Lord of Deceit (Heiress Games Book 2) (25 page)

“If a man wanted a chance, he would have to ask for it,” she said.

She got the tone all wrong — there was too much tension, and not nearly enough flirtation. But Rafe didn’t seem to mind. There was no flirtation in his gaze anyway — it was all too intense for that.

“I was a fool, Octavia,” he said, his voice low and threaded through with regret. “Such a fool to think that I could let you go when you already had my heart in your hand.”

Was this how it felt in battle, right before victory was achieved? The feeling of hovering on the verge of complete success — but knowing that a single misfired cannon or fallen commander could still change the tide and ruin everything?

She had to hold the line. “What are you trying to say?”

“I don’t know. I thought about it all the way from Maidenstone. And for days before that, not that I could admit it.”

He paused.

“You can say anything,” she said. “Even if you don’t think I want to hear it.”

“I watched you in the chapel today,” he said. “You probably already knew that. You were beautiful, but you probably already knew that too. But it wasn’t your dress, or the way you’d arranged your hair. It was the way you held yourself, Octavia. You sat there like you could have been a queen. Like you didn’t need anyone or anything to take care of you. Like you were destined for something greater than all of us and you were merely passing time at Maidenstone.”

There was wonder in his voice. Other men — the men who had proposed marriage to her that week — would have wanted her to be Miss Briarley or Madame Octavia. They wanted her to be something they could understand. If they could understand her, they could manage her.

But the woman Rafe saw — the woman he described as though he’d worshipped her — was something else entirely.

That woman was who Octavia wanted to be.

And Rafe was the only man who saw her.

Her breath caught in her throat. But Rafe kept talking before she could respond. “I love that about you, Octavia. I love that you’re strong. I love that you’re brave — braver than I’ve been. You gave me your heart, without any hope that I could ever return it. And I, fool that I was, couldn’t see the gift you’d given me because I was too afraid of the price.”

He fumbled in his pocket and pulled out his watch. He didn’t check the time, though — he left it closed, pressing it into her palm and closing her fingers around it. He held her closed hand within his, as though giving her a blessing — or begging for one.

“I don’t have a ring for you yet. But my mother gave my father this watch on their wedding day. I’ve lived my whole life trying not to repeat their mistakes. And I can’t see the future, and I don’t know whether we’ll be perfect, and I can’t guarantee that we’ll have a fairy tale instead of a failure. But I love you, Octavia. I love you more than anything, beyond anything I could have imagined. I can’t control how my heart speeds up when I see you. I can’t control how it breaks when I think about losing you. But I know I’ll regret it forever if I don’t give my heart to you. I’ll regret it forever if I don’t cherish your heart as it’s meant to be cherished. And I’ll regret it forever if I’ve lost my chance to give you everything you deserve.”

His hands were warm over hers. His words felt like a benediction. There was redemption there, hovering between them, if they were both brave enough to accept it.

“Are you asking me to marry you?” she asked.

He laughed, and the sweetness of it made her want to cry. “Of all the words I practiced, I forgot those.”

He dropped to one knee in the middle of the road, his hands still cradling hers. “Will you marry me, Octavia Briarley? Will you give me the chance to love you, and to hold you, and to share your destiny? Whatever life you want, I want to be the man who’s by your side.”

She looked down into his eyes. She saw everything she wanted there — all the love she could ever ask for, wrapped up in a man who would never ask her to be anything but herself.

“Yes,” she said. “
Yes
. Any life we share will be wonderful, as long as we’re together for it.”

She leaned down and kissed him. He pulled her down into his arms, and suddenly it was all laughter and tears and kisses infused with joy and traces of salt. She was on her knees on the Exeter road, holding a watch instead of a ring….

And there was nowhere else in the world she wanted to be.

“I love you, Rafe,” she said, when the first hungry kisses had fallen into something softer, sultrier. “You’ve no idea how much I love you. I couldn’t imagine how hard it would be to go down this road without you.”

“You would have survived it,” he said.

“I would have survived it. We both would have survived. But I don’t want to live for survival anymore. I want to give my heart to you, and trust that you can handle it. I want to love you, and for you to love me, as we both deserve. Why would we ever settle for survival when we can have this?”

She kissed him again. She kissed him until she was dizzy with it, until she was so on fire that she would have dragged him into the nearest field and made love to him there if Agnes and the coachman weren’t somewhere behind them.

That realization stopped her. She pulled back, a little ruefully, and smiled at him.

He pulled her to her feet. They walked back to the carriage together, hand in hand, the watch tucked back into his pocket for safekeeping. When they reached the carriage, the driver didn’t say anything about how long they’d kissed. He merely grinned and handed Octavia a piece of paper.

“What’s this?” she asked.

“From his grace, miss. He told me to give it to you after his lordship found you.”

Rafe sighed. “Ferguson can’t go an hour without meddling with something, can he?”

She slid her finger under the seal and opened the paper.

