Louisa sighed. “How very tragic.”
“That is all I have to report,” Anthony said. “I suggest we turn to another, more interesting topic of conversation.”
She looked at him curiously. “What is that?”
“You and me, of course.”
She blinked, froze, and then hastily removed her glasses. “I have been meaning to speak to you about that very subject.” She plucked a handkerchief out of her pocket and hurriedly began to polish an imaginary smudge on one lens. “I fear your family has gained an unfortunate and entirely inaccurate impression of how matters stand between us.”
He steepled his fingers. “They think that I am going to marry you.”
“Yes, I know.” She adjusted her spectacles on her nose and looked at him. “I tried to correct the misunderstanding the other night on the way home from Phoenix House, but no one would listen to me.”
He smiled. “In time you will discover that once they have fixed upon a notion, the members of my family tend to be decidedly stubborn. It is, I fear, a family trait.”
She sat forward uneasily. “It is really very awkward, Anthony. I do not feel right allowing them to believe a blatant lie.”
“Then we must make it a reality.”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
He pushed himself up out of the chair, came around the desk, and pulled her to her feet for the second time.
“Anthony, please, you cannot solve this problem by kissing me.”
“I love you, Louisa.”
She felt as though the ground had fallen away beneath her feet. “What?”
“I love you,” he said again, softer this time. “Is that so hard to believe?”
She fought for breath. “But we have been acquainted for such a short period of time, and there are things you do not know that would surely change your opinion of me.”
“I sincerely doubt that.” He captured her hands and kissed her fingers. “I’ll allow you the time you need to fall in love with me. All I ask in return is that you promise me that you will give my offer of marriage serious consideration.”
“I don’t need time,” she said before stopping to think. “I am already in love with you. It is just that marriage is out of the question.”
He released her hands, picked up the package on the desk, and handed it to her. Uncertain, not knowing what else to do, she began to untie the string with trembling fingers.
“I know that you are quite taken with the notion of an illicit affair.” He said, watching her unwrap the brown paper. “I admit I cannot guarantee that marriage will offer as much in the way of excitement, but in my opinion it would be a far more comfortable proposition.”
“No, really, it wouldn’t be,” she said, fighting back tears. “Not at all.”
“Just think, we would be able to share a warm bed every night rather than having to make do with gardening benches and stolen moments. We could have breakfast together every morning while we savor your latest brilliant reports in the Flying Intelligencer.”
“Anthony, stop. You don’t know what you are saying.” The package was open now. She stared, dumbfounded, at the leather-bound copy of Milton’s Paradise Lost. “Oh, Anthony.”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I didn’t steal it out of Pepper’s safe. He agreed to give it up. It was merely a matter of finding the right price.”
She touched the mottled calf binding with her fingertips. Tears burned in her eyes. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Say that you will marry me, my love. I predict that all of the difficulties you perceive concerning my family will cease to exist.”
She felt a great tightness inside, squeezing her heart. The tears escaped and trickled down her cheeks. She jerked off her spectacles, grabbed a handkerchief, and began blotting madly. She had known this moment was coming, she reminded herself. It was just that she had hoped for more time.
“This is the thing with an illicit affair.” She lowered the handkerchief and looked at him through her tears. “It cannot end happily.”
“There are exceptions to every rule.”
“This is not one of the occasions when the rule may be broken.”
“Why not?”
“There is a secret in my past that is so dreadful that, if you knew it, you would be horrified. I cannot allow you to bring me into your family. It would not be right.”
He looked amused. “I cannot imagine you having a secret of that magnitude.”
She should not say a word, she thought. If she had any common sense, any sense of self-preservation, she would keep her mouth closed and send him away. But she loved him. She could not let him leave on a lie.
“Anthony, I am the woman who murdered Lord Gavin.”
“Yes, I know,” he said very casually. “Now, about my proposal—”
She stared at him, her mouth open. Perhaps she had not heard him correctly, she thought.
“You know?” she managed.
“I reasoned it out a few days ago.” His eyes gleamed with amused impatience. “Now if we might return to the subject of my proposal?”
“You don’t understand.” She retreated behind her chair, clutching the back so fiercely that her fingernails bit into the wood. “Anthony, I bashed his head in with a poker. He was a very important gentleman.”
“No one seems to miss him very much. I have the impression that, although they have never met you, Gavin’s widow and the other members of his family are privately grateful to you. To say nothing of the female shopkeepers who were saved by your action. Gavin was an evil man.”
“That is beside the p–point. I am wanted for murder. If the police ever find me I will be hanged. Think of the scandal.”
“You are not wanted for murder. As far as the police are concerned, you are a suicide, remember.”
“But—”
“The case is closed. No one is searching for you, my love.”
“What if someday someone recognizes me?”
“Highly unlikely, but in the event that were to happen, my family and I would gladly perjure ourselves on the matter of your identity. When you marry me, you will become a Stalbridge. We protect our own.” He smiled his slow, knowing smile. “Trust me when I tell you that no one will even think of contradicting us.”
“Quite correct,” Emma declared from the doorway. “Louisa, dear, I believe I told you back at the start of this affair that the Stalbridges might choose to ignore Society for the most part, but Society cannot ignore them. The family has the sort of money and connections that make people invulnerable. You will be safe with them.”
Louisa looked at her. The tiny, smoldering spark of hope that she had kept locked tightly away deep inside suddenly flared into a bright flame.
“Oh, Emma,” she said, “do you really think so?”
Emma chuckled. “I trust that after you are a married lady, you will find time to help me finish my memoirs, of course. We were just getting to the thrilling bits, if you will recall.”
“Of course,” Louisa said, smiling mistily.
Smiling, Emma winked and disappeared down the hall.
Louisa turned back to Anthony. “Are you certain this is what you want?”
“It is not merely a question of wanting.” He gathered her close. “I need you, my love. You and I are two halves of a whole. I believe we were made for each other.”
Joy flooded through her. She wrapped her arms very tightly around his neck.
“Yes,” she said simply.
“Welcome to the family.”
His mouth closed over hers. She abandoned herself to a love that she knew would carry them both safely into the future.