“Ah, fuck. Sorry.”
People are staring. Some of them are starting to laugh, delighted sniggers behind their hands, as they exchange looks with one another and watch the stable boy try to impress the fine lady.
Aubrey’s forehead is creased in pain. “It’s fine. It’s worse when Cinnamon does it. Come on, let’s try again.”
I shake my head as she reaches for my hand. “No. It’s hopeless.”
“Don’t be silly. You were nearly getting it.”
I wasn’t, and she knows it. “It’s not going to work.”
“We just need to try again.”
“Aubrey,” I say sharply, taking her hand and gripping it tightly. “I’m not talking about the dance. I mean all of it. This isn’t going to work. It’s impossible.”
She gazes up at me, bewildered.
“You’ve been hoping, though, haven’t you? You’ve been thinking about marrying me without your father’s permission.”
Two red spots flare in her cheeks, and she glances around at everyone listening gleefully to our conversation. “We shouldn’t talk about this here.”
“Why not? We should just say it right here out in the open. I don’t belong in your world, and you don’t belong in mine.”
She tries to pull away from me, but I don’t let go. Her embarrassment is turning into tearfulness. “There’s no need to be so horrible about it.”
Levanter has seen us and is fighting his way toward us across the dancefloor. Rasmussen is approaching from the other direction. Both of them look furious.
I don’t care that everyone’s listening or that I’m about to be thrown out. This has to be said. “But it would be horrible. There’s no use pretending.”
“Then why did you even come here?” she cries, struggling to rip her hand from mine.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see the wedding guests exchanging whispers and looks. They’re making fools of themselves. Such an unwise match. Levanter should have put a stop to this long ago.
They want us to fail.
But I’m not letting go.
“I don’t want my world or your world. I don’t want either of us to give anything up. I want us to make our own world, together.”
Aubrey stops trying to pull away from me.
“Just you and me, baby,” I say softly. “A world we make together.”
Rasmussen and Levanter are breathing down my neck, but I only have eyes for her. “Be Mrs. Bellerose with me, and I’ll be Mr. Bellerose with you. No Court. No past. No Lungren and Varga. Just jodhpurs and horses and my home. Just us. Just you and me.”
Aubrey stares at me. You could hear a pin drop in the ballroom. I’m asking her to leave behind her birthright, to live a life with me where we’ll have to scrape a living together. I barely have two pennies to rub together.
“Damn you to hell, Cassian,” she says, a wobble in her voice.
My heart plummets through the floor.
Aubrey wipes a tear from her cheek. “This is all wrong. Why do you have to say it like that?”
“Like what?”
She shoves my shoulder with the heel of her hand, not like a lady at all. Like my Aubrey who’s pissed off with her man and wants him to do better. “Just us. Just you and me. Just nothing. Screw just. Don’t you know by now that all I want is us?”
Relief cascades through me. I grin and capture her hand, drawing her closer. “Don’t say screw. Say fuck. Let’s hear a few dirty words from that mouth of yours.”
“Fuck just. Ask me again, but this time, like you mean it.”
I fold her in my arms and tip her chin up to mine. Against her lips, I whisper, “Be mine. Be us. Be my Aubrey, and marry me.”
She throws her arms around my neck and presses her lips to mine. My arms are filled with layers of tulle and satin and my girl’s silky body. A fine lady, who’s going to be plain Aubrey Bellerose with me.
“You won’t be a lady anymore,” I whisper in her ear, because this is for no one to hear but her. My lips curve into a smile as I whisper, “But you’ll always be mine, if that’s what you want.”
Aubrey’s grin is bigger than I’ve ever seen. “Always, Cassian Bellerose.”
I kiss her smiling mouth. “I love you, Aubrey.”
“I love you, too.”
When I look up, Levanter and Rasmussen look ready to shed my blood. I’ve crashed the wedding, stolen the groom’s daughter and brought the whole event to a standstill.
My hand tightens on Aubrey’s. If I have to fight my way out of here with her, then I will.16AubreyDaddy looks so thunderous that if he had his weapons I think he’d run Cassian through with his sword. Rasmussen turns to signal for backup.
If they’re going to throw Cassian out, then they’ll have to throw me out, too. I stare desperately at Daddy, begging him not to do this. I don’t want to have to choose between being with the man I love and keeping my father’s love, but if he makes me, I’ll choose Cassian, every time.