Page 69 of The Earl’s Hoyden

“But you didn’t,” she protested. “I loved the way your old clothes fit you and how your hair was slightly too long.” She reached for his cropped hair with her free hand. It was as silky beneath her fingertips as she’d imagined it would be. “You were perfect as you were with your sweet charm and your unpolished candor.”

His cheeks colored in the glow of light washing over them from the ballroom. “You liked me how I was?”

“Yes.” Her heart pounded in a way she never thought it would. “And I love you too.”

A wide grin spread over his handsome face. “Do you?”

“I have for some time, but I’ve been so afraid of rejection that I let it drive a wedge between us. I wanted to prevent myself from getting hurt.” She took a deep breath. “I didn’t think it was possible for anyone to love me. It’s why I had the pact with the other ladies.”

“The pact?”

Hannah clapped her hands over her mouth in horror at what she’d shared.

Lucien’s brow quirked up. “Oh, now I must know.”

Hannah gave a resigned sigh and shook her head. “It was a pact never to wed that the other ladies and I signed when we were at Lady Finch’s Finishing School. We had plans to live in a manor in the country together, free to do whatever we wanted without judgment.” She rattled off the list they each had and how greatly they longed for the freedom to pursue what they enjoyed the most.

“I can see the appeal to that,” Lucien nodded. “But while I hate to ruin your plans…” He knelt before her and held her hand in his.

Her pulse spiked as she knew exactly what was coming.

“Hannah Bexley, you are the most beautiful woman in the world to me, and you’ve lit my life in ways I never knew possible.” His gaze met hers and held it with earnestness as he spoke. “Would you do me the esteemed honor…in front of our eager audience…”

He glanced to the window where all four of her friends’ faces were plastered against the glass, watching them. Hannah and Lucien shared a laugh before he continued, “Will you become my wife?”

She nodded enthusiastically. “Yes,” she gasped. “Yes! Nothing would make me happier.”

“Not even a manor in the country for you and your friends?” he asked with a grin as he straightened.

“Not even that.” She threw her arms around his shoulders, and he kissed her soundly.

A click sounded, and the door to the ballroom was thrown open amid the excited squeals of her friends.

A figure approached from behind them, and the excitement bubbling through Hannah diminished somewhat.

Lady Brightstone.

Her posture was severely rigid, her head held at a proud angle. “I owe you an apology, Miss Bexley.”

Hannah said nothing as the hurtful things the other woman had said welled in her anew.

“Lady Arksford told me after the fact that she knew you were in the bushes at Vauxhall Gardens. I realized then you’d heard what I said.” The muscles in her neck strained as she drew in a deep inhale. “I was immediately ashamed and tried to defend it with false means. My son is a strong man with a sense of justice. When he told me I needed to examine my own life, I realized exactly why I was so ashamed of how I’d spoken of you and how very wrong I was. He had defended you from my unfair accusations from the first.”

Her gaze went first to Lucien and then back to Hannah. “You are a good woman, Miss Bexley. If he asked you to marry him, I truly hope you said yes.”

“I did.” Hannah nodded, unable to trust herself to say anything more. Not with her throat so tight with the force of her surging emotions.

All the dreams she had once been too scared even to hope to wish for had finally come true in the most beautiful way. She had found love.

16

York, England

July 12, 1816

* * *

By Hannah’s request, she and Lucien opted for a four-month engagement. Not because she didn’t wish to wed him straight away, for she most ardently did. In part, because she wanted to leave room in case he changed his mind, but also because her idea of a dream wedding was not at St. George’s Church. She wanted summer flowers draped over arches and dripping from the polished wooden pews at the small chapel in York.