“I should be. The truth is, I’ve never seen you for something you are not.” A faint, wistful smile. “But my brother recently reminded me that even on the blackest night, stars still shine.” And she’d rather look beyond this mistake than to fixate on it. Everyone deserved a second chance.
“You’re the stars,” he said hastily, yet he moved not an inch. “Not me.”
More laughter echoed off the walls.
“No.” Leonora shook her head. “We mere mortals aren’t meant to be stars.” She smiled when confusion lit his gaze. “They are merely meant to serve as a light in an otherwise darkened void.”
“Leonora . . .”
A voice shouted from the crowd, “Kiss her!” followed by a chorus of jeers.
Leonora ignored the crowd and took another step closer to the man she loved beyond all reason. “They have continually andinvariably guided me to you time and again. So don’t ask me to fight against the stars. I won’t.”
“But you have no wish to reform a rake.”
That’s right. She didn’t. “I don’t want to reform you.”
His jaw clenched. “Then . . .”
“I want you to be rake forever,” she said simply. “With one woman in mind.”
He visibly started before his brows furrowed.
“Is that not what you thought I’d say?” Leonora grinned. “I love you, Rake. No matter who or what are you. I came here to say this.”
“Leonora, I—”
“I don’t wish to reform you,” she repeated, firmer this time, because this was where he would always resist, where the scars of his past would whisper that he wasn’t worthy of her love. But she knew better even if he didn’t yet. She saw him. “Stay a rake all your life. But only have eyes for me.”
She would tell him a hundred times if she had to. A thousand. She didn’t mind repeating this all her life.
Dare would never hurt her.
What he had done—accepting her mother’s offer, walking away—most women would cry out in fury or retract into a sea urchin shell. Not her. She understood. His actions came from a place of love.
“Do you know what you are saying?” he asked quietly.
“Yes.”
Two wounded hands framed her face. “God, for some reason I have no words.”
“You could say you only have eyes for me.”
He smiled then. “I do. Only for you.”
A cheer went up.
“Good,” Leonora said with a nod, her relief so great she thought her knees might give way. “There is one thing, though.”
His voice was soft, curious. “Should I be worried?”
She smiled at him. “I am searching for a certain sort of love. Unfashionable. A bit ridiculous. The laces-undone sort of love. If you can’t give me such love...”
His thumbs rubbed back and forth against her cheeks. “You mean a we-can’t-part-with-each-other-forever sort of love? Just that?”
Her pulse shattered and weaved back together again.
Was he saying . . .
