Chapter Thirty-Two

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

"S TOP WRIGGLING ." An hour later, Verity knelt beside Nathan on her parlor floor, washing the dirt and gunpowder residue away from his wound.

Her touch was as gentle as she could make it, but her tone was sharp. The sight of Nathan bleeding had scared her down to the bottoms of her toes. For an instant she had been unable to breathe again, and then her nerves had spiked, and she'd had to clamp down hard on her emotions to keep from dissolving into hysteria.

Nathan had not been a cooperative patient. She had managed to keep him from going with Malcolm to take the prisoners to jail, but he had flatly refused to let a doctor look at his arm. Finally she'd given up and brought him back to her house.

He had stripped off his shirt, which, frankly, had not helped to calm Verity. It no doubt showed some lowness in her nature that tingles of lust could spring up in her at a time like this, but it seemed somehow a natural part of the wild tangle of emotions inside her.

"I can't help but flinch when you keep poking at me," Nathan said.

"I'm not poking." She paused and scowled into his face. "Though it would serve you right if I did. I don't know what you were thinking, jumping in front of me like that."

"I was trying to keep you from being shot," he retorted.

"And you got yourself shot instead." She tossed the rag aside and dabbed the ointment on the burn.

"What is that green slime?" He cast a doubtful look at the ointment in the jar.

"It's good for burns, and that's more what this is." She began to wind the strip of cotton around his arm. Tending to him had helped her nerves, and when she tied off the bandage, she sat back on her heels and looked at him, a teasing smile beginning on her face. "Not to discount your heroism, but I got shot anyway."

"What?" He straightened in alarm. "Where? How—"

"It deflected from your arm right into my padding." She picked up the padding she had worn, discarded with her wig on the floor, and dug her fingers inside it, pulling out the spent ball and holding it up. "It turned out to be an even more useful disguise than I had anticipated." She moved back to kiss him gently. "Thank you. You shouldn't go about sacrificing yourself like that, but I'm very glad you did. If you hadn't done that, Robert might very well have killed me."

Nathan cupped her face between his hands. "I will have nightmares about that moment for years." He kissed her, his lips lingering for a long, sweet moment, then pulled her up to sit on the sofa with him. He turned to her, his face earnest. "I want to say something to you."

Verity's heart skipped a beat. What if he'd decided to let her go?

"The other day, when I asked you to marry me, I was angry because you reminded me that only a year ago, I'd been in love with Annabeth. I was—I don't deny that."

A little pain pierced her heart, and she said quietly, "I don't want to be the woman you settle for."

"You're not. There's no question of settling. Verity, you are the woman I want. My feelings for you are entirely different than what I felt for Annabeth. She...she was my lifelong friend, and I loved her in a quiet way. It was a peaceful, sweet sort of love. We didn't argue. I never got angry with her. She was perfect."

"This is hardly the way to convince me you love me instead of Annabeth," Verity said drily.

"Let me finish. That was what I thought love should be. It was what I wanted—our lives fit. We matched. It was easy."

Verity raised an eyebrow.

Nathan hurried on, "But love isn't easy. Love isn't just getting along or being comfortable or matching. It's wild and intoxicating and uncertain. You and I argue and I worry, and I'm never smooth and adept with you. There's no handling you, no way of tying you down. And I have absolutely no defense against you. You can cut straight through my soul." Nathan ran a hand back through his hair, searching for the right words. "When I hold you, when I kiss you, when we make love, it's the most exciting—no, exciting is too tame a word for what I feel. I feel as if everything inside me changes, as if I am torn apart and made whole again." He gave her a wry smile. "I'm sorry. I'm not saying this very well, am I?"

She shook her head quickly. "No, I think you're saying it just right."

Nathan took her hand between his. "I'm not asking that you feel the exact same way. I just want you to know that you are in no way my second choice. You're the most wonderful thing that's ever happened to me. With Annabeth, I played the noble part and broke off the engagement. I could never do that with you. I am not going to be the gentleman this time. If you move to Paris, I am going with you. If you won't marry me, we'll live in sin. I refuse to lose you."

Warmth spread through Verity, and her lips curved up in a teasing smile. "You mean you would hold me against my will?"

Nathan sighed. "Blast it, Verity, you make it very difficult to issue grand romantic statements. No, of course I wouldn't force you to stay with me if you didn't want to—I could not bear to be the reason for your unhappiness. But I'd bloody well try to convince you to stay. I'd never stop trying to woo you. I certainly wouldn't offer to break it off to make it easier for you. I'd do my best to make it damned difficult for you to leave."

Verity smiled. "Then it's a good thing that I intend to marry you, isn't it?"

Nathan had drawn breath to speak, but at her words, he stopped and stared. "What did you say?"

"I want to marry you. I accept your proposal—and don't think I'll let you out of your offer. I'm not nearly as good a person as you. If you left me, I promise I'd make your life a living hell."

Nathan relaxed, letting out a soft laugh. "Would you?" He pulled her to her feet, smiling down into her face.

"Of course. I would haunt you. Send evil notes to any woman who caught your fancy. Cut up all your neckcloths. Set Petunia on your best boots."

"You are wicked." Nathan put his hands at her waist.

"I am. Because, you see, you are mine. I love you, and I'm never letting go." Verity laid her head against Nathan's chest. Nathan pressed his lips to Verity's forehead and said, "You knew, didn't you? Before I started my grand statement, you'd already made up your mind to marry me."

Verity smiled. "Yes."

"Yet you let me blather on."

"Of course. I liked hearing it."

"I think you just like to torture me." He stroked his hand across her hair.

"There is that, as well."

"Why did you say yes? Not that I'm objecting, mind you, but you were so against it. Why did you change your mind?"

"Well, you're a very good catch, you know," Verity said.

"Ha. What a bouncer. I am a terrible prospect, and you know it—a man with an estate mortgaged to the hilt, nothing to offer you."

Her face turned serious, her eyes steady on his. "I have a house. I have a business. I have money—what I'm lacking is the man who holds my heart in his hands. You are the kindest, most handsome, best man in all of England, and I love you madly. You were right. I was scared—not just of what Lord Stanhope might do, but scared of risking my heart. Scared of reaching for the life I wanted, the man I loved, just because it might all turn to ash in my hands. Now I finally understand that without you, ashes is all my life would be. You are everything to me, Nathan. None of the rest of it matters."

"Verity." Nathan swallowed hard, and his hand cupped her cheek, his thumb stroking lovingly across her skin. "I love you so much—I can't tell you a tenth of what's in my heart for you."

"I already know it." She smiled and reached up to brush back a strand of his hair that had fallen across his forehead. "This evening, when you looked at me in my torn dress, covered in dirt and stains I'd prefer not to identify, sweating and gasping for breath, that dreadful wig tilted over my ear, you told me I was beautiful and kissed me. I knew." Her eyes began to twinkle and the corner of her mouth turned up in a teasing smile. "Only love could make you that deluded. And I realized I had better grab you before you came back to your senses."

"If love is a delusion, then I promise to never regain my senses. I will love you until the end of time," Nathan told her.

"I'm not sure if that means you'll be wearing a tailcoat or a straitjacket to our wedding. But, honestly, I don't even care."