This was a last desperate gamble to keep her. He held no expectations he'd succeed.

"What did you call me?" she asked unsteadily.

He leaned back and braced himself on the desktop with his hands. "I called you a coward," he said relentlessly. "My God, you were braver at fifteen."

"At fifteen, I had no choice," she choked out, still without facing him.

"Yes, you did. There's always a choice. And from that choice, you had the courage and the cleverness to create something marvelous. From chapel-going rustic to Europe's most famous courtesan? I'm awestruck."

Her elegant shoulders tensed under his attack, but mercifully, she didn't flee.

"I told you why I do this. It's for your sake," she said in a low voice.

"Rubbish. You're doing this because you're afraid." His tone lost some of its harshness. "Do you love me, Verity?"

She whirled around at the question. If he hadn't been fighting for his very life, he'd have relented then. Untold suffering was etched deep on her lovely face.

"That's not fair," she protested in a trembling voice.

No, it wasn't fair. But if he had to, he'd play dirty to win his prize. He'd do anything if it meant she stayed.

In truth, when he looked into her eyes, he already had the answer to his question.

But he continued remorselessly. "You've given me so much-your body, your trust, your comfort, your absolution, so many of your secrets. Yet that's something you've never said."

Arms outstretched against the inlaid marquetry, she pressed back into the door. In her flowing pink dress, she looked like a trapped butterfly. He stifled another wave of compassion.

"You've never said you love me either," she challenged.

He shrugged.

"I love you," he said.

It emerged with a naturalness even he hadn't expected.

For a moment, her gray eyes blazed with light as they rested on him. Had so simple-and so momentous-an act as confessing his love finally won this battle for him?

But of course, it wasn't that straightforward.

She shook her head and glanced away. "Love isn't enough."

"It's a damned lot. Do you love me, Verity?"

She made a helpless gesture that tore at his heart, but he reminded himself he must be pitiless. For both their sakes.

"You must know I do," she admitted sadly.

Until a moment ago, he'd never been sure.

She loves me, she loves me,his heart chanted in a paean of elation. Surely now he couldn't lose her.

He fought to hide his burgeoning triumph. He hadn't won yet. "I know you're hellish ready to sacrifice yourself for the people you love. But in this particular case, you're misguided."

He took a deep breath and struggled to summon the words that would persuade her to stay. "And if you must sacrifice yourself, do that by marrying me. I'm not an easy man. You'll earn your martyr's crown before you're done. Don't condemn both of us to an eternity of unhappiness just because you're too stiff-necked to face society's censure."

"You make me sound so petty," she countered furiously. "But I know how highly you value your prestige. And you've always had Lucifer's own pride. You speak lightly of what you'd forfeit if you married me. But society's censure is crueler than you imagine. You've never had to suffer ostracism. I have."

"I can live with gossip and innuendo. I can't live without you," he said heavily.

What she said about his vanity and shallow worldliness was true. Or had been once.

But compared to the prospect of losing this one precious woman, nothing else mattered an ash in hell.

Her face contracted with turmoil. "You're like the Devil." As she turned away, she sounded like she wasn't far from crying. "You speak seduction and tempt me to what I know is wrong."

He despised himself for hurting her this way, but he had to persevere in his ruthlessness or they were both lost.

"Marry me, become my duchess. What does anyone else matter? We can set up home in the Highlands far away from rumor and the world's disapproval. We'll create a life that's rich and fulfilled and useful. And based on love."

The eyes she leveled on him were dark and so tormented that his soul twisted in guilty agony. "Stop it, Kylemore. You're a duke. You owe an obligation to your title."

He frowned in sudden anger. All his life, his title had been a curse and a burden. Now it promised to deprive him of the only thing he'd ever wanted.

"What about my duty to myself? What about your duty?" he asked fiercely.

He drew himself upright and chanced a step in her direction. His voice became deep and sure as his brief rage receded in the face of her distress. "You've redeemed me, Verity. You've made me a better man, created honor where there was none."

"There was always honor," she whispered as tears flooded her beautiful eyes, making them shine dazzling silver.

"If there was, only you could have found it. You can't leave the task half done." He spread his hands in appeal. "Don't exile me to become the wicked Duke of Kylemore again. Now you've started the process, it's your Christian duty to finish dragging me into the light."

"Stop this," she protested brokenly. "It's cruel. You know only an illicit arrangement is possible between us. And I can't be your mistress after you wed, Kylemore. I've committed many sins, but I won't commit that one."

"If I don't marry you, I will never marry," he said quietly. "There are no more Kinmurries after me. The title dies when I do."

"Please don't say that," she begged, flinching away. "You must have an heir to take his rightful place in the world. Even if we wed and by a miracle I fall pregnant, our children will never be accepted."

"Our children will be beautiful, like their mother. And strong enough to fight their own way. You can't blame them for your obstinacy."

Last time he'd mentioned a baby, she'd been so certain she could never conceive. She sounded less certain now, he noted. Unconsciously, her hand drifted to her midriff, as though she already carried his child.

Perhaps she did.

He fought the primitive urges that thought aroused and strove to maintain his reasonable tone. Bullying and brute strength would never sway her. He'd only win her consent when she acknowledged that neither of them had the power or the right to deny what love demanded.

