Only Beloved Read Online Free PDF

suggests. I admire your modesty and dignity, your devotion to your sister. I like your appearance. I like the idea of looking at you every day for the rest of my life.”
    Dora gazed at him, startled. She had been pretty once upon a time, but youth and she had parted company long ago. The best she saw in her glass now was neatness and . . . ordinariness. She saw a staid spinster in her middle years. He, on the other hand, was . . . well, even with his forty-eight years and his silvering hair, he was gorgeous.
    She bit her lower lip and gazed back at him. How could they possibly be
friends
?
    â€œI would not have any idea how to be a duchess,” she said.
    She watched his eyes smile, and she smiled ruefully back at him and then actually laughed. So, incredibly, did he. And she was glad yet again that she was sitting. Was there a word more powerful than
gorgeous
?
    â€œI grant,” he said, “that if you were my wife you would also be my duchess. But—I hesitate to disappoint you—it does not mean wearing a tiara and an ermine-trimmed robe every day, you know. Or even every year. And it does not involve rubbing shoulders with the king and his court every week. On the other hand, there may be some amusement to be derived from being addressed as ‘Your Grace’ instead of just plain Miss Debbins.”
    â€œI am rather fond of Miss Debbins,” she said. “She has been with me for almost forty years.”
    His smile faded and he looked austere again.
    â€œAre you happy
,
Miss Debbins?” he asked. “I recognize that you may well be. You have a cozy home here and productive, independent employment doing something you love. You are much appreciated both at Middlebury and, I believe, in the village for your talent and for your good nature.” He paused and met her gaze again. “Or is there a chance that you too would like a friend and companion all your own, that you too would like to belong exclusively to one other person and have him belong to you? Is there a chance that you would be willing to leave your life here and come to Cornwall and Penderris with me? Not just as my friend, but asmy life’s partner?” He paused once more for a moment. “
Will
you marry me?”
    His eyes held hers. And all her defenses fell away, as did all the assurances she had given herself over the years that she was happy with the course her life had taken since she was seventeen, that she was contented at the very least, that she was not lonely. No, never that.
    She did have a cozy home, a busy, productive life, neighbors and friends, an independent, adequate income, family members not too far away. But she had never had anyone of her very own that she would not have to relinquish at some time in the future. She had had her sister until Agnes married William Keeping, and she had had her again for a year before she married Flavian. But . . . there had been no one else and no one permanent to fill the void. No one who had ever vowed to cleave unto her alone until death did them part.
    She had never allowed herself to dwell upon how different her life might have been if her mother had not run away from home so abruptly and unexpectedly when Dora was seventeen and Agnes was five. Her life had been as it had been, and she had made free choices every step of the way. But was it possible that now, after all . . . ?
    She was thirty-nine years old.
    But she was not
dead
.
    She would not marry, though, just out of desperation. A poor marriage could—and would—be far worse than what she already had. But a marriage to the Duke of Stanbrook would not be from desperation, she knew without having to ponder the matter. She had dreamed of himfor a whole year—fourteen months to be precise. Oh, not in
that
way, she would have protested even just an hour ago. But her defenses had come tumbling down, and now she could admit that, yes, she had dreamed of