It was that, or risk losing her, and the latter wasn’t an option.
Closing the door, he walked to the fireplace while she shrugged off her cloak and set her reticule aside. In the carriage, he’d debated letting her speak first, letting her release whatever it was that was so clearly brewing inside her, but then he’d remembered how she could rant and rave; very likely she’d distract him. Best if he grasped the nettle and spoke first.
He swung to face her as she neared, and trapped her gaze with his. “Before we get distracted with anything else, there’s something I want to say.”
She blinked, surprised, but then he saw a certain wariness creep into her dark eyes, eyes whose expression he could now often read.
He drew breath, and spoke quickly. “The truth is…I love you to distraction, and will move heaven and earth, and anything between, to make you mine.”
She blinked, no doubt recalling what were almost exactly her own words, but now he’d taken the plunge, he found the rest came more easily.
“I know that your family—Alton, Roger, Nigel, and all the rest—need you, that that need is real in its way, but I need you more.” He held her gaze steadily, and dropped every shield he possessed, every veil he’d used through the years to hide behind, something at which he’d grown exceedingly adept. “I have a manor house that’s been empty for too long, a rose garden with a bench that hasn’t had a lady to sit on it, to look over the blooms and play with her children, not for decades.
“I know you care for your brothers, your wider family. I understand what they mean to you, perhaps even more because I’m an only child. Indeed, because I understand, there’s nothing I want more in life than to have a family of my own, with you. A quiverful of children—little girls just like you, imperious and haughty, who’ll order me around.” He lifted his shoulders in a half shrug. “And a few boys, too, perhaps more like me, to keep you and the girls occupied arranging our lives.”
He saw the tears slowly fill her eyes, but didn’t pause, didn’t dare stop to learn why she was crying.
“I suppose I should adhere to the usual prescription, but that hardly seems applicable to us.” He drew breath, and hurried on, “I want you in every imaginable way, but especially as my wife. I don’t want some meek and mild miss, some simpering ninny. I want you, just as you are, the you others don’t understand and are wary of, the you I’ve seen so clearly over the last weeks—that’s the you I appreciate and want and need.
“I want you as you are, by my side for better or for worse, in sickness and in health.” He managed a small smile. “We’ve already encountered much of the worst of each other, and weathered it, and experienced sickness”—he gestured toward his head—“too. But more than all else, it’s you I want, not some marquess’s daughter, not a well-dowered bride, but just you.”
Reaching out, he took her hands, shifted closer, looking down into her eyes, swimming in tears. “You know what I am. I’m not any kind of gentle man. Through the centuries, Warnefleets have always been warriors. Because of that, I don’t need any gentle lady as my wife, I need you as my warrior-queen. For me, only you will do. You’re the only lady I’ve ever even dreamed of having as my wife.”
He dragged in a breath. “However, just so we’re clear, although I’m wealthy and wellborn, as you are, I don’t want to live a fashionable life in town. I’ve estates scattered the length and breadth of the country, and I enjoy running them, making them work. Taking good care of them, and the people they support. That, to me, is my rightful place. A touch medieval, perhaps, but if the cap fits…and in that respect, my wife needs to be an experienced lady I can rely on to sort out the roster for the church flowers, among other things.”
Although her eyes had filled, they hadn’t overflowed, but glowed through the tears, magical in their luminosity.
Hope welled. He essayed a small smile. “Do you think you could make do with that? With my heart, my love, and that?”
Clarice’s heart felt so full she could barely speak. It wasn’t his proposal that slayed her, but the manner of it, his laying of his warrior’s heart at her feet.
When she swallowed, and didn’t immediately answer, because she couldn’t yet speak around the lump in her throat, his face hardened, just a fraction. “Will you marry me, Boadicea?”
She tried to smile through her tears, but it must have been a poor effort, because his expression changed to one of incipient panic.
“If you really wish it, I can manage the estates from town—we could live there for most of the year.” He dragged in a breath. “If that’s what you want, I’ll do even that—anything—”
Pulling her hands from his, she waved them to cut him off. “No, no, no!” The words came out in a tear-sodden mumble.
His face fell. Then he blinked. “No to what?”
She managed to drag in a big enough breath, managed a real smile, a radiant one. “No don’t spoil it.” She looked deep into his eyes, saw his sudden panic evaporate as he looked into hers. “That was the most perfect proposal I could ever have hoped to hear.” She let all she felt show in her eyes. “I love you, you dolt. I’ve loved you for weeks.”
He grinned, and reached for her; she let him draw her into his arms. Reaching up, she traced his cheek. “I hoped, truly hoped that you’d ask me to marry you. I’ve never wanted to marry anyone else, not the way I wanted to be your wife. I was going to go back to Avening with you, then do whatever it took to extract a proposal from you.”
She tilted her head. “And if I failed, I was prepared to be your mistress for however long you wanted me. I’d rather be your mistress than any other man’s wife.”
His grin took on a distinctly male edge. He bent to kiss her; she placed a hand on his chest and pushed back.
“No—wait. Let me finish. I said I was going to wait and go back to Avening with you.” She paused to draw in a huge breath. “But last night, and even more tonight when that man threw the knife and I thought I might die, and then you hit me, and I thought you might die, and then the knife struck you, and that was even worse.”
She searched his eyes, saw nothing but love in the gold and green. “I was going to speak to you tonight, now. I was going to tell you how much I love you, that it didn’t matter if you didn’t want to marry me, but I had to tell you, had to own to it”—she felt the tears come again and fill her eyes—“because life’s too short to turn aside from love.”
He looked at her for a moment, then bent and kissed her eyes closed, kissed away the tears that seeped beneath her lashes.
“We’re not going to turn aside from love—we’re going to embrace it.” His words slid into her mind, into her heart as his arms slid around her and held her safe, close. Secure. “We’re going to go home to Avening and fill the manor with children, and grow old watching over them and managing our estates.”
Her arms stole around him and she sank against him, sniffed delicately. “What about Percy? He’s sweet, but…”