Lucien leaned forward again because he couldn’t stop himself. He pressed a kiss on her mouth. “You are my Emily,” he said. “I want you. I want you in my home, and in my bed. I don’t need a dowry, and I don’t have a family either.” He stopped, remembering all the reasons he had not to get married.

When he didn’t continue, Emily tremblingly raised one hand to his shoulder. “Did you have a family once?” Her soft whisper fell into the silence.

The agony in Lucien’s eyes blinded her, and she almost looked away, but didn’t.

“You might not want to marry me, Emily. My marquise’s name was Felice. My son was Michel. I didn’t…I couldn’t protect them. When I was away, trying to secure passage to England, they, they—”

She crossed the few inches that stood between them and brought her arms around his neck. She could see the shadowed darkness in his eyes. “They died,” she finished for him. “I’m so sorry, Lucien. Now they live here.” She pressed her hand to his heart.

Lucien cursed himself. He hadn’t cried in years—in years. He hadn’t cried when he ran desperately through the charred remains of the chateau, when a shout told him that the men had found the bodies of his wife and child, when he buried them in each other’s arms, as they were in death.

So Emily cried for him. Huge tears filled her beautiful eyes and ran down her cheeks. Her shoulders jerked and she pressed her face against his shoulder. His arms went around her reflexively.

“It was a long time ago,” he said.

“I suppose there is no time long enough, is there, Lucien?”

There was a heartbeat of silence.

“Probably not. I should not have asked you to marry me, mignonne. I am not good for it. Although, although you are the—” He stopped again.

Emily seemed to have stopped crying. All he could see was a smooth sweep of golden hair, but she wasn’t trembling anymore. Her arms were still hard around his neck.

“Hush” was all she said.

Lucien thought for a second and then brought his arms down from her back and picked her up. She weighed nothing, his Emily. He walked over to a comfortable settee and sat down, tucking her against his shoulder again. Then he started dropping kisses in her hair. Which wasn’t, he realized, the right thing for him to be doing, given that he had just withdrawn his marriage proposal.

“I will marry you.”

Lucien stopped kissing her hair. “I don’t want to be married for pity,” he said, his brusque tone at odds with his heart. His heart didn’t care why she married him, as long as she did.