"Anyway, I'm sure I'm barren," she said bitterly.

"If that's true, then it will just be the mad duke and his exquisite wife alone in their Highland eyrie." He took another step toward her. She might run, but he doubted it. "You say society will scoff. I believe you're wrong. All the men, at least, in the ton will envy my good fortune."

He injected every ounce of grave sincerity he could muster into his voice. "Verity, be brave again. Be brave for both of us. I love you. Surely that's worth more than the world's scorn."

"Don't touch me." She recoiled, although he'd stopped several feet away. "When you touch me, I can't think."

For the first time, he smiled. "I know. You must reach this decision on your own. See what an affliction you laid on me when you conjured honor from my soul?"

She didn't smile back. Instead, her face was drawn sharp with wretchedness.

"It would be so easy to say yes," she said bleakly.

"Then say yes," he coaxed, stealing nearer. "We have work to do to repair the damage my mother wrought on my estates. We have love to share. We have, God willing, children to raise to choose their own path. As their father chooses his own path. As their mother will do."

He paused, but she didn't speak. So he plowed on with all the desperate certainty he felt.

He was so sure. Why the Devil wasn't she? He drew in a shuddering breath. "Be brave, Verity, for their sake, for mine. Above all, for your own." Then, in a low, intense voice, "Don't leave me, mo cridhe . It tears the heart from my body to think of living without you."

He stretched out his hand. To his humiliation, it shook. But what did his pride matter now?

She looked away, fighting tears. Frantically, he searched his mind for something else to say, something that would finally convince her to stay.

But words proved such a frail weapon against her will. Instead, he stood grieving, in agony, struggling to accept that he'd failed.

"Oh, hell," he groaned and turned aside. He couldn't watch her walk away from him again. And this time, it would be forever.

All hope was gone. He'd lost.

Silence stretched endlessly between them.

His breath caught as he steeled himself to listen to the door open. When it closed, it would close on his every happiness. He strained to hear her soft footfall fade into the distance as she abandoned him to his desolation.

Still she didn't move.

What was she waiting for? His hands clenched into fists at his sides.

He'd kneel and beg if he thought it would do any good, but he knew in his heart that no plea could change her mind.

He didn't doubt now that she loved him. The tragedy was that she just didn't love him enough.

"No." Her voice cracked on the word.

Of course that's what she'd say. Hell, hadn't she tried to escape him ever since he'd first seen her?

She'd flung him back into his perpetual ice. He supposed he should be inured to it, but for one flaring moment, love had beckoned with false promises of life and warmth. So his fate now was impossible to bear.

With a soft crackle, a log crumbled to embers in the grate. The sound spurred him to movement, anything to break this agonizing stasis.

"Heaven keep you too," he said hoarsely, blindly trying to find his way back to the desk.

"No," she said more strongly. "Don't go."

He felt her fumble at his sleeve like an importunate creditor. He stopped in trembling bewilderment.

Her touch burned like fire through the superfine of his coat. Its heat was alien to the cold creeping death slowly moving through him.

"Do you really love me, Kylemore?" she whispered.

Why did she torture him like this? She must see his overwhelming misery.

Shamingly, his voice broke as he answered. "I die for love of you, mo leannan. "

The hand on his arm tightened. "Then God help me. God help us both," she said huskily. "But, yes, I'll be your duchess."

What he heard made no sense.

"What did you say?" His question emerged as a bewildered croak.

He heard her inhale before she spoke. "I love you, Justin Kinmurrie, and I will marry you," she said clearly.

By God, this couldn't be true. Had he won after all?

He twisted around and grabbed her shoulders roughly, because in his extremity, gentleness was beyond him. "Say it again."

Tears glittered on her cheeks, but the gaze that met his was alight with certainty. "I will marry you."

The bruising force of his grasp eased. "And the rest."

"Justin Kinmurrie, I love you." She gave a fractured laugh that chimed oddly with her weeping. "I love you and I'll take up residence in your barbarian country, and if I can, I'll give you a pack of wild Highland brats to torment you into old age. And if that doesn't terrify you, you're brave to the point of recklessness."

She tried to make him smile. But he was beyond levity.

"Oh, Verity," he rasped as he clawed her into his arms. She gave a muffled sob against his shoulder and clung to him with the same possessiveness.

Eventually, he lifted his head and looked into her face. No trace now of the pale, unhappy woman who had come to him earlier. Color flushed her flawless skin, and her silver eyes glowed with incandescent joy, even through her tears.

Her beauty had caught and held him at first. But now he saw so much more. Strength. Honesty. Loyalty. Trust.

And love. So much love it banished the chill from his soul forever.

"I thought I'd lost you," he said in a wondering voice. "I thought you were going to leave me."

"Never," she said fervently. "Never. Never."

She dragged his head down to hers for a clumsy, passionate kiss that tasted of weeping and happiness. As she drew away, he caught her face in his hands and looked searchingly into her rain-clear eyes.

At last, no shadows lurked in those radiant depths.

Passion beckoned, as it would always beckon when he was with her. But for the moment, he resisted its urgings. "I swear to make you happy, Verity," he said gravely.

Her face filled with a love so powerful that it humbled him. "Just love me, Justin."