My dear Octavia
, the note read.
Please accept my felicitations upon your engagement to Lord Rafael and/or your decision to send him to the devil. Whichever path you chose, you have my blessing, although I hope you’ll return my carriage without any bloodstains.

She laughed at that. But the note wasn’t finished.

You should know that I don’t accept your forfeiture. I shall decide the winner after we see whether Lucretia marries someone deserving. Until then, wherever you go and whoever you give your heart to, I remain your devoted servant, etc. — Ferguson

She handed the note to Rafe. He read it, and his laugh was as disbelieving as hers. “The man is insane,” he said.

“Insane, but much appreciated.”

“I suppose I should thank him again,” Rafe said. “But at the moment, I’d rather not. Shall we go back to Maidenstone and give him his carriage? Or should we steal it and go on to Exeter?”

She looked up at him and realized she didn’t care at all where they went, as long as they were together. “You’re a reformed pirate and I’m a runaway queen. We can go anywhere in the world.”

“I like the sound of that, your majesty.”

He kissed her again. The note fell from her hand. The driver cleared his throat, and she opened one eye long enough to see that he’d turned his back on them.

They had all the time in the world. And there was no decision about their future that was as important as the one they had just made.

“I love you, Rafe,” she murmured again.

“I love you, Octavia. Now, where should I take you?”

“Surprise me,” she said.

And so he did. He would surprise her endlessly, with that quick wit and devious mind. He would take her on adventures she’d never dreamed of, and she would get him into scrapes he’d never planned for.

But on that day, in that moment, the biggest surprise of all wasn’t that they’d found each other. It was that they’d ever thought they could let each other go.

They would never make that mistake again.

Rafe gave a quick order to the driver, too low for Octavia to hear it. And then he knelt and made a cradle of his hands so that he could throw her up into his saddle.

He mounted behind her, wrapping his arms around her to gather the reins. “Let’s go make an honest woman of you,” he whispered in her ear.

She laughed. She liked the sound of that.

She didn’t know where he was taking her, or what adventures they would have, or how their story would end.

But no matter how it ended, there would be love. And that, in the end, was all that mattered.

T
hank
you so much for reading Rafe and Octavia’s story! Lucy’s story is up next — she’s in for a wild ride as she attempts to inherit Maidenstone and put her past to rest. Her book is still untitled, but it should be out by late 2016 / early 2017. Please
sign up for my newsletter
and I’ll let you know as soon as it’s available for preorder.

In the meantime, if you missed Callie and Thorington’s romance, you should check out
Duke of Thorns
(Heiress Games #1). You didn’t see much of them in this book because they were too busy pursuing their own adventures - so now you can go back and read about their love affair.

Also, Ferguson, Madeleine, and their friends were introduced in my first series, the Muses of Mayfair:

• It all starts with
  Heiress Without a Cause
  , in which Madeleine and Ferguson engage in a madcap courtship (Muses #1)
  
• Amelia and Malcolm’s marriage is anything but convenient in
  Scotsmen Prefer Blondes
  (Muses #2)
  
• Ellie and Nick find love instead of revenge in
  The Marquess Who Loved Me
  (Muses #3)
  
• Prudence and Alex go from friends to lovers in
  The Earl Who Played With Fire
  (Muses #4)
  

Y
ou can buy
all books by clicking the links above.

Again, to hear about future books, please make sure to
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. If you want behind-the-scenes peeks into my writing life (warning: they usually involve Champagne and historical facts), or if you just want to connect, you can also friend me on Twitter (
@sara_ramsey
) or Facebook (
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). I also love to hear from readers (although it sometimes takes awhile to respond) - please send me an email at
[email protected]
if there’s anything you want to say!

Finally, if you enjoyed this book, please tell a friend — the best compliment you can give is to pass the book along to someone else. And if you really want to spread the word, rating the book or writing an honest review is always very much appreciated. Thanks again, and happy reading!

S
ara Ramsey writes fun
, feisty Regency historical romances. She won the prestigious 2009 Romance Writers of America® Golden Heart® award with her second book,
Scotsmen Prefer Blondes
. Her first book,
Heiress Without A Cause
, was a 2011 Golden Heart finalist.

H
opelessly uncool as a child
, Sara has overcompensated by becoming obsessed with fashion, shoes, and #regencyworldproblems. She has great taste in Champagne, bad taste in movies, and a penchant for tiaras. She also believes in taking naps, wearing sunglasses at night, and using Oxford commas. Sara currently lives in San Francisco, California, where she can be found drinking overly-artistic lattes and working on her next Regency historical romance. Read all about her Regency obsessions and upcoming works at
www.sararamsey.com
.

L
ord of Deceit
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidences are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. The Publisher does not have any control over and does not assume responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

C
opyright © 2016 Sara Wampler

All Rights Reserved.

C
over Design by Patricia Schmitt
(Pickyme)

Cover Photography by Jenn LeBlanc