Valentine's Vow (Avenging Lords 3)

Once out in the hall, the urge to run came upon her. Before her mind protested otherwise, she opened the front door and ran across the street.

“Ava!”

Rain fell, the drops landing like tears on her cheeks as if somewhere amidst the heavens her parents shared her disappointment, too.

The thud of Valentine’s boots pounding the ground behind sent her pulse racing. As she reached her front door, he grabbed her arm and swung her around to face him.

“Please tell me you are not running from me,” he said, his blue eyes filled with fear and doubt. “Do you not want to be my wife? Can you deny the passion we share?”

Part of her wanted to tell him she was silly. What lady would not want to marry him? Part of her had hoped for so much more.

“How can you ask me that?” Her heart was racing so fast it thumped against her chest. “Have you not heard what I said? I love you. I have given myself to you, the only man with whom I could ever share such an intimacy. Does that not tell you everything you need to know?” She dashed tears and raindrops from her cheek. “For an intelligent man, you surprise me.”

A smile formed on his lips. The frown on his forehead faded and his eyes shone with a brilliance she had not witnessed before.

“What?” she snapped. “You find the fact I have bared my soul amusing?”

“No, Ava. I find the fact you love me makes me grin like a mule eating briars.”

Still feeling a tad confused, she said, “Well at least one of us is being open with our feelings. But despite the fact Society may deem me the great whore of Babylon, I cannot marry you, Valentine.”

His amusement faded. “You love me. Nothing else matters.”

“It is not my feelings that are called into question.”

Was the man being deliberately obtuse?

Was it just that he wanted to hear her repeat her declaration?

Valentine slapped his hand to his chest, covering his heart as if mortally wounded. “You doubt the depth of my feelings? Did I not tell you, moments before we spotted your brother breaking into my mother’s house, I had something I wished to say?”

He had said that.

He had said that they shared a deep affection.

“You did,” she confessed. “What was it you wanted to say?”

Valentine stepped closer, his muscular body pressing her against the door, reminding her of the first night he kissed her in the mews. He cupped her cheek, and her heart quickened again beneath his touch.

“There is no other woman in the world for me, only you. You stole my heart the moment I underestimated you on the battlefield. You claimed my soul the moment you lowered your guard and turned to me for help. I am in love with you, Ava. Nothing would make me happier than if you consented to be my wife.”

The surge of emotion brought tears to her eyes. “You do?”

“I do.” He pressed his body against her, kissed her with a passion that conveyed the full extent of his feelings. “I have seen you strong, courageous and fiercely independent. I have seen you cry in my arms, seen fear mar your perfect features. I have heard your moans of pleasure, heard your voice raised in anger, and I choose it all. Everything. Every laugh. Every tear.”

Something between a laugh and a cry burst from her lips. She wrapped her arms around his waist, relished the unique scent that clung to his clothes, to his skin. Love filled her heart, so bright, so intense, so powerful.

“And I love the honourable gentleman and the scandalous libertine. I choose them both. I choose you, Valentine.?

??

They shared a kiss as hot and as wicked as the one they shared that night in the mews. Soon their breathing grew short and shallow. Had she a key to hand, she would have dragged him by the cravat into her house, though she doubted they would have made it past the stairs.

Valentine straightened and took a step back. “Thank the Lord it is three in the morning and your neighbours are about their beds.”

Ava glanced at the house across the street, to find Honora and Jonathan staring at them through the drawing room window. “Not all the neighbours are abed.”

Valentine followed her gaze. “I almost forgot about our interrogation.”