15. What is Wanted and What is Deserved

WHAT IS WANTED AND WHAT IS DESERVED

“ A re you going to carry me all the way to Mayfair?” Lydia asked after they were some distance away from all of the excitement and activity on the ship.

“My carriage is at my office.” He was a little out of breath by now, but he also sounded… terse.

Studying his profile in the moonlight, Lydia winced. “Are you angry with me?”

“Livid.”

She wasn’t sure if his short answers were intentional or due to the fact that he had carried her nearly half the length of the docks.

“I’m sorry I broke the contract.” She tightened her arms around his neck, thinking to make his task easier.

“You could have been killed.”

“I know.”

He grunted.

“It was a stupid thing to do,” she added, and then a shiver ran through her.

“You’re cold.” He halted his footsteps. “Let me give you my jacket.” He moved to set her down but Lydia simply clung to him tighter.

“Just hold me—please.” She looked down, unable to meet his eyes but, at the same time, unwilling to be separated from him, even for a moment. “I was so stupid today. I nearly got you killed.”

“No.” Agony roughened his voice. “You nearly got you killed. Don’t ever do that again.” The look on his face was bleak. “I couldn’t live… God, Lydia, I couldn’t live if...”

His arms tightened and he buried his face in her hair.

“Arthur was a traitor, Lydia.” He sounded pained, wounded. “ My brother was in Farley’s employ. His actions cost the lives of five other men. Possibly more.”

Lydia squeezed him tighter. It was the only thing she could do to hold this proud man together.

“I wanted him to be innocent. I was so sure…”

“You did everything you could. You were the best brother he could have asked for.” And then she pulled away to stare at him. “You brought Blackheart along with you to save me.” Her statement was really a question.

Jeremy resumed walking and she waited patiently for his answer.

“I blamed him and Lucas. I made Lucas the enemy simply because I didn’t want to believe it could be true. But Arthur’s name was among those who’d been paid off.”

“He didn’t want to work for Farley,” Lydia said. “He simply ran out of choices.” She went on to tell him all that she’d learned from Farley and Buck. About how they’d trapped him with his debts and then how, after the ambush, Arthur refused to do their bidding again.

Jeremy didn’t say anything, he simply kept marching along the walk as he listened to her.

“So you know, then.” He finally said.

“There wasn’t anything you could do,” she pressed. He had to know this in his heart.

“I could have helped him with those debts. I could have paid them off myself.”

“And then what? Knowing Arthur, he likely would have racked up new ones quicker than he did the first.”

“I should have been able to help him.” His voice caught, and in the moonlight, Lydia watched as a single tear rolled down his cheek. She caught it with her thumb and pressed a soft kiss against his jaw.

And Jeremy just kept walking. He might have truly been prepared to carry her all the way to Mayfair had his driver not been watching for him. He finally dipped her feet to the ground as the familiar coach slowed to a stop beside them.

“Excellent to see you safe and sound, my lady.” The driver spoke from his box while a manservant pulled down the step. “To Cork Street, my lord?”

“Yes,” Jeremy answered.

The last time she and Jeremy had ridden in this carriage had been only one night before. So much had changed in the matter of a single day.

Lydia settled onto the bench and Jeremy climbed in behind her, but then she moved naturally into his arms as the carriage jerked into motion.

“Did you mean it?” he asked in a gravelly voice.

“Of course.” There was no need to clarify what he was referring to. He’d received the letter. “I never stopped loving you, and I never will.”

She’d always heard it was foolish to express her feelings so easily, but she was learning that life was too tenuous to play games.

“I don’t deserve you.” He squeezed her against him. “I never stopped loving you either. I just didn’t know how… I couldn’t ask you?—”

“You did what you had to, and I love you more now than I did before. I’m only sorry you’ve had to deal with this alone.”

“But I hurt you.”

“You thought you were protecting me.” She now understood why he’d pushed her away. It reminded her of how Ollie had tried to convince her to turn away when she’d found him in the warehouse yard. “Everything happens for a reason. There’s no way of knowing how many lives will be saved now because of you. You are a hero.”

Jeremy shook his head and scoffed.

“Oh, no.” He needed to see what others saw. “You may have gone into this thinking only to clear Arthur’s name, but you’ve come out having accomplished an incredible feat. No one else was willing to take on Farley’s gang until you did.”

Jeremy stared at her, looking both baffled and a little awed. “You almost have me believing that. I don’t deserve you, Lydia.”

“Oh, but you do.” They were meant for one another in every way. The sooner he accepted this, the sooner the two of them could go on with their lives—together.

Jeremy buried his face in her hair. “Marry me?”

The question wasn’t at all what she’d been expecting just then, and these were not at all the circumstances in which she’d imagined he would ask but…

This was Jeremy.

“You aren’t just asking this because my brother has returned to town?”

He released her and shuffled through his pockets. When he located what he was looking for, he dangled a small velvet pouch in front of her. She’d seen such a pouch recently, when Blackheart had purchased some jewelry for his new duchess.

Lydia held her breath while Jeremy untied the drawstring and reached inside, plucking out?—

“I bought this yesterday. Shortly after the completion of the sale.” Lydia gasped when she caught sight of a sparkling diamond set in a circle of gold, clutched between his thumb and finger. It reflected every single star that twinkled through the window. “I meant to propose to you today at the warehouse. But then, with everything that happened… I know this isn't very romantic or at all proper, but?—”

Lydia cut him off by pressing her mouth to his. When their lips parted on a sigh, she opened her eyes and met his gaze. “You’re all I’ve ever wanted. Of course I’ll marry you.”