“Do self-indulgent debauchees attach any significance to love? Not sex, Fitz, love.” She was insane, of course, to ask for so much when he’d promised her marriage. Any other woman would have replied with an unhesitating yes. But after a marriage that had become a casualty of disappointed hopes, she was no longer naive.
“Do you love me? ” he countered.
She looked away. Too many women had loved him, she jealously thought.
Taking her chin between his thumb and forefinger, he gently turned her head back. “Tell me.”
“You didn’t answer my question.” She would not bestow her heart on a profligate’s whim. How could she even contemplate such lunacy?
“I can’t live without you,” he said, letting his hand drop. “I think of you day and night. I’d keep you in my pocket if I could. And if that’s not love, it’s something close. You’re the world to me.” He ran his fingers through his hair, suddenly restive under the unprecedented circumstances. “And I don’t say that lightly,” he admitted. “You’ve seriously disrupted my life.”
“Maybe it’s time someone did.” Cautious she might be, but Fitz’s sincerity was plain. Was it possible to believe in love again-in a man like Fitz’s declaration of love? In the baffling, sometimes fallible and difficult concept?
“You can fix the disorder in my life, though.” He grinned, immune to difficulties of any kind if she would agree to be his wife. “Just say yes.”
“You’re looking way too smug.” She doubted any woman had ever said no to him.
He quickly swept his hand over his face. “Better? ” But the corners of his mouth were still twitching.
“You can’t always have your way,” she said half-grudgingly. She’d built an independent life for herself the last few years and Fitz was blowing it apart like a wild force of nature.
“Other than having you say yes, I don’t care if I do or not. I’ll willingly take orders,” he said, shocking himself with his unexpected largesse. Next thing he knew, he’d be writing love poems. “Come, make my mother happy,” he quipped, in compensation perhaps for his abnormal compliance. “Marry me.”
She gave him a narrowed look. “This isn’t about your mother.”
“Forgive me. I’ll be serious. But for God’s sake, say yes and put me out of my misery. If it would help with your decision, let me point out that my architect is redrawing my entire neighborhood project. Your store remains where it is; the buildings on both sides will be lowered slightly to allow more light into your garden. And you can have half of the buildings on the block to do with what you will.” He smiled. “I thought you might like to have apartments set up for your poor customers or perhaps a school for the young women you’re helping. But you decide and I’ll have the papers drawn up.”
Suddenly in one fell swoop all her dreams had come true, everything she’d been working for so hard was not only possible but also likely. “It’s all overwhelming, Fitz,” she whispered, scarcely able to breathe.
“No, darling,” he whispered back, taking her hands in his. “You’re the one who’s overwhelming. Truly, I’m at a loss without you. I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, I wasn’t interested in sex, and until yesterday I’d been drinking myself into an early grave. So when do you want to get married? Tomorrow? Today?” She hadn’t formally agreed, but his talent for reading women was functioning again.
“What do you mean you weren’t interested in sex?” she asked incredulously, the phrase not interested in sex a trumpet blast in her brain.
“You unmanned me, darling. No women looked even remotely interesting. I’ll admit it unnerved me at first, but not enough to actually climb in bed with anyone,” he casually noted. His libido never in doubt, he’d not been unnerved for long.
“Really,” she breathed, his admission the final seal of approval, the ultimate compliment as well.
“Really.” He smiled. “I’ll expect due compensation for my unusual abstinence.”
“Perhaps that can be arranged,” she softly said, no longer unsure or in doubt. “Since you happen to be the love of my life.”
His brows flickered in playful rejoinder. “I was hoping you’d say that. No, I was desperately hoping you’d say that,” he added, not an iota of teasing in his voice this time.
“One more thing-and I apologize for even saying this,” Rosalind noted, but not wanting things left unsaid like they’d been with Edward. “I’d like to go to university.” Maud’s words were still ringing in her ears. Many in the aristocracy viewed higher learning as bourgeoise; she wasn’t sure if Fitz was among them.
“Done.”
“Just like that? ” she whispered.
