Surely she knew. Surely he’d told…
He’d never said the words.
Not in the heights of ecstasy. Not when he’d proposed. Not when he’d snatched her away from his despicable father.
What a blundering dunderhead he was.
“Diana, you’re my reason for living.” He caught her arm and waited for her eyes to meet his. The doubt he saw there made his gut clench. His voice deepened with sincerity. “After the beating, the memory of you kept me alive. The doctors were convinced I’d die. But I had to live to find you. You’re my shining star in the darkest night. You’re the music that makes my soul sing. You’re the air I breathe. You’re everything to me.”
A faint troubled line appeared between her delicate brows. She studied his face as if what he said made no sense. “But do you love me?”
“What do you…” Devil take him, he realized he still hadn’t said the words.
He paused and sucked in a deep breath. Strangely what he said next emerged from a deeper part of his soul than his earlier declaration, heartfelt as it was.
“I love you, Diana.”
For a moment, she was so still, he thought she hadn’t heard him. Then the tension rippled out of her, and her eyes sparkled dazzling silver. “And I love you, Tarquin.”
He smiled at her. She was his beloved and his life. “Anything else is a mere afterthought.”
She cast him a glittering glance under her eyelashes. His soul expanded with delight as she became again the alluring siren he remembered from all those decadent hours in London. Apart from the tearstains on her cheeks, little trace remained of the distraught woman who had sobbed in his arms.
“Don’t
you think you should kiss me?”
“Already I become a henpecked husband.”
Her lips twitched. “A mere shadow of your former self.”
“Indubitably.”
“A disgrace to the fraternity of rakes.”
“A complete disaster as a rake.”
She tilted her head up in unmistakable invitation. “Shall we proceed, my lord Ashcroft?”
He swept one arm around her waist and drew her unresisting body close. “With all my heart, my dear Mrs. Carrick.”
For all the lightness between them, his heart gave a premonitory thud. He couldn’t mistake the significance of this moment. From here, his existence started anew.
Very gently, he placed his mouth on hers. Passion was never absent when he was with her, but right now, reverence emerged paramount. He loved her more than he’d ever imagined he could love anyone. And against all logic, against all justice, against all common sense, even, she loved him back.
She trembled with swift response and parted her lips, kissing him with a fervor that told him more clearly than words how she’d missed him.
From now on, she’d never miss him again. His Diana indeed.
Forever.
Epilogue
Vesey Hall, Buckinghamshire
October 1829
Diana, Countess of Ashcroft, rose from the satinwood desk in her sitting room. She placed her hands behind her back for a long and satisfying stretch. All afternoon she’d been poring over the estate accounts.