“You say that now,” she snapped, her patience beginning to unravel at his blind optimism. “But in a few years, when the glow of new love has faded, you will sing a different tune.”
“Oh, well, as to that, my ability to hold a note is appalling, and so you may have no fears on that score.”
The man was maddening; why could he not see reason? “Quincy—” she fairly growled.
But he held up his free hand. “But I’m not asking you to marry me.”
“Er…good,” she managed, painfully aware that as her frustration faded a yawning hopelessness was quickly taking its place. Finally, he saw reason. It was what she had been working toward. Yet she had not realized just how horrible this moment would be.
Once again, however, she had underestimated him.
“At least, not just yet.” He grinned. “I have two very important things to take care of before I drop to my knee, you see. The first, of course, being my obvious lack of a ring. But when I visited the jewelers in town I looked at their wares—not a one of their pieces right—and I thought to myself, there is no way she will understand how much she means to me with a simple ring. Every man gives a woman a ring, after all. So I spent the better part of the day racking my brain, trying to come up with something that would show you the magnitude of my devotion.”
He reached behind him and pulled something from the band of his breeches. When his hand reappeared, it was holding a legal-looking document.
She stared at the paper uncomprehendingly for a long moment. Yet he remained patient, the paper not so much as trembling in his steady grip.
Finally, she took it. And gasped when she read its contents.
Her eyes flew to his. The hope she’d been so furiously holding at bay broke through her defenses when she saw the certainty and love shining in his face. “Swallowhill is mine?”
“It is,” he murmured.
“I don’t understand.”
“My love, surely you must see,” he said tenderly, “you are worth more to me than anything in this world.”
Her heart, which had been patiently waiting for her head to catch up to it, surged with a joyful beat. Even so, she shook her head, unable to make sense of it all. “But the sale…Lord Fletcher…”
“Was going to demolish it,” he said quietly.
Her breath stalled, the idea of that beloved place being reduced to rubble a shock to her senses.
He nodded grimly. “And I could not see it torn down, knowing how much you loved it and what it was to you.” He smiled again, not a trace of doubt in his eyes. “So it’s yours, to do with as you wish. Even should you—” His voice faltered. And though he quickly brought it under control, the vulnerability was plain to see.
“Even should you refuse me when I finally ask you,” he tried again, more subdued than before, “it will remain yours.”
She gaped at him, stunned. “But your dreams to travel the world…” she whispered. “Selling Swallowhill was your one chance to save the dukedom and still have the funds for your journeys. I cannot ask you to give that up.”
“You didn’t ask me, my love. I do it, willingly and without even a moment’s regret.” He smiled, making no effort to hide the sheen of tears glistening in his eyes. “All I want is your happiness, Clara. And if that means I have to release you, giving you the means to be free the rest of your days, so be it.”
As she continued to stare at him, unable to speak for the joy and fear battling within her, his expression fell. “Now for the second matter that must be dealt with before I can ask you to marry me. And it is by far the more painful of the two.”
The sudden grim seriousness in his expression sent a chill through her. He released her hand and made his way to the hearth, looking down into the low fire. She could just make out the glow of the blaze highlighting the tic in his jaw and the tight lines at the corner of his eye.
Biting her lip, suddenly nervous, she held the deed tight and waited.
***
Quincy could barely hear the faint crackling of the fire for the pounding of his heartbeat in his ears. Why was he nervous? This was Clara. There was no one in this world he trusted more than her. She would never judge him for the circumstances of his birth.
Yet he couldn’t shake this creeping fear in him that she might look at him differently. And in a flash he understood why she had been so reluctant to tell him of her own past. Though how much worse it must have been for her, how much strength it must have taken to lay her entire history at the feet of the people she loved.
Once again, he was struck by just how brave this woman was that he’d fallen in love with.
Drawing in a deep breath, he turned to face her. Her eyes were wide in her pale face, her teeth digging into her full bottom lip. He tried for a smile but couldn’t quite manage one. “I’ve learned who Miss Willa Brandon was.”
She blinked in surprise. No doubt she hadn’t quite expected that. “And?” she prompted.