“I went back once. After I was settled in London. I tried to convince her to come live with me, but she refused. It was the most awful visit.” She shut her eyes briefly, vividly recalling her mother’s haggard appearance. And the house… God, she hated that place. Hated the crude, raucous noises, the smells of stale liquor and smoke and bodies. “I never saw her again. The last correspondence I had from her arrived six months later. She’d written me a letter and asked one of the girls from the brothel to deliver it to me. That girl was Charlotte.”

“Your friend, Mrs. Carlyle.” It was impossible to gauge his reaction from his neutral tone and expression.

“Yes. The story of her being a widow was but yet another fabrication. Charlotte, who was pregnant, was accosted on her way to my home and arrived beaten and bruised. Albert and I nursed her back to health, and she has lived with us ever since. When she gave birth to her daughter, we all agreed that the perfect name for the child was Hope.” She drew in a long, deep breath, then slowly exhaled.

“The reason my matchmaking enterprise is so important to me is because of my upbringing. I used to hide in the cupboard under the stairs thinking, if only Mama had married, how different both our lives would have been. And the same for all the other girls in the brothel-if only they’d found kind, decent men to marry, their lives would have been so different…”

Shaking off the remnants of the past, she said softly, “So now you see why any further association, let alone a marriage, between us is impossible. I told you on more than one occasion I’ve never intended to marry. I would find it impossible to keep up the pretense and lies regarding my past with a husband-someone I’d have to live with on a daily basis. Nor would I expect any man to accept not only my past, but the pasts of the people closest to me, for I would never abandon Albert, Charlotte, and Hope. The fact that this tavern keep Ramsey recognized me all those years ago-what if he were to see me again? The whole ugly truth could come out. It is a fear, and a possibility that lives inside me every day. A woman with a past like mine could cost you everything, Philip. Your social standing, your future, everything. ”

They stood in silence, looking at each other, the six-foot expanse of rug between them seeming like an ocean, his expression impossible to decipher. She’d told him. Everything. All that was left was to say good-bye. A simple word, yet she could not seem to push it past her lips.

Finally, after what seemed an eternity, he spoke. “You’ve presented everything in your usual clear, concise manner, but there are still three questions I’d like to ask you-if you have no objections.”

“Of course.”

“My first question is, except for details regarding your background, have you ever lied to me?”

“No.” A humorless sound escaped her. “But with regard to my background, I’ve accumulated an impressive number of offenses. What is the second question?”

“Do you love me?”

The question stilled everything inside her. Do you love me? How could she deny it? Yet how could she admit it? And to what end? Telling him how she felt about him would only make their parting more painful. “I cannot see how that matters, Philip.”

“It matters a great deal to me.” Eyes steady on hers, he stepped toward her, not stopping until less than two feet remained between them. Her heart pounded so hard, she could feel her blood drumming through her veins. Reaching out, he clasped her hands, then raised them to his lips. “It is a simple question, Meredith.” His words warmed his breath against her chilled fingers.

“There is nothing simple about it.”

“On the contrary, it requires nothing more than a simple yes-or-no response. Do you love me?”

She wanted to he. Damnation, she’d uttered so many untruths over the years, surely telling one more should not cause such anguish. But she couldn’t push the falsehood past her lips. Lowering her chin, she stared at their clasped hands and whispered, “Yes.”

He squeezed her hands, then pressed her palms against his chest. Through his shirt, his heartbeat thumped against her hands, strong and steady. Wrapping one arm around her waist, he touched his fingers beneath her chin and raised her face until she had no choice but to look into his eyes. Eyes whose expression in no way reflected the disgust she’d anticipated. Indeed, his gaze was warm with tenderness. And unmistakable love.

“My third question is, will you marry me?”

Her breath left her lungs in a whoosh. She tried to step back, but his arm tightened, holding her in place. “Have you not been listening?” she asked, her voice rising to an incredulous level. “I am a bastard. I grew up in a brothel. My mother was a prostitute. I spent years as a thief.”

“You told me you’d made peace with your past. Yet you cannot seem to let it go.”

