The Duke Jokingly Asked Her to Find Him a Wife — “You May Be Looking at Her, Your Grace!”
Chapter 13
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"She told me that a duke requires a duchess of blood and fortune," Cecily interrupted quietly, resting her hands on the damp stone railing. "And that I would do well to remember my place."Maximilian stepped closer, his chest rising with a sharp breath. "And what did you say?"Cecily looked out over the darkened fields. "I told her that she did not know you at all."He fell silent. The wind stirred the loose tendrils of hair at her temple. When he spoke again, his voice was thick with emotion:"She does not know me. No one in that drawing room knows me. For 36 years, they have bowed to Westhaven, flattered Westhaven, and schemed to bind themselves to Westhaven. But you, Cecily..."He paused, stepping directly before her, closing the distance between them until she could feel the steady warmth radiating from his coat."...from the moment you laughed at me in that churchyard breakfast, you looked past the title. You saw a man. A man who was tired, who was lonely, and who wanted nothing more than to find someone brave enough to tell him the truth."Cecily's breath caught. "Maximilian...""I have visited your office twice a week on the flimsiest pretexts an educated gentleman could invent," he said, a faint, tender smile breaking across his face. "I have studied parish boundaries I care nothing about. I have listened to your father discourse on drainage ditches until my ears rang. I have bought books I had already read, simply to stand upon the pavement and watch you carry bread across the square."Tears pricked at the corners of Cecily's eyes, bright in the moonlight. "You have been extraordinarily thorough.""I have been a man in love, Cecily. Thoroughly, completely, and hopelessly in love."He took both of her hands in his. His gloves were gone, and his bare fingers were warm, strong, and trembling slightly against her skin."Lady Catherine is wrong," he continued softly. "Westhaven does not require fortune. Westhaven has more gold and land than any one family could ever need. Westhaven requires a soul. It requires a heart that is generous, a mind that is sharp, and a spirit that makes every room it enters brighter than before. But more than that, Maximilian Ashcombe requires Cecily Bennett."He went down upon one knee on the flagstones.There was no grand audience, no crowded ballroom, no spectacle for society to applaud. There was only the quiet garden, the scent of wet boxwood, and the man who held her hands as though they were the most precious things on earth."You once told me," he murmured, his eyes searching hers, "that if I needed a wife, I might already be looking at her. I have looked at no one else since that day. Will you marry me, Cecily? Will you be my duchess, my partner, my equal, and my home?"A tear escaped and traced a warm path down her cheek. She did not pull her hands away; she tightened her fingers around his.