She had to wait until Robbie was safely out of the way, which meant that she had had to get Drogo’s support in sending Robbie upstairs to make a list of the fireworks he most wanted.
As soon as he had gone Emerald closed the drawing-room door and leaned against it, blocking Drogo’s exit as well as Robbie’s unwanted return.
‘There’s something I want to discuss with you,’ she told Drogo.
‘About Robbie?’
‘About Robbie,’ she agreed. ‘Robbie practically worships you, Drogo.’ It was a hard admission for her to make but it had to be done. ‘In fact, I believe he would rather spend his life with you than with me.’
She moved away from the door, unable to bear the steady intensity of Drogo’s concentration on her.
She’d wanted to lead up to things slowly and carefully, hoping that Drogo might guess what was coming and do the asking for her, but now suddenly she was too impatient to wait, too anxious on Robbie’s behalf to delay.
‘Once upon a time you asked me to marry you,’ she began as lightly as she could.
Drogo inclined his head. ‘And you told me that I was the last person you’d want as your husband. Definitely not your choice of Prince Charming.’
Emerald exhaled a breath of mingled impatience and irritation. ‘I was just a girl then, Drogo. Now I’m a mother, Robbie’s mother. And the fact is, well, if you still want to, then now I will marry you.’
‘For Robbie’s sake?’
‘He adores you. He talks about you night and day. He’s a boy, Drogo, and he needs a man in his life, a father, and the father he would want is you. I know that.
‘You need to marry,’ she pointed out when he said nothing. ‘The dukedom needs an heir, and I’ve already proved I can produce a son. I know what being your duchess will entail.’
She looked at him. What was he thinking? It was impossible to know from his face. Watching him, it came home to her how much he had grown from the awkward young Australian she had baited so cruelly. He was a man now, confident, at ease with himself. Something happened low down in the pit of her stomach, a keening ache that caught her off guard and stung colour into her face.
‘So if I say yes, then I get Robbie, I get an heir and I get you. But what do you get, Emerald?’
‘Me?’ She was honestly confused by his question. ‘I get Robbie’s happiness. He loves you, Drogo. He needs you and so do I, on his behalf.’
He still wasn’t saying anything.
‘I know you may find it hard to believe that I genuinely want to put him first, but something’s changed for me. I’ve changed. When it thought I was going to lose him I realised how much I loved him. I made a promise, a vow that if only he lived
, then I would do everything I could to make him happy and keep him safe. Can’t you see, Drogo? If you don’t marry me then one day you will marry someone else, one day soon perhaps, and then Robbie will lose you.
‘I know that I’m not really Robert’s daughter, but—’
‘That doesn’t come into it,’ Drogo stopped her, real emotion now in his voice. ‘It was you I wanted to marry, Emerald, not your genealogy.’
‘But now you don’t want to marry me any more?’
‘What would you do if that was the case?’
A small frown pleated Emerald’s forehead. ‘You are Robbie’s godfather. It wouldn’t be ideal but I’d ask for your word that you’d always make a place for him in your life, that you’d spend time with him.’ Her voice thickened, her eyelids dropping to cover her expression from him as she told him. ‘That you’d love him.’
It seemed an age before Drogo spoke again.
‘If we do marry there’ll be a condition.’
‘Anything,’ Emerald told him recklessly.
‘No more Max Preston. In fact, no more men of any kind.’
‘Is that all? I loathe the very thought of Max, and as for other men…I made a bargain–Robbie’s life for my promise to always put his best interests first. Don’t you see, Drogo, that Emerald, the old Emerald who thought only of herself and her own pleasure, has gone. Our marriage won’t be about me having a good time or…or enjoying sex. Drogo, what are you laughing for?’ she demanded, feeling affronted when he burst into laughter.
‘You’ve got an odd idea of what it takes to persuade a man into marriage,’ he told her, reaching out to catch hold of her hand and then gently tugging her towards him. ‘Of course I still want to marry you. I’ve never stopped wanting to, nor stopped hoping that one day you will. Much as I do love Robbie, it isn’t just for his sake that I practically camp out on your doorstep, you know.’