He stepped inside and shut the door. Perhaps this wasn’t a conversation he cared to have overheard. As much as he wanted to cross to her, to take her in his arms and give her a proper greeting, he held himself back.
Her expression turned wry. “I should have guessed your ancestral home was in Scotland.”
He managed a faint smile. “Not the one I inherited. This is where I grew up.”
She looked around the room with renewed curiosity. “It’s lovely.”
“It’s home.”
The silence stretched between them, awkward in a way it had never been before. He wanted to reach out to her, but he held himself still. “Why—”
Why are you here?didn’t seem a polite question, even if it was what he wanted most to know.
“How did you learn of this estate?”
“Your aunt. It took some persuading, but she can’t argue with a duke.”
Thaddeus smiled briefly, imagining Perdie and her brother perched on his aunt’s spindly furniture. His aunt embodied the very image of a well-bred lady and would likely have sniffed at the thought of a young woman venturing across the country to visit a man. Especially if that man was her nephew, a very eligible earl, as she continued to remind him with her letters.
His smile faded as he realized that Perdie was standing in his drawing room, alone. “Please tell me you didn’t make the journey unescorted.”
She shook her head with a rueful smile that did little to quell his fears. “I’ve learned better. My brother and his wife decided to take the opportunity for an impromptu honeymoon. They’re waiting outside, ready to thrash you if you say no.”
“If I say no to what, precisely?”
Perdie squared her shoulders. Her eyes took on the same look she’d had when facing down the highwaymen. With a deep breath that drew his attention to the way her well-made, if plain, travelling dress fit across the swell of her chest, she crossed toward him. She was standing no more than a foot away before he’d fully registered she’d moved. Close enough to touch. Close enough that she had to tip her head back to meet his eyes.
“Somehow, while I was too busy telling myself I didn’t need a marriage, I fell madly in love with you.” Tears shimmered in her eyes, though they didn’t spill onto her cheeks. “Will you marry me, Thaddeus?”
He couldn’t breathe. She must be a mirage. He must be dreaming. Yet, when he reached out, her cheek was solid beneath his touch. Her skin was soft, warm from her flush. Despite her embarrassment, she didn’t look away. “What?”
“I love you. I am not afraid of marriage with you. You are my happiness and I trust you. I know that you will allow me the dreams in my heart.”
“I love you so damned much,” he choked out.
Her face brightened. She was as radiant as the sun. “Then you’ll marry me?”
He opened his mouth to say yes. It was what he’d wanted. Everything he’d wanted. But…what if she was only asking because she had no other choice?
He dropped his hand. “You’re with child.” It was the only reason he could think of that would entice her to cross the deuced country to ask him for the one thing she didn’t want.
She looked stricken. “No, actually. I suppose I ought to have prefaced this by talking of expectations. I wanted to be romantic. Blast, am I ruining everything?”
She looked so flustered, her cheeks high with color and her gaze darting everywhere but at him that his chest thawed. “You’re not with child.”
“No.” She cleared her throat. “And I don’t want to be, not yet, not so young. It…frightens me.”
“I know,” he said tenderly.
“I hope you don’t mind if we take precautions to avoid children, at least for a few years. I know you need an heir, but…”
“An heir be damned,” he said. He took her hands in his and kissed her fingertips. They were cold. “One of my sisters can provide me an heir. It’s family tradition at this point to hand off the lands to a nephew. As long as you’re by my side, I don’t need one.”
Her eyes widened. “You mean that.”
It wasn’t a question, but he nodded anyway. His voice was hoarse, his brogue thick when he managed, “With all my heart. I love you, Perdie. If you’re my wife, that’s all I need to be the happiest man in the world.”
Again, her face lit up, though this time tears spilled from the corners of her eyes. “Then you’ll marry me?”
He snaked an arm around her waist and pulled her flush against him. “We’re in Scotland, love. Drag Lionel or your brother in here, and we’ll already be married.”
He kissed her, long and hard and with every ounce of the emotion that had held him captive over the past few weeks. “I missed you.”
She teased him with a light kiss across the stubble over his chin. “You won’t have to miss me anymore, husband.”
Husband.He kissed the word off her lips and savored it, forever after.