" Now I’ll just have to do without.”
She raised her eyebrows. “I’m sorry?”
Then Maximus did something very strange: he went on one knee before her.
“This isn’t right at all,” he said, continuing to glare as if he found it all her fault.
She sat up. “What are you doing?”
“Artemis Greaves, will you do me the honor of —”
“Are you insane?” she demanded. “What of your father? Your conviction that you must marry for the dukedom?”
“My father is dead,” he said softly. “And I’ve decided the dukedom can go hang.”
“But —”
“Hush,” he snapped. “I’m trying to propose to you properly even without my mother’s necklace.”
“But why?” she asked...
“I know that this is rather disappointing,” he said. “But I intend to make you respectable. "
― Elizabeth Hoyt , Duke of Midnight (Maiden Lane, #6)