Eyes huge, Lydia mumbled frantically; she tried to pry Ro’s hand from her lips, but couldn’t budge it. She tried to wriggle; his arm tightened and he lifted her off her feet.

Her father, also grinning delightedly, bobbed his white head. “It’s late. We can talk more tomorrow-once Lydia understands.”

I do understand!

Her frustrated, exasperated reply came out as a series of mumbles as Ro turned and, with her locked against his chest, carried her to the door. He had to take his hand from her lips to open it.

“Ro, if you don’t put me down this instant I’ll-”

The hand returned, muting her threat to never speak to him again.

He carried her out of the parlor and straight across the hall-under the startled gazes of Bilt, Mrs. Bilt, and Tabitha, the last of whom was, of course, utterly delighted and actually clapped!-and into the darkened tap.

It was late, the lights had been doused; there was no one around to see Ro halt by the wall just inside, then release her. The instant her feet touched the floor, she whirled to berate him. He caught her face in both hands, tipped her lips up to his and covered them.

In a kiss that stole her breath, sent her wits reeling, and-when he finally lifted his head-had reduced her to dazed incoherency.

She stared at him, blinked, then hauled in a breath and set her chin. “I am not-”

He kissed her again, for much longer this time, more deeply, more ardently, until her wits weren’t just reeling but flown, until, when he ended the kiss and raised his head, she had to cling to him and brace her spine against the wall he’d backed her into just to stay upright. In the darkened tap, she blinked her eyes wide, trying to regain her mental feet; speech was, at that moment, far beyond her.

Searching her eyes, he seemed to understand as much. “Good.” There was a faintly grim set to his lips. “I suppose I should have known that marrying a Makepeace couldn’t possibly be so easy-that it wouldn’t be a simple, straightforward matter of me offering for your hand and you accepting.”

She concentrated and managed a frown. She opened her lips, but before she could speak, he frowned back harder. “No-just listen. You had your turn, now it’s mine. Yes, I told your parents I wanted to offer for your hand. I didn’t, however, even attempt to use the excuse that I’d seduced you, or that you had seduced me, that we’d been intimate, whichever way you want to state it. I didn’t because that isn’t why I want to marry you.”

He paused, his eyes searching hers. Sensing that he was fighting some inner battle, overcoming some deep reticence over telling her what he was about to say, she bit her tongue against the impulse to ask the obvious question-this was definitely not the time to interrupt.

Then he drew in a deep breath; lips tight, he held her gaze. “I’ve wanted to marry you for over ten years-ever since that day in the orchard when we waltzed. I knew it then-and it scared me witless. I was twenty-two and knew nothing of love, and had no idea what to do when I discovered I’d found it far, far earlier than I’d bargained for.”

Lydia stared into his silver-gray eyes and felt her world tilt crazily, then slowly realign. Slowly re-form into a landscape she’d never imagined she might see.

His lips curved, not humorously. “Yes, I know. That’s a long time ago, but…I’m now thirty-two, and the only love I’ve ever known is for you.”

Ro reached blindly for her hand, caught it, raised it to his chest, and laid it over his heart. “My heart races for you, and only you. It’s always been that way, and always will be. I didn’t want to tell you-didn’t want you to know-because it makes me feel too exposed, too vulnerable-too dependent.”

Closing his hand about hers, he raised it from his chest to press a kiss to her fingers, then another to her palm, his eyes never leaving hers. “I want you as my wife, my viscountess. I need you by my side, and now I know that you want me, too, no matter what you say, I will never let you go. Even if you don’t at first agree, I won’t go away, or withdraw my suit, or even let you leave here without me. I became yours under the apple trees all those years ago…” Holding her gaze, he released her hand and spread his arms. “And now I’m yours to do with as you will. My life is yours, my heart and soul are in your keeping. Nothing you say or do can change that-it simply is.”

He sobered, felt all the uncertainties he still harbored rise through him, but he knew her stubbornness, had known he had to admit to the truth and convince her of it or she’d dig in her heels and refuse him. That if he had his pride, so did she, and she wouldn’t bend or yield, not unless she believed.

He prayed she now did, that she saw the truth as clearly as he, sensed the power of what linked them as strongly as he did.

Drawing in a tight breath, he forced himself to find out, to say, to ask. “I hope you’ll forgive me for keeping you waiting all these years. I’m hoping you can find it in your heart to set those behind us, accept my proposal, and go on from here together.” He paused, his fingers once more finding and tightening around hers. “My one and only love-will you marry me?”

Having her as his wife was the one thing in his life he couldn’t simply demand, couldn’t, one way or another, simply arrange to make his. She had to agree, of her own volition, with her own determination, or it would never be.

His heart slowed, stuttered; as he looked into her wide eyes, their expression unreadable in the poor light, and waited for her answer, for the words he needed to hear her say, he could have sworn his heart literally stopped. Distantly he heard a clock chime, twelve midnight.

Then she smiled, tremulously at first, but the glow only grew until it lit her face and she beamed at him. “Oh, Ro! Of course I will.”

She flung her arms about his neck, flung herself into his embrace as his arms closed around her, and kissed him. Soundly. Then she drew back and fixed him with a quintessentially Makepeace look. “You only had to ask.” Radiant, she positively glowed.

Relief laced with triumph sweeping through him, Ro grinned and drew her back into his arms.

As he kissed her to seal their pact, a distant part of his mind cynically reflected that it had taken fate a mere twenty-four hours to accomplish the fall of Rogue Gerrard.

When news of the impending marriage of Robert “Rogue” Gerrard, Viscount Gerrard, of Gerrard Park, and Miss Lydia Constance Makepeace, of the Wiltshire Makepeaces, broke upon the unsuspecting ton, there was much whispering and speculation as to how Miss Makepeace had managed where all others had failed, and apparently with so little effort. The grandes dames, however, were as one in declaring that it came as no surprise-the lady who had tamed the rogue, despite her earlier appearances as a quiet, sensible, and decorous young woman, was quite clearly as eccentric as the rest of her clan.

Only a lady of significant wildness could, they declared, have brought Rogue Gerrard to his knees.

Naturally Ro heard of their conclusion, but he only smiled. He saw no reason to correct them. But he knew the truth. Carried it enshrined in his heart.

It wasn’t Lydia’s elusive wildness-although its very elusiveness fascinated and lured him-that had made him her devoted mate. It was love, pure and simple-his for her and hers for him-that had sealed his fate.

Love had been the only weapon involved in his capitulation-in bringing about what the ton, with typical histrionic fervor, referred to as “The Fall of Rogue Gerrard.”