“I LOVE YOU.”
With Violet pressed against him, Ford had felt the words reverberate in his chest. But he couldn’t have heard them correctly.
He kept kissing her, although more absentmindedly than he’d ever thought possible. Her words kept buzzing through his brain.
I love you.
It was the exact phrase he’d resolved not to utter, fearing he’d startle Violet even worse than he had with his boldness that day in the woods. This time, he’d been determined to proceed with caution, knowing he needed to win her over—needed to convince her they belonged together—before venturing anywhere near that word again.
I care deeply for you, Violet, he’d said instead. A sentence carefully planned in advance, because he’d been so afraid to say anything that included the word love.
Love. Love led to marriage, and he hadn’t wanted to risk reminding sensible Violet of all the reasons she shouldn’t marry him.
But now everything had changed. Violet loved him back.
She loved him!
His heart soared. He’d brought Violet here hoping to start their courtship anew, but this was more, so much more than he’d dared hope for. She would be his wife, and, someday, the mother of his children. They would be together all their days. Somehow, despite his woeful financial circumstances, beautiful, brilliant, extraordinary Violet had found it in her heart to love him back.
When had that happened? He didn’t know. He knew only that, slowly but surely, she’d woven her way into his life, until she was as much a part of him as his hands and his feet and his analytic brain. Until he found himself building distilleries as an excuse not to leave her side.
His arms tightening around her, he broke the kiss and buried his nose in her hair. She smelled of flowers, sweet Violet flowers…
“I love you, too, Violet,” he said.
When he heard her happy sigh and felt her face turn toward him, her warm breath on his neck, nothing had ever been so perfect.
He thought—he hoped—her parents would approve. He was positive Lady Trentingham liked him, at least, and the earl had smiled when he’d seen them walking arm in arm. But in truth, whether or not they objected didn’t matter now. Ford would convince them, whatever it took. He simply had to.
“Violet?”
“Hmm?” Keeping her eyes closed, she rubbed her nose in his neck.
Criminy, she was adorable. A grin stole over his face. She was everything he hadn’t known he wanted. And needed. And she loved him. He was the luckiest fellow in the world. ”I cannot wait to get married,” he whispered in her ear.
Quite suddenly, he felt her stiffen in his embrace.
“Pray pardon?” Her eyes snapping open, she raised her head. “I never said I would marry you. You haven’t even asked me.”
“Oh.” Of course. She wanted to be romanced. He took her face in both his hands, brushing his thumbs gently over her soft cheeks. Then he gave her his famous smile. ”Will you do me the greatest honor I can imagine and become my wife, Violet Ashcroft?”
Her eyes looking bare without her spectacles, she blinked. “No.”
“What?” Taken aback, he jerked away from her. “I…I thought you said you loved me.” It had never occurred to him that she wouldn’t wed him after admitting her feelings. No matter what she claimed, she was a romantic at heart. And the only girl he’d ever met who didn’t make him feel thickheaded.
Until now.
“I didn’t mean it like that.” He saw her jaw set and felt a pit of blackness opening somewhere in his gut. “Was that tonight’s true objective, then?” she asked. “Not a courtship, but a betrothal?”
“No!” He scrubbed his hands through his hair. “I intended to begin a courtship, but you said you loved me, Violet, and I thought that meant we would marry—because I love you, too. Isn’t that what two people in love ought to do? Get married?”
“If they’re a suitable match,” she said.
The blackness expanded to engulf his heart. “It’s my estate, isn’t it? I know things look bad just now, but—”
“That’s not it, Ford.”
The words were said much too calmly. If she truly loved him, shouldn’t her heart be breaking? Just as his was?
“I’m a bit more enlightened than you give me credit for,” she went on. “Money has nothing to do with this. And before you ask, I wasn’t lying about my feelings for you. But my feelings alone aren’t enough. I don’t want to marry for the wrong reasons.”
At least I don’t want to marry for the wrong reasons wasn’t an outright refusal. And though he knew what she meant, he would never understand how she could love him and yet not agree to marry him now. Not if love felt the same to her as it did to him.
“Question Convention,” he quoted woodenly.
He was beginning to understand what she’d meant when she said the Ashcrofts weren’t a conventional family…but he wasn’t at all sure anymore that he liked it.