“I know the provosts at Oxford and Cambridge. I’m a prominent benefactor.”
“It’s truly frightening, Fitz, being offered so much.” She took a small breath against her sudden fear. “What if it all goes away? ”
“I’m not Edward,” he gently said; he’d read all of Hutchinson’s reports. “I promise to love you always. And take care of you.”
“What if… I don’t want… to be taken care of? ”
He smiled at the new modern woman gazing up at him with tears in her eyes. “Then I won’t.” He bent his head and gently brushed her lips with his. “Unless there’s times you want me to.” He kissed her softly. “You tell me when,” he whispered.
Her bottom lip trembled. “How about… now? ”
“I’d love to.” His heart was in his eyes. “And that’s love, love, not sex, darling. And no one knows the difference better than I. Which reminds me, I brought you some rings,” he said, sliding his hand into his trouser pocket. “Don’t get upset,” he quickly added at the sudden set of her mouth. “They’re engagement rings; I was hopeful, not presumptuous. Just hopeful. Here-take your pick.” He held open his hand. “Actually, take them all.”
She’d never seen such enormous, colored diamonds. There must have been six or eight rings sparkling on his palm. “This is too extravagant for a church mouse,” she said with a tremulous smile.
“Nonsense. You’re my city mouse now,” he added with a grin, sliding a large pink diamond on one of her fingers. “There. Do you like it? ”
She took a deep breath and gazed at the ring dwarfing her knuckle. “Who wouldn’t? ” she whispered.
“How about these then? ” He quickly embellished seven more of her fingers with a rainbow of rings.
“I suppose you know this is completely overwhelming.” She included the garden with a sweep of her be-ringed hand, the shock to her system considerable after a life of relative penury. “Does anyone ever say no to you? ”
Fitz laughed. “You forget, my obstinate little darling, that you’ve been saying no to me ever since we met.”
She smiled, feeling less disadvantaged at his reminder. “And you were captivated.”
A teasing light came into his eyes. “That and I wanted to win.”
“And now we both have.”
“Yes,” he softly agreed, knowing full well that only love could have inspired him to change his Monckton Row plans. “So what do you say, my dear Lady Groveland?” he murmured, liking the sound of the designation, liking more that she’d agreed to share her life with him. “Do you think maybe we should start our new life with a bath? ”
EPILOGUE
THEY WERE MARRIED by special license the following day because Fitz wouldn’t wait. As it turned out, it was a wise decision since Rosalind discovered she was pregnant a week later when she threw up on her new husband as they were breakfasting in bed.
He was delighted; she was as well for she hadn’t been sure she was capable of having a child after so many years of barrenness in her first marriage.
“It wasn’t my fault after all,” she cheerfully said a few minutes later, looking over her shoulder at Fitz, who held her between his legs in his very large bathtub.
“Of course it wasn’t your fault,” he replied, understanding what she meant but no more willing to mention Edward’s name than
she. “You’re perfect in every way,” he added like a besotted husband. “Although you may want to consider putting off your university studies for a time.”
“Are you saying I should? ” Her voice held the smallest edge.
He grinned. “God no. I wouldn’t dare. You and junior or junioress may go off to university until the day you deliver for all I care.”
“And then what? ”
“Darling, darling, stop. You’re free to do whatever you wish, whenever you wish-short of sleeping with another man, of course. There, I draw the line.”
“As I do with you on that same score,” she firmly said.
He could have said I’ve slept with so many women I’ve had my fill, but circumspect, he said instead, “We are agreed. Now then, we should have the dressmaker sent for. You’ll be needing new clothes.”
And so Fitz unfailingly remained in the months to come, amiable and benevolent in every way to his darling wife. He had, after all, sampled extensively from the smorgasbord of sexual amusements in the past and understood he was most fortunate to have found the love of his life.
As for Rosalind, she too realized that Lady Luck had clearly taken a hand in her meeting Fitz. And having secured her heart’s desire, she was truly grateful and blissfully content.
Susan Johnson
***
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Gorgeous As Sin Page 29
