From the moment I met you, you captivated me body and soul. Your beauty, your kind and generous mannerisms, even your scent stirred and enraptured me. When I realized my feelings for you were interfering with my vengeance, I tried to push you away. In the end, an end that may be too late for us, I now know you are more important to me than anything else.
When you return to London, I will be waiting for you. If you find it in your heart to forgive the pain I have caused you, I ask you to put me out of my misery and consent to be my wife. I see us having a most content and fortuitous future together. If not, I will endeavor to not trouble you with my unwanted affections. I await your response.
Lucan
Constance folded Lucan’s letter with tender care. Thunder rumbled overhead and a slight chill nipped at her. As rain started to drizzle, she rose and turned to hurry inside the conservatory, for she would not make it into the main house before the deluge. There was a sound of movement, she spun toward it and froze. Lucan. Her breath caught, everything seemed still in that moment. She could not move for the feelings washing through her. He is here.
He stared at her in silence, his chillingly beautiful eyes piercing as arrows. The profound relief in his gaze had the tension melting from her frame. She had missed him so.
Dressed in dark brown trousers and jacket, a white shirt, and riding boots, he looked splendid. A drop of rain splashed on her forehead, rolling into her eyes, but she did not blink, fearful that if she did, he would disappear.
He pushed his spectacles firmly onto his nose. His endearingly sweet, nervous gesture.
“I…Lucan, I am here,” she said softly. “I received your letter.”
His eyes blazed with emotions and raw tension emanated from him. He took a shuddering breath. “Will you have me, Constance?” His voice came out as a low rasp.
No statement of love or a reaffirmation of his earlier proposal, but she knew what he asked. The sky darkened and more rain wetted her. The strong column of his throat convulsed at her silence, and he swallowed. Tenderness pierced her deep at the vulnerability she never imagined she could see in his eyes. She ached to touch him, to hold him, to be held by him.
“Yes,” she whispered, but the flare of powerful relief, then desire in his gaze made her aware he heard, even over the distant rumble of thunder. A fork of lightning speared through the sky, a dark cloud blotting out the remainder of the sun, but neither of them moved. Constance felt trapped, weak limbed, yet energized from the need that poured from him, wrapping her in heat, although he did not touch her.
A sob of want and anticipation escaped from her lips as in two strides, he was there drawing her closer. The look on his face caused her pulse to flutter wildly. It was love—stark and agonizing. Yet Lucan’s touch as he cradled her face was gentle. He kissed her lips, the corner of her mouth, and then her eyelids with tenderness. “I missed you,” he said with aching gentleness. “Your laugh, your taste, your scent, even the fire that snaps into your eyes when you are angry.” His hands tightened on her cheeks. “I cannot exist without your forgiveness. To know I have caused you such pain torments me.”
Her breath caught, and she rested her forehead against his shoulder, inhaling his warm heady scent. And she could not exist without him. Before she had even received his letter she had begged Anthony to return her from Naples. She had needed to get away from the hurt that had ravaged her, as the pain of Lucan’s actions had cut unimaginably deep. But as she had journeyed through the vineyards and ruins of Italy with Anthony and Phillipa, she had pictured Lucan with her. As they had dined in moonlit open-air restaurants, she had imagined it had been with him. In the nights she ached for him, dreamed of him. Every night. She knew he had tried to atone and restore what he had deliberately shattered, and she respected him for it. The haute monde had forgiven her perceived infractions, but Constance had discovered she did not care for their forgiveness, and that it was hers they needed to earn.
In her weeks away, all she had thought about was the pain that must have driven Lucan to act as how he had. She had regretted not caring more about that pain, not understanding what drove him, for she adored him completely.
“Constance?” The raw uncertainty in his voice had her lifting her head.
A soft smile curved her lips. “You have all of me Lucan. My forgiveness, my—”
He took her lips in a primal kiss. Crushing her to him, his lips roved over hers, all passion unleashed. She felt his raging desire and instead of fear filling her, she rose on her toes and met his kiss with untamed passion. The letter fell as she slipped her hands over his shoulders and gripped him as he lifted her.