“Oh, I know.”

“I do not need an excuse not to do battle, day after day. What if having people to love makes me weak.”

“My sweet.” He raised her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss against her fluttering pulse. “Is it possible you were simply caught in the whirlwind of something unfamiliar and exhilarating when you took up with me?”

“Well,” she murmured. “Perhaps, yes.”

“Also, do not confuse weakness and vulnerability. The two are hardly the same.”

“They are not?” She sounded weepy.

His smile was infinitely tender. “No. I was vulnerable at the front line. Never weak.”

“I suppose. I suppose there is indeed a difference.”

“Then consider, perhaps, that you needn’t have to choose,” he said carefully. “What if love makes you want to fight harder? What if you look at your daughters and see the best reason to keep campaigning for women’s liberty? Or, think of the sons who might raise hell in Parliament as long as women cannot.”

What a picture he painted. Fierce red-haired daughters by her side. Lanky sons towering over her. Unfamiliar scenes she had rarely allowed herself to imagine, but well, she supposed she could consider it.

She gave a shake. “You are too good with words.”

“I am.” His fingertip swiped an indecisive tear from the corner of her eye. “Furthermore, I spent half my life ambitiously disregarding protocol. We shall make our own rules, always.”

“But we would, wouldn’t we? Alas, you would still own me!”

“How fortunate then, that I have not asked for your hand in marriage again.”

Her mind blanked so utterly, she failed to surmise a reply.

Tristan grinned. “I was, however, going to go down on one knee and ask you to live in sin with me until the Married Property Act is amended.”

And before her rounding eyes, he was, slowly, going down on one knee.

“I must be frank,” he said, his upturned face deeply serious, “I loathe offering the woman I love less than my name. But given your objections, I understand. An official engagement, however, no matter how long, would defuse any scandal that might be about to descend upon us, while still allowing you to retain your money and independence.”

She stared down at him, feeling dizzy, her heart racing.

Uncertainty flickered in his eyes at her silence, and she wanted to throw her arms around his neck.

“What about heirs,” she managed. “You need an heir—and the Act might never be amended.”

“I have an heir,” he said. “Cousin Winterbourne. He is welcome to brick and mortar after I die. What I want is a life with you, Lucie.”

She sank to the floor before him, her skirts against his knee. “Why?” she whispered.

“Why?” He sounded nonplussed.

She closed her eyes. “Why do you love me?” He had said it so easily: the woman I love.

“Why does one love?” There was a frown in his voice. “Why, one just loves, Lucie.”

Perhaps I have always liked you, Lucie, . . . I had wanted you half my bloody life.

A part of her, still fledgling, tentatively unfolding, understood. And she had an inkling it was her own lack of trust that compelled her to doubt. And yet . . . “Reasons would help.”

Because there was also a vast, hardened part of her upon which all the reasons why she was not lovable at all stood engraved. Clearly stated, measurable, numerous reasons: too demanding, too direct, too angular, too impatient. Too much, too little, too unnatural. But one by one, those faults could have been modified. Controlled. The diffuse magic of romantic love, however, seemed prone to slipping through her fingers like wafts of fog, beyond reason, beyond control. One just loves. She never wanted to lose him.

“Well,” Tristan said. “For one, I have a favorable influence on you. You laugh more and you work less when I am with you.”

Her eyes opened. “These things give me happiness.”

He shrugged. “I discovered it is one and the same to me. There is great pleasure in pleasing a woman knowing she does not depend on my attention. You allowed me into your life because you desired me, not because you needed me. Very flattering. I consider you thoroughly seduced.”

But she did need him. Love, she was learning, was needing someone even when he offered nothing but himself.

“It takes a brave man to want a woman who wants rather than needs him,” she said instead.

“Fortunately, I can be brave. Shall I show you my Victoria Cross?”

“Now, be serious.”

“I am. From the moment you galloped at me on an oversized horse when you were thirteen years old, you have been the bravest woman I have ever met. I thought I knew you, but it was at best a long-enduring, boyish obsession, fraught with stung pride and fantasy. The last months have opened my eyes to the woman behind the warrior, and you exceed what my imagination pictured, and I laugh at my stupidity. Your stubborn courage humbles me. Your rage inspires me. You are like a storm moving through, rearranging whomever you touch in your wake—imagine the trouble we could cause if we joined forces. But I digress. When you look at me, I know you look right into me, because it is what you do—you look deeply. You prefer truth over comfort. And believe me, I’m in need of a woman who laughs in the face of ugly, for there is some darkness in my soul. But my heart, blackened as it is, is yours, and only yours, until you stop desiring it. And it shall be yours even then.”

When she didn’t speak, he cocked his head. “Too purple?”

“No,” she said thickly. “No. You feel seen by me.”

“I do.”

“Despite all the shrewish things I said.”

“My love, I trust you because of all the shrewish things you say.”

“I feel the same when I am with you,” she said, her eyes swimming. “Seen.”

He had seen the vulnerable girl in need of a friend ten years ago where everyone else had seen a scandalous shrew. He had seen her need to dance, to be held, to be challenged and pleasured and teased, and he had provided it. He had never been afraid of her. He had been afraid for his own heart, and for that, she could hardly blame him.

“Yes,” she whispered. “I see you and you see me. So my answer is yes.”

“Yes?” He sounded wary.

Her hands framed his face. “I agree to a betrothal until I can be your equal before the law.” And before he could reply: “I must warn you now, married or not, I shall never have the disposition to be an Angel of the House.”

His hands were on her waist, his smile dark. “You are looking at a man who prefers shieldmaidens over angels.”

Shieldmaidens.

Surely not.

“The poems,” she murmured. “Were they . . . ?”

He looked resigned. “I suppose, in some shape or form, it has always been you.”

“I must say,” she said after a breathless pause, “you are a terrible rake—a pretend rake. Next, you tell me you have been saving yourself for me all along.”

He laughed, and she leaned in. His face blurred and their lips met in a kiss, finally, at last.

Yes.

They were kissing still when he moved, and she was floating, literally, her feet lifting off the floor, and she was up high in his arms cradled against his hard chest. His delicious scent curled around her, and it felt so very good to breathe deeply again.

He looked her in the eye. “Contra mundum?”

She smiled. “Contra mundum.” Against the world.

She pressed her nose to the strong warm column of his neck.

“I should add what a lovely, pocket-sized thing you are,” came his voice, “with very lickable breasts and an arse that fits my hands perfectly, all of which I find greatly arousing.”

“I see. In the absence of male authority you could lawfully lord over me, you will just shamelessly try and seduce me into whatever it is you want with lewd talk.”

“I’m afraid so.”

She burrowed closer. “Where are we going?”

He was striding with great confidence toward the side entrance door.

“Do you know the director’s apartment on the upper floor?” he said. “I suggest we make it a discreet second home for the duration of our betrothal.”

“Discreet—I gather we are keeping our living in sin a secret?”

“Yes. I believe Mary Wollstonecraft’s first child was born out of wedlock, but it is also true that the world is not ready for it yet, my love.”

“An open-ended betrothal, and a secret love nest in our London office building. Blimey, we shall be spending a lot of time in our office.”

“I hope it is sufficiently unromantic for your taste.”

“I do like it.”

He opened the door with his elbow. “The director’s apartment,” he said as he carefully maneuvered the spiral staircase with his arm full of woman. “It has a large settee. I’ll ravish you on it.”

“Oh,” she said faintly. “Yes, please.”

“And afterward, when you are soft and in a good mood, I shall try and convince you to let me blackmail a peer or two into supporting the amendment of the Property Act.”

She sighed with delight. “I insist you do it.”