With all the arrangements made, Marcus carried Lillian to the largest guest room in the building, where a bath and food were sent up as quickly as possible. It was sparely furnished but very clean, with an ample bed covered in pressed linen and soft, faded quilts. An old copperplate slipper tub was set before the hearth and filled by two chambermaids carrying steaming kettles. As Lillian waited for the bathwater to cool sufficiently, Marcus bullied her into eating a bowl of soup, which was quite tolerable, though its ingredients were impossible to identify. “What are those little brown chunks?” Lillian asked suspiciously, opening her mouth reluctantly as he spooned more in.

“It doesn’t matter. Swallow.”

“Is it mutton? Beef? Did it originally have horns? Hooves? Feathers? Scales? I don’t like to eat something when I don’t know what—”

“More,” he said inexorably, pushing the spoon into her mouth again.

“You’re a tyrant.”

“I know. Drink some water.”

Resigning herself to his domineering ways—just for one night—Lillian finished the light meal. The food gave her a new surge of strength, and she felt invigorated as Marcus pulled her into his lap. “Now,” he said, cuddling her against his chest, “tell me what happened, from the beginning.”

Before long Lillian found herself talking animatedly, almost chattering, as she described her encounter with Lady Westcliff at Butterfly Court, and the events that occurred afterward. She must have sounded overwrought, for Marcus occasionally interrupted the stream of rapid words with soothing murmurs, his manner interested and infinitely gentle. His mouth brushed over her hair, his warm breath filtering down to her scalp. Gradually she relaxed against him, her limbs feeling heavy and loose.

“How did you persuade the countess to confess so quickly?” she asked. “I would have thought she would have held out for days. I would have thought she would rather die than admit anything—”

“I’m afraid that was the choice I gave her.”

Her eyes widened. “Oh,” she whispered. “I’m sorry, Marcus. She is your mother, after all—”

“Only in the most technical sense of the word,” he said dryly. “I felt no filial attachment to her before now, but if I had, it would surely have been extinguished after today. She’s done enough harm for one lifetime, I think. We’ll try keeping her in Scotland from now on, or perhaps somewhere abroad.”

“Did the countess tell you what was said between her and me?” Lillian asked tentatively.

Marcus shook his head, his mouth twisting. “She told me that you had decided to elope with St. Vincent.”

“Elope?” Lillian repeated in shock. “As if I deliberately…as if I had chosen him over—” She stopped, aghast, as she imagined how he must have felt. Although she had not shed a single tear during the entire day, the thought that Marcus might have wondered for a split second if yet another woman had left him for St. Vincent…it was too much to bear. She burst into noisy sobs, startling herself as well as Marcus. “You didn’t believe it, did you? My God, please say you didn’t!”

“Of course I didn’t.” He stared at her in astonishment, and hastily reached for a table napkin to wipe at the stream of tears on her face. “No, no, don’t cry—”

“I love you, Marcus.” Taking the napkin from him, Lillian blew her nose noisily and continued to weep as she spoke. “I love you. I don’t mind if I’m the first one to say it, nor even if I’m the only one. I just want you to know how very much—”

“I love you too,” he said huskily. “I love you too. Lillian…Please don’t cry. It’s killing me. Don’t.”

She nodded and blew into the linen folds again, her complexion turning mottled, her eyes swelling, her nose running freely. It appeared, however, that there was something wrong with Marcus’s vision. Grasping her head in his hands, he pressed a hard kiss to her mouth and said hoarsely, “You’re so beautiful.”

The statement, though undoubtedly sincere, caused her to giggle through her last hiccupping sobs. Wrapping his arms around her in an embrace that was just short of crushing, Marcus asked in a muffled voice, “My love, hasn’t anyone ever told you that it’s bad form to laugh at a man when he’s declaring himself?”

She blew her nose with a last inelegant snort. “I’m a hopeless case, I’m afraid. Do you still want to marry me?”

“Yes. Now.”

The statement shocked her out of her tears. “What?”

“I don’t want to return with you to Hampshire. I want to take you to Gretna Green. The inn has its own coach service—I’ll hire one in the morning, and we’ll reach Scotland the day after tomorrow.”

“But…but everyone will expect a respectable church wedding…”

“I can’t wait for you. I don’t give a damn about respectability.”

A wobbly grin spread across Lillian’s face as she thought of how many people would be astonished to hear such a statement from him. “It smacks of scandal, you know. The Earl of Westcliff rushing off for an anvil wedding in Gretna Green…”

“Let’s begin with a scandal, then.” He kissed her, and she responded with a low moan, clinging and arching against him, until he pushed his tongue deeper, molding his lips tighter over hers, feasting on the warm, open silkiness of her mouth. Breathing heavily, he dragged his lips to her quivering throat. “Say, ‘Yes, Marcus,’” he prompted.