“I love you,” he said, because it was the only thing to say. It was the only thing that mattered.
Her eyes glistened, and he could see her breath catch in her throat. She looked up at the man she was trying to marry. His brows rose as he gave her a tiny, one-shouldered shrug, as if to say, It is your choice.
Gregory sank to one knee. “Marry me,” he said, his very soul in his words. “Marry me.”
He stopped breathing. The entire church stopped breathing.
She brought her eyes to his. They were huge and clear and everything he’d ever thought was good and kind and true.
“Marry me,” he whispered, one last time.
Her lips were trembling, but her voice was clear when she said-
One
In which Our Hero falls in love.
Two months earlier
Unlike most men of his acquaintance, Gregory Bridgerton believed in true love.
He’d have to have been a fool not to.
Consider the following:
His eldest brother, Anthony.
His eldest sister, Daphne.
His other brothers, Benedict and Colin, not to mention his sisters, Eloise, Francesca, and (galling but true) Hyacinth, all of whom-all of whom-were quite happily besotted with their spouses.
For most men, such a state of affairs would produce nothing quite so much as bile, but for Gregory, who had been born with an uncommonly cheerful, if occasionally (according to his younger sister) annoying, spirit, it simply meant that he had no choice but to believe the obvious:
Love existed.
It was not a wispy figment of the imagination, designed to keep the poets from complete starvation. It might not be something that one could see or smell or touch, but it was out there, and it was only a matter of time before he, too, found the woman of his dreams and settled down to be fruitful, multiply, and take on such baffling hobbies as papier-mâché and the collection of nutmeg graters.