So it was understandable that Lily didn’t at first notice the very large man in her bed when she entered the room assigned to her.
When she did, she stopped dead and hissed, “You can’t be in here!”
The covers were pulled to his waist, but he appeared to be quite naked underneath.
“Why not?” Apollo asked, apparently having forgotten all the social niceties that someone must’ve taught him as a small child.
“Because this is your sister’s house.”
He cocked his head. “Actually it’s His Grace the Ass’s house, but I do see your meaning. You know she’s a floor above us?”
“Why do you even call him that?” she asked as she began removing her bodice. “He seems a perfectly nice man, if a bit stiff, and as I understand it, he actually rescued you from Bedlam.”
Apollo frowned ferociously. “He seduced my sister before they were married.”
She looked at him, eyebrow raised.
“And he’s an ass. But mostly it’s my sister.”
“So if Edwin chose to call you out over your very thorough debauchment of me…?”
“He’d be well within his rights,” he assured her. “In fact, he really ought to.”
She couldn’t tell if he was joking or not, and honestly she rather thought he wasn’t.
“Gentlemen have very odd minds,” she commented as she slipped out of her skirt.
“We do,” he replied lazily. “For instance, I’d rather like you to become my wife.”
She was silent, frowning as she unlaced her stays.
After a moment he cleared his throat. “This is where many a gentleman might think that it’s ladies who have odd minds.”
“Richard—”
“Please don’t do me the insult of comparing me to that worm,” he said, quietly and seriously.
“I’m sorry,” she said at once, because she was. Apollo was nothing like Richard and she more than anyone else knew that. “But you must understand: even without his violence, I don’t think their marriage would’ve been a happy one.”
He rolled to his side and propped himself up on his arm. “You’re still comparing,” he said gently. “I don’t give a damn about bloodlines. I think today’s events more than prove that only madmen do, really.”
She swallowed, pulling off her stays gingerly. “Your family won’t like an actress for your wife.”
“My family consists of Artemis and, I suppose by default, His Grace the Ass. Did you find either of them unwelcoming?”
“No, but—”
“And they won’t be.” He rose, gloriously nude, and walked to her, taking her hands. “Lily, my light, my love. What are you afraid of?”
“I…” she began and then couldn’t answer because she didn’t know what it was she feared. She looked up at him helplessly.
He smiled his gentle smile and brought her hand to his lips, tenderly kissing each fingertip. “I love you and you love me. I might’ve been in a little doubt before this afternoon, but when you flung yourself in front of a pistol, it did rather clarify things. And, since you love me and I love you, it is right and meet and wonderful that you and I become man and wife and spend the rest of our lives sleeping together and rising together and having masses of children together and living joyfully.”
“Masses?” she muttered a bit doubtfully, but fortunately he ignored her.
Apollo sank onto one knee there before her, with her only in her chemise and him in… nothing at all.
“Lily Stump,” he said, his voice rasping a little as it always would, “will you take me as husband and be my wife? Will you be my sun and light all the days of my life and never make me regret bathing in a muddy pond?”