“No, of course not.” He groaned. “But you live and breathe the very idea of love, and up until a few hours ago, I thought it was the stuff of tomfoolery. I did not think you would take kindly to a confession that began with, “I doubt I am capable of love, so you should not expect it from me, but I want you to be my wife.” Would you?”
She balled her hands into fists, infuriated and bewildered and so out of her depth she felt like she could not breathe. “You might have at least tried to confess that way, to see my response.”
“I have known you since we were both children, Anna. I am entirely aware of how you would have responded,” he replied, more gently. “I would have ended up hurting you more.”
Anna turned her back on him, needing a moment without his handsome face and shining eyes and sweet lips distracting her to think. “But what has changed so drastically, Percival? I do not understand. Indeed, I still feel as if this is a very twisted joke, and Max and Dickie are going to burst out of that carriage any second, laughing their heads off.”
“I spoke with my brother,” Percival said, and though she could not see him, she sensed him step closer. “He is to be married. He told me of his own love story and… I realized what the tight feeling in my chest has been, all this time.
“But what you must understand, my love, is that since I was a boy, I believed that love was one specific emotion. Rather, I believed that only the very worst version of love existed; that it was like a curse upon a person that could be manipulated and twisted for convenience and benefit. I believed it was a powerful and wicked enough curse to turn a father against his son.”
Guilt pinched at Anna’s insides, her face flinching as she remembered his sorrowful tale. Of course he had shunned the very notion of love, considering the vicious manner in which he had been raised, and the cruelty of his stepmother. But if he had confessed the way he had said he might have done, she realized she would have accepted regardless. She would have given up the certainty of love for the potential of something like it. A different version of her dream for a different version of love.
“What I forgot were the years before,” he continued, “when I witnessed another kind of love. The rare and sweet kind that makes a man gentle and makes a woman seem to glow from within. My mother and father were like that. I had allowed myself to forget. I had buried it deeply, because I suppose it did not help me to remember.”
He stepped up behind her, his hand brushing back the loose locks of her hair so they would not get in her face. “There is no one in this world that I trust like I trust you,” he said quietly. “And I know that you will be honest with me now. Is there any part of you that feels as I do?”
She struggled to control her breathing as a cool wind whipped around them, the moonlight fading in and out as clouds scudded across that silvery glow. The trees that flanked the sides of the road trembled and shivered, while the sound of Percival’s greatcoat flapping was akin to wings—but those of a raven or a dove; she could not be certain. A bad omen or a good one.
“It is getting cold,” he said. “Perhaps, I should put you back in the carriage where you will be warmer.”
“You arenotputting me back in the carriage,” she remarked, her back still turned. She could not, would not, look at him until she knew how to feel, for if she were to gaze into those beautiful eyes and see his sadness, she would be done for. Worse, if she were to look at him and see mirth or amusement in his expression, there would be no recovery from such a mean trick.
Come now, even you know it is no trick,her mind urged, for she knew that he was not unkind by nature. Circumstance had made it hard for him to express himself, that was all. Yet, he was doing rather well at expressing himself now.
“Very well,” he said.
Her heart leaped into her throat as he took off his great coat and draped it over her shoulders, his arms briefly encircling her in order to pull the sides tighter around her front. Instinctively, she leaned back into his chest, and his arms lingered where they were—not an embrace of the deliberate kind, but a gesture of protection to keep out the biting wind.
“I have waited for six-and-twenty years to find the sort of love I have dreamed about,” she said, almost to herself. “I have waited so long that I assumed it would never happen.”
“I am not asking you to settle for less than your dream, Anna,” he told her, his arms still loose around her. “Your friendship means more to me than anything, and if friendship is all you desire, then?—”
“Would you be quiet for a moment,” she interrupted, though not unkindly. “I am trying to soliloquize to make sense of my thoughts, and one should not be halted when one is doing so.”
He chuckled softly. “Forgive me. I shall not say another word until you are finished with your soliloquy.”
“I have read so very many novels and stories, have studied every manner of plot and narrative, until it has reached a point where I can guess the twists and turns of a tale from the first few chapters,” she continued hesitantly. “It is always obvious who is going to fall in love and how they are going to fall in love, so I assumed that it would be obvious in reality, too. I thought I would see a gentleman and just… know that he was to be mine, bringing me a true love to last a lifetime.
“I did not see you because I was not looking for you. I was looking for poetry and mystery and that bolt of instantaneous love across a ballroom,” she persevered, perspiring a little despite the whipping wind. “Yet, I should have known that there was more to you than met the eye, for I have never felt more assured or confident with anyone. I have never bickered and quarreled with anyone, the way I do with you. I have never been bold enough to speak my mind with anyone but you. And I always thought it strange.”
His arms tightened around her. “You did?”
“To the rest of society, I am as quiet as a mouse. It is why I was able to do my work as The Matchmaker so well, because no one noticed me.” She smiled and settled deeper into the solidity of Percival’s chest. “Even with my brothers, I eventually back down. But never with you. You have always ignited a fire in me that, by rights, should not exist.”
“It has always been something of a competition between us,” he admitted, and though she still could not see him, she thought she could feel him smile.
“And we have always mistaken one another’s words and misjudged one another’s actions,” she added. “I believe we are quite terrible at communicating, in truth, though I daresay we have potential.”
His breath caught. “Potential? Do you mean…?”
Slowly, she turned in his arms and pressed her palms to his chest. His heart was beating quickly, his throat bobbing as he gazed down into her eyes. “Do not put words in my mouth, Percival,” she said with a teasing smile. “I am still trying to find the right words to say that?—”
He dipped his head and caught her mouth with his in a soft, slow kiss, while his arms pulled her closer. She smiled against his lips as she grasped the lapels of his waistcoat, raising up on tiptoe to kiss him more deeply in return. She would chastise him after, for old time’s sake, but right now she was determined to enjoy the moment. Indeed, her favorite heroines would not have scolded him for making a dream come true.
It was the sort of kiss that changed everything, so similar to the kiss in the Orangery, yet so utterly different. Knowing that he loved her made it all the sweeter, her nerves jittering with a simmering excitement rather than shivering confusion.
She relaxed into his embrace, kissing him with all of the hopes of her eight fruitless years in society, pinning every last one on him. Her hands smoothed up his muscular chest and over his shoulders, meeting at the nape of his neck. He stooped slightly, to allow her to cling onto him, smiling all the while.