“I have made peace with my past. But just because I can accept it doesn’t mean anyone else would. The things I’ve done, my background, are unacceptable. Society, your own family, would never accept me. You know they wouldn’t.”

“You cannot help nor be blamed for the circumstances surrounding your birth, Meredith. Nor are you responsible for your mother’s actions. What you see as insurmountable obstacles, I view as reasons to admire your strength and determination to overcome such daunting odds. As for Society rejecting you, yes, I’m certain most of them would if they were to learn the things you confided in me today. However, I don’t care a jot about Society. I suffered at the expense of their petty cruelties until I left England. I owe them nothing-most especially the woman I love. As for my family, Catherine has already given our union her blessing. She married a man from our social class-a baron with a pedigree and fortune-but they do not love each other, and she is miserably unhappy. She does not want the same misfortune to befall me.”

He moved one step closer, leaving only a hairbreadth between them. “When I returned to England, I was fully prepared to marry a woman I barely knew in order to keep my word to my father. I am no longer willing to do that. The thought of marrying anyone but you is completely impossible. Other people may not accept you, Meredith. But I do. Exactly as you are. And isn’t that really all that matters?”

Meredith started to tremble. Thank God his arm supported her, or she surely would have wilted to the floor. He’d listened to all her objections, then had swept them aside as if he wielded a broom.

“What if you are unable to break the curse, Philip?”

“Then I would humbly request that you be the wife of my heart, Meredith. I would not shame you, or our feelings for each other, by asking you to live openly in England as my mistress-especially now that I fully understand all the reasons for your aversion to such an arrangement. If I cannot rid myself of the curse, then we could leave England, travel abroad, anywhere you wished, and represent ourselves as husband and wife. If the curse prevents me from pledging my life to you in a church, it still cannot prevent me from pledging it to you.”

He tucked a stray curl behind her ear. “Whether it is because of the decade I spent away from Society, or simply my nature, there are very few people whose opinion truly carries any weight with me. Your past, our arrangement- whatever we decide it is to be-is private, between you and me. What anyone else thinks does not matter.”

Dear God, he made it all seem so reasonable, and possible. Still, one small matter remained…

She shifted out of his arms, and put several feet between them. “Um, Philip, I’m afraid I have a confession to make. Several minutes ago, I pilfered your watch from your waistcoat pocket.” She slipped her hand into the deep pocket of her gown to retrieve the piece. “I did it to demonstrate how completely unacceptable I would be as a candidate for your wife, and had every intention of returning it to you…” Her voice trailed off and a frown pulled down her brows as her fingers swept through her pocket. Her empty pocket.

“Is this what you’re looking for?”

Her gaze riveted on him slowly extracting his watch from his waistcoat pocket. “H-how…?”

He casually snapped open the gold cover, consulted the time, then returned the piece to his pocket with equal nonchalance. Then a slow, devastating smile curved his lips upward. “I picked up several skills while abroad. The ability to pinch items from someone’s pocket, for instance. Bakari instructed me on the finer points, strictly for survival reasons, you understand. Came in quite handy on more than one occasion.”

She actually felt her jaw drop open. “You stole things?”

“I prefer to call it retrieving my own personal items that were stolen from me first. Many places I visited were rampant with thieves and pickpockets. Since I strongly objected to being relieved of my property, I merely beat them at their own game.”

Meredith shook her head in amazed disbelief. “Incredible. You’re very good. I didn’t feel a thing.”

“Thank you. Heartwarming to know I haven’t lost my touch. However, as long as we’re exchanging confessions, I must tell you that I did, on one occasion, use my talents to confiscate something that did not belong to me. While in Syria, Bakari, Andrew, and I, through a rather circuitous series of events, were imprisoned in a dungeon. I pinched the key from the guard’s pocket, and we escaped.”

Her eyes goggled. “Imprisoned in a dungeon? Did you accidentally lock yourselves in?”

“Not exactly. It is a very involved tale, one I will happily share with you-but not right now. Right now we have much more important things to discuss.” Erasing the distance between them with a single long stride, he drew her into his arms. “Do you have any other last-minute confessions to make?”