“Tell me what your conditions are now.”
Carmalina’s anger grew. Why couldn’t he hear what she tried to say? He’d changed the rules so many times that now it was her turn. “No more damned conditions!”
“Agreed.”
Instantly her rage turned to confusion and irritation. Did he speak English? Had she slipped into Italian without realizing?
“No more conditions and no more talk of bargains,” he said.
Carmalina nodded.
“I asked you to marry me not because they were in the room, but because you were in the room. I had to tell you I loved you otherwise I may never have had another chance.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Life is short, bella. This very moment could be our last. That moment could have been our last.”
“But you said you would never fall in love.”
“I was wrong.”
Carmalina’s heart filled with hope to the point where she thought her chest would burst. A silly giggle escaped her parted lips. “Ask me again.”
“But you just asked me.”
So she did but she wanted to start the right way. Up to this point they had done it all wrong, backwards and inside out. If they were to have a life together it would have to start right.
Justin took her hands and dropped to his knee. He placed a kiss on each of her knuckles and when he looked into her eyes, she saw conviction, certainty, his promise.
“Carmalina Bell
uccini, will you do me the great honor of becoming my wife?”
Another giggle escaped. With a nod she kneeled and kissed him the way a wife kisses a husband.
Justin kissed her back for a little while and then he stiffened and pushed her away.
“I’m going to need more than a nod from you, bella. Last time I kissed you and you nodded, you changed your mind.”
“Not this time. I’m going to say yes to you for the rest of our lives and beyond.”
He gave her that smile he reserved especially for her and all of her fears fell away. God no longer had any place in her happiness. No one could take this away. What had started as a scandal and a choice between life and death was now a firm promise of what they could be for each other. Names didn’t matter, destiny, religion, revenge. None of it mattered.
They had each other. Without even realizing it, they both now embraced what they’d fled.
She was loved and had a chance at happiness and he was loving and making the beginnings of a family with her.
“Do you love me?” he asked. “Really love me?”
“Yes,” she replied.
“Will you go to the ends of the earth with me?”
“Yes.”
“Kiss me.”
“Yes.”
* * * * *
About the Author
Bronwyn’s love of reading all things romantic got her into trouble at a very young age. Starting with Mills and Boons “borrowed” from her mum and then progressing to meaty fantasies and sweeping sagas. It’s only fair that romance pays her back with unique ideas for her own novels.
From her tree house in the Adelaide Hills she writes deep, emotional historical romance with independent heroines searching for Prince Charming and heroes worthy of the tag. Her life is made complete by the laughter of her young children, the meows of two white, fluffy cats and a man who thinks chivalry is what happens after you eat bad chicken.
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ISBN: 978-14268-9422-0
Copyright © 2012 by Bronwyn Stuart
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All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
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