Free Sinful (Hot Regency Romance Novella) by Sharon Page Page B

not come
and ask for her answer to his proposal. He didn’t want to marry her
now.And the truth was, it was madness that he’d ever asked her. Her
business was booming, her seasmstresses had done well while she was
away, and all was going well with her shop. She had gotten what she
wanted after all. An independent life.
    But now it felt utterly empty.
    At least Lady Maryanne—now Mrs. Peabody—was
free of Cavell. He had faced ruin, for he’d needed Maryanne’s money
to cover his gaming debts. His body had been found in the Thames.
But whether he’d jumped in or had fallen in drunk, no one knew.
    The bell tinkled above her shop door. Estelle
frowned. It was after hours. No one should be coming in now. She
stood, set down her patterns, and opened the workroom curtain.
    Lyan stood in the doorway, just as he had
done two weeks ago. But this time, an enormous bouquet of red roses
overflowed his arms. There were so many, the red blossoms almost
hid his handsome face. “For my beautiful Star of the Gardens,” he
said softly. Then he tossed them, this token that must have cost a
fortune, onto one of the chairs.
    “Lyan—” But her voice died as he dropped to
one knee, and a shy smile touched his lips.
    He held up something that sparkled, something
that caught the candlelight and flashed it around the room. “I
didn’t want to whisk you away to Gretna Green, Estelle. I wanted to
marry you here, properly. If you wish, we can marry at St. George’s
as soon as I get a special license.” He raked back his dark hair.
“I love you. I’ve loved you for…for as long as I can remember. When
I realized I could have lost you in that inn…you have to say yes,
Estelle. Here, now, you have to say yes to me. If you don’t, I’m
going to stay here, down on one knee, until you do. And with me
filling your doorway, no one can get into your shop.”
    She almost laughed. The very first time he
had asked her, ten years ago, she had said yes. She’d agreed then,
before she had grown afraid and had run, because she had thought
she could never love anyone more than she had loved Lyan then.
    She had been wrong. She loved him even more now .
    At her silence, his face dropped. “Love, it
can’t be ‘no’ again, can it?”
    “There are more reasons why I can’t marry you
than I can count. For one, you will soon become an earl. Earls do
not marry simple seamstresses—”
    “You are anything but a simple
seamstress.”
    “I am a shopkeeper, Lyan. Earls do not marry
shopkeepers. Unless the earls are very, very poor and the
shopkeepers are very rich.”
    His lips twitched. “I was a Bow Street
Runner. My upbringing was no different than yours, and I have a
profession, as you have.”
    “I ran away the first time because I was
afraid of being trapped. When we were young and you asked me to
marry you, I wanted you more than life itself. That was why I said
yes. But then I became afraid. You know my mother had been treated
so badly by men. She hoped to find one who would keep us safe, but
she always chose men who drank too much or hit her. She began to
tell me that all men were like that. I didn’t believe it of you,
but she told me I was being naïve—”
    “Your mother convinced you that I could turn
abusive. That I could hurt you.”
    “I’m sorry. I should never have listened, but
I had seen so few examples of good and noble men, I was too afraid
not to listen. In the end, my mother died just before you asked me
to marry you. She died because a man beat her, and she fell and
struck her head.”
    “Estelle, I’m sorry. I knew she had died, but
I didn’t know how.”
    “Of course you didn’t, for I didn’t tell you.
I never thought to share my fears. I thought I had to keep
everything bottled up inside me and face everything alone.” She
swallowed hard. “I was afraid of love, Lyan. I was afraid of losing
control of my life. I thought what I wanted most was to be in
charge of my own destiny. But when we were attacked in