I Proposed to London's Wickedest Duke, and He Said Yes novel · Chapter 24 of 24
Chapter 24: The First of September
On the first of September I woke at dawn to find my husband gone from the bed, and a note on his pillow.
The garden. Come as you are.
I went down in my chemise and his dressing gown, barefoot, and found him on the terrace in his shirt.
The sun was just coming over the roofs of Brook Street, red through the leaves of the roses.
He wore no rings.
He stood in front of the stone balustrade and turned when he heard me, and then he knelt on the flags.
I stopped on the top step.
"Wilhelmina Aldridge," said the Duke of Tarrant.
His voice was steady, and his hands were not.
"You walked out on a terrace and told me you wanted a husband who was busy elsewhere.
"I was never busy anywhere in my life.
"I have been waiting nine years in a house like a guest, for somebody to want the man in it."
"Gervase."
"You are already my wife.
"I was handed to you by an accident, and I have been grateful every day.
"I should like to be chosen on purpose, with your eyes open, and the whole of me in front of you.
"I should like to be asked, and to ask.
"Will you marry me, Mina?"
I had not cried when my uncle sold me.
I had not cried in a ballroom with two hundred people looking.
I found I had tears running down my face onto my collar.
"We have been married two months," I said.
"I know.
"I want it again, every year, on this date, for as long as we live."
He drew our terms from inside his shirt and unfolded them.
Under his signature, in small hand, was the sixth line.
Six. On the first of September I ask.
"Yes," I said.
I was laughing, and I went down on my knees on the stones in front of him.
He put his arms round me and his face in my neck, and we stayed there with the sun getting up over London.
"Happy birthday," he said, into my collarbone.
"Take me upstairs."
"Yes," said my husband. "I have a plan."
His plan was the cheval glass in his dressing room.
It stood by the east window, tall as a door, with morning light lying across it.
He stood me in front of it in my chemise, and went behind me, and set his hands on my shoulders.
"No," I said. "Gervase."
"Yes."
"I don't like to look.
"I've never liked it."
"I know," he said, quietly, against my hair.
"I made a list, you may remember.
"This was on it."
He drew the chemise over my head.
I stood naked in the sunlight.
In the glass was a woman I did not know how to describe.
She was tall and long-limbed, with big shoulders, strong thighs and a short crop of black curls.
I saw my own hands go to cover myself.
He caught them gently and put them down at my sides.
"Look," he said.
"I'm all bone and elbow."
"Look at your shoulders.
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