“I’m supposed to be angry with you, you know.” Yet, how could she be after words like that? She’d never been good at arguments, and she’d never been able to hold a grudge.
“My father knows about me, about our plans.”
Her heart stopped. “How?”
His hands wrapped around her shoulders, pulling her closer. “I told him. Just like I told Henrietta today.”
“I’m proud of you.” And she was. So very proud.
“I’m proud of myself. And I don’t want to hide myself any longer. Especially not from you. There is now nothing about me you do not know, Maggie. I swear it.” He pulled the hem of his shirt up again.
She stopped him. “No. I know little about propriety, but I’m certain that girl over there is quite—” Maggie looked around, blinking. “Where did she go? Where did everyone go?” The shop stood deserted.
“Henrietta ushered everyone out.”
Relief flooded her. They were alone. She loved that he’d pulled his mask off for good, but there were still some parts of him she preferred to keep for herself.
Tobias pulled the hem of his shirt up once more and stepped backward onto the platform. He whipped the shirt over his head and tossed it at Maggie’s feet. “I am yours. Every secret I have is yours. And any secrets I’ve had that cause you pain or strife, I divest myself of them, leaving them mere discarded garments on the floor.”
“Is that from Shakespeare?”
“No.”
“It should be. It’s quite good.”
“It’s better than Shakespeare, darling. It’s truth.” He grasped her hands and hauled her up onto the platform, wrapping his arms around her and pressing her close. “When you stood alone on the pedestal in your parents’ garden, you despaired of ever truly being seen for yourself, and I told you I saw you and admired you. And now you see me. All of me. And I promise not to run from that, or from you, again.”
She laid her head against his bare chest and listened to his heart. “I do see you. I always have.”
“That sounded like an endearment, though it should not have.”
“It was.” She kissed the heated spot over his heart and breathed him in. She tilted her head back to look at him. “Should I expect such dramatic apologies after every argument?”
“If I’m in the mood.”
“You’ve not taken your pants off.”
“Abrupt change of topic and an astute observation, lady wife.”
She played with the band of his pants. “You did say you were going to show me all of yourself. Strip naked before me and the world, etcetera, etcetera.”
He threaded his fingers through the hair at the nape of her neck and pulled her hard against him. His kiss, heated and frantic, stunned her.
“Tobias,” she moaned, “get rid of the trousers.”
He broke their kiss, startled. His gaze darted over her shoulder toward the window and back to her. “I’m notthatmuch of an exhibitionist, Maggie.”
“There’s a back room with a rather large worktable.”
“Indeed? Convenient, that.” He swept her up in his arms and jumped off the platform.
When the door to the back room closed behind them, their laughter rang floor to ceiling. Large bolts of fabric of every color imaginable lined the walls from floor to ceiling. And when her husband took her in his arms and took possession of her lips, Maggie didn’t have to keep her eyes open to see an explosion of life-giving colors.
Epilogue
Tobias swept his arm around Maggie’s waist as they left the dining room and pulled her down the hall.
“Eek! Tobias! What are you doing? Your parents and the others will be missing us in the drawing room.” She complained, but she didn’t mind. How could she resist a private moment with Tobias?
