“I want for nothing, Devon, except…”
“Yes?”
She tugged her earlobe and searched the ceiling.
He pressed her chin down and kissed her lips, a gentle revelation of a kiss. “Tell me so I can give it to you.”
She licked her lips and seemed to find her courage. She cupped his face between her hands and said, “The only thing I want is your heart.”
God above, did she not know? “You have it.” He could do better than that. “I love you. I love you. I love—”
She tackled him, and he knew how Arthur felt to be squeezed breathless. Her lips fluttered against his ear. “I love you, too. I love you. I love you. I—”
He captured her lips and swallowed her words. They settled like champagne bubbles in his heart. “I’d like to go home now. To be more precise, I would like to go to our bed now.”
“Your apartment is close.”
“Ah, good point. We’ll go there first.”
They stood as one and, arms tangled, bodies angling toward one another, they left the heavy scent of coffee and grumblings of conversation behind.
“First?” Lillian asked, looking down the street.
Devon pulled her in the opposite direction. “Before we go to Art’s. We really should get our own place, though.”
“We don’t have to go to your brother’s residence. I am fine staying in your apartment.”
“I know.” He kissed the top of her head. “My family is not who I am, but it is a part of me, and I am a part of it.”
“My. A very mature perspective. One would never think you’d brawled in the middle of a ballroom just the other night.”
“Reggie,” Devon growled. “He’s wily.”
“Thank you, Devon, for laying him flat.”
“Would you like me to do it again?”
Lillian wrapped both hands around his bicep, stopping his leisurely stroll, and pressed her lips to the shell of his ear. She whispered, “I’d rather you lay me flat.” Tossing a saucy glance over her shoulder, she strolled ahead of him.
He watched her saunter away from him, her lovely outline bumping against the world. When she moved too far away and the thread between them grew too tight to bear, he ran after her. Hers would be the last lips he kissed before sleeping and the eyes he smiled upon when waking. Incomparable and irreplaceable, and completely his. He was hers, too.
EPILOGUE
March 1822
The dinner party was small but crowded, and Lillian curled her toes in delight, watching those gathered in her drawing room. They were full and sated and glowing with a bit of wine, and they were just the type of people who saw her, heard her, and liked her still.
The once boisterous room had now grown a bit empty. Her parents and Devon’s mother had left some time ago, claiming age and need of sleep. Tabitha, Arthur, Jane, and George had long since disappeared. The room had divided into two groups—a small group of mamas at its center and one made up of their dainty daughters along its edge.
Lillian brought her wine to her lips and studied the girls who had found the edges of the room so quickly and so quietly. Why were they so drawn to walls?
The girls reminded Lillian of her and Tabitha and Jane, and she hoped they were discussing their dreams and desires and daring each other to be a little odd, a little different, and entirely themselves.
“How are the ducklings doing?” Devon’s voice in her ear always made her shiver. His hand found hers, and she squeezed.
“Hugging the wall as usual,” she said.
“Incorrect. They’re decorating it. What is a wall without some flowers?” He brought her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles. “I do appreciate this celebratory function, Lil Bean, but”—his eyes gazing into her own sparked—“I begin to itch for some privacy.”
