“Don’t say it—”
“I will. Brendan understands you. Percy loved you, but I don’t know if he understood you. You’re a different person now. A confident, vivacious woman. You deserve a man who appreciates you as you are, and I think Brendan does.”
Her heart was swelling. She thought of that little farm. Of waking up beside him. “Do you really think so?”
“I know so.”
“What about the gazette?”
He shrugged. “Take it with you. Do you think you will lack for intrigue or news in Wesloria? You can sell your house or leave it. I will look after this along with your father’s house. I will look after Ruth, and Mr. Brimble. And even Mrs. Plum, although she doesn’t need me. And it would make me the happiest of men to know that you were loved and cared for and understood, and I helped make that possible for you by tending things here.”
Tears of gratitude were already clouding her vision. Hollis hadn’t realized how much she needed to be released from Donovan.
He stood up. “It will break my heart to see you go. But it will also be one of the happiest days of our lives.” He leaned down and kissed her cheek. He took his linen shirt and went out of the drawing room, leaving her to ponder her future.
HOLLISCOULDN’TSLEEP. She tossed and turned, her mind churning over all the possibilities. What if she went? What if she didn’t?
When the day dawned, she climbed out of bed. She needed this over and done. Whatever the next big change would be, she wanted to go on with it.
Ruth came to help her dress, and she put on the best gown of those that fit. “I shouldn’t have had a second helping of the plum pudding,” she complained as Ruth helped stuff her into a gown.
“But it was sogood,” Ruth said. “I can hardly bear to ask, but what do you mean to tell the Weslorian gentleman?”
Hollis sighed. “I don’t know.”
“Ah, Mrs. Honeycutt. That was the most romantic thing I’ve ever seen in me life.”
“Me too,” Hollis said softly.
She went downstairs to eat breakfast, but she couldn’t make herself. Her stomach was in twists and knots. She alternately paced and stared out the window, watching the clock tick down to eleven o’clock.
Marek was punctual. When he arrived, Donovan solemnly showed him into the former dining room, where Hollis had gone to occupy her hands with needlepoint as she waited. Marek looked past the cluttered table, and the proof sheets of her next edition hanging from the linen sheets on the wall, to where Hollis was sitting in her favorite chair.
This was it, then. She put aside the needlework and stood up and rubbed her damp palms on her skirt. She was immediately struck by how wan he looked as he approached her, as if he hadn’t slept, either. He didn’t come all the way to her—he paused halfway into the room. His gaze softened. “Hollis.”
“I amsohappy to see you,” she said. She took a step forward, but he held up a hand.
“Allow me to just...look at you, please. If this is the last time I am to see you, I want to remember it all.”
Hollis slowly lifted her arms, then slowly twirled in a circle. She dropped her arms and said, “Did you mean what you said?”
“Every word,” he said instantly. “I didn’t know how much I needed you—needed love—until you gave it to me, Hollis. And now I can’t imagine being without you.” He took a step closer. “I know I ask too much. I know Wesloria is not the life you are accustomed to. But I will make it a good life, I swear it.” He took another tentative step. “So, then? What is your answer? Will you come, Hollis?”
She sighed. She pressed her fingertips to her brow and squeezed her eyes shut for a long moment. “I don’t know what to say,” she said, and dropped her hands. “I thought about it all night, and I still don’t know what to say.”
Marek stiffened. His jaw clenched.
“I’m scared. I’m uncertain,” she admitted. “I don’t know what to expect and I fear I will miss my family terribly, and there are people who rely on me.”
“I understand,” he said, and looked down at his hands. “I knew it was—”
“But I could no more let you leave without me than I could leave off the plum pudding last night. Promise me, Marek. Promise me you’ll always love me and care for me, and you won’t be alarmed if I write things, and you won’t try and tell me what to do, and if I start a philological society, you won’t object.”
His face lit with a happy smile of surprise. His amber eyes seemed to cast the room in gold. “Are you mad? I will be your first charter member. We’ll start with the study of Weslorian.”
“I mean to write a lot of things. And sometimes the things I write anger people.”
“I will bring you pen and paper.”
