She glanced up, startled by the sudden softness.
“Why do you care?” he repeated, his brow furrowing as if he had an ache.
If he asks for a third time, I must confess the truth.
It was not so much a barter with fate, that time, but a promise to herself.
“Caro… why do you care?” he murmured, his voice thick.
She set the quill down and met his gaze once more. “Because I have fallen in love with you. Because you are the man I dreamed about for so many years, and if it is a choice between my ruination or yours, I choose mine. But what I will not choose is marriage to someone else. It is you or no one. Yes, it might seem like madness, but one ought to expect a touch of madness from a girl who has broken her own heart.”
He was on his knees before her in an instant, grabbing the wretched papers and ripping them apart. With hope shining bright in his eyes, he tossed the fragments aside, where they drifted down to the floor like snowflakes.
A moment later, his hands came up to cradle her face, and his lips were on hers. He kissed her as if it was the very last time, deep and slow and passionate, and as she tipped forward off the settee and into his arms, she prayed with all her might that it wasnotthe last time.
She kissed him back with all the desperation and anxiety and shattered hope of the last few days. She kissed him as if she was weaving a spell that could hold them together, her mouth meeting the ebb and flow of his, dancing a dance that only they knew. She kissed him like he was everything she had ever wanted and could ever need. She kissed him like they had forever, with golden years stretching ahead of them.
Her arms looped around his neck, pulling him closer as he kissed her in kind. She ran her hands through his silky, golden hair and brushed his cheek with her thumb. She caressed his neck and gripped his arms, reminding herself over and over, with every touch, that he was real, and he was kissing her, and all hope was not lost after all.
However, there was one thing she needed to be sure of before she could let go of the last thread of her nerves.
“Does this mean you do not want to be parted from me?” she gasped, pulling back for a second.
He smiled. “It would be rather hard for us to proceed unless you have an abundance of glue to stick those papers back together.”
“Do not tease me,” she urged, twisting a lock of his golden hair around her finger. “What does this mean, my love?”
He gazed into her eyes, a soft sigh escaping his lips. “I love you, Caro.” The hint of a grin tugged at one corner of his mouth. “Truly, I believe I started falling in love with you the moment I heard you play that awful violin music.”
He loves me…Her heart soared, but her mind still raced.
“Then… why did you agree to the annulment?” she whispered, trying not to laugh at his jest. She could laugh once she knew everything, and could feel the anchor of him grounding her once again in the only place she wanted to be—his arms.
“I think we were both trying to do the righteous thing while ignoring our own feelings,” he replied. “Dickie informed me that it would be the best outcome for you, and I believed him. Perhaps, I also wanted to let him do the right thing for once, but I was a fool to think I could ever see you with another. It would have destroyed me. Why, I was already inquiring about buying at least three dogs if you would like to know how addled my brain was.”
She allowed herself a chuckle. “You were not.”
“I assure you, I was.”
She tucked a lock of his hair behind his ear, as he did so often for her, and just smiled at him for a moment, savoring hishandsome face. “From the first spill of port on your shirt, I think I wanted to be loved by you. Indeed, I no longer think it was any accident that I found your room that night.” She leaned in close to his ear. “Can I tell you a secret?”
“You can,” he replied.
“It was the first time I ever felt butterflies,” she whispered.
His fingertips trailed down the curve of her waist and across her stomach before he rested his hand there. “What about now?”
“They are wilder than ever,” she told him, turning her head to place a kiss on his cheek.
Tracing his fingertips back to her waist and around to her back, he pulled her against him. “I love you.”
“As I love you,” she replied in earnest, the butterflies flapping with a fury in her belly. “But you must promise me that you will never ask to be parted from me again, no matter what we might face from society. You must promise to consult me before you behave righteously.”
He grinned. “I promise. But what if I do not want to behave righteously? Must I consult you then?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
