Her heart made a slow and dizzy swoop in her chest. She had hoped—oh God, how she had hoped.
He squeezed her hands, worrying his thumb across her fingers.“I’m sorry. Oh God, I’m so sorry I left. It was a mistake, I knew as soon as I went that it was a mistake—only I did not—I could not—”
He looked down at their joined hands, her pale fingers in his larger ones. “Bertie told me you were getting married. He said that Huw had come down to London for your wedding. You’re… not married?”
She stared up into his face in frank astonishment. “He told youwhat? Huw came to London days ago to return Georgiana’s dog, not for my—” A sudden hot anger boiled up in her, and she yanked her hands out of Arthur’s grasp. “Mywedding? You came racing back in a dither because you thought I was marrying yourbrother?”
She whirled and stalked away, her pulse skipping and her cheeks growing hot with outrage.
Arthur chased after her, spinning her back to face him. “You told Davis no? You turned him down?”
“Of course I turned him down! I was under the impression that I was marryingyou!”
Arthur caught her shoulders and held, as if he did not know whether to draw her to him or push her away. “But you wanted him first. I thought—when you knew that he was not a traitor—when you learned that his intentions had been good—”
“You thought I would flit from your bed to his, is that it? You thought I would have whichever Baird brother I was in closest proximity to?” She jerked up her chin, furious for once at the difference in their heights. She would have liked to tower over him in righteous anger. She would have liked at this particular juncture not to feel the desire—still, always—to lean into his strength.
“No!” he said, and now he did drag her closer, burying his face in her hair and enclosing her in his arms. “No. Oh God, Lydia,I’ve not had a rational thought in days. Weeks. Possibly since the first moment I saw you at Strathrannoch.”
She tried to hold herself stiffly in his embrace, but it was no good. He smelled of soap and sweat and burnt honey, and he was Arthur, and he was here. She tucked her cheek against his chest, and felt his whole body shudder with relief.
She knew him—had known he would not abandon her. But oh God, every part of him was solid and warm, and she was glad—soglad—he was here.
“Huw told my mother that you had been called away on business,” she said, “but I knew better, of course. He told me to give you time. He told me not to judge you too harshly for running away. He said you’d be back.” She pressed her face harder into him, into the thin linen of his shirtfront and the sturdy muscle of his chest. All the tears that she had suppressed the last nine days overflowed silently, dampening his shirt. “I trusted you. I did. But I could not help—feeling afraid—”
“Oh Christ,” he groaned. His hands traced her shoulder blades, the back of her neck, tangled in her hair. “Lydia. I do not deserve you. I’m sorry. I love you. I’m so goddamned sorry I left.”
She pulled back from his chest and looked up into his battered and lovely face. “Why did you do it? Surely you cannot have thought—after what passed between us—that I—”
He gave a strangled croak that might have been a laugh. “My love. My beloved. I’ve been trying to find the words to tell you for days now. Bertie must have grown tired of my folly and decided to prod me along.”
He broke off and untangled his fingers from her hair to rifle through the pocket of his dangling jacket. He unearthed a remarkable assortment of papers—torn notes, a bit of newspaper,one extremely large folded-up sheet of foolscap—all covered in pencil and blotched ink.
“I’ve been trying to write to you.” He pressed the papers into her hands. “If you’ll only look. Oh God, Lydia, I’ve never been easy with words this way.”
She looked down at the papers in her hands.
You are the summer and the winter, the spring and the fall…
My body and my heart were formed for the loving of you…
If there is one thing I regret above all others, it is that. That I let you believe, even for one instant, that you were less than everything to me…
“What is this?” she asked.
“An apology,” Arthur said hoarsely. “A vow.” His fingers found her face again, one thumb brushing her cheek, the line of her jaw. “I love you. I have loved you for so long. My brave and brilliant Lydia. My heart. My home.”
His thumb brushed across her lips, first the upper and then the lower. She trembled.
“Your smile is my light,” he murmured. “Your laugh is my shelter. If you’ll”—he hesitated, then steeled himself, looking for all the world like a man facing the gallows—“if you’ll allow it, Lydia Hope-Wallace, I will spend the rest of my life trying to be worthy of you. I will never leave you again. I will stand at your side when you need a partner and I will shield you when you need a place to rest. Hell, I’ll move to London every Season and vote my seat in the Lords, if you want me to—only—”
He broke off. He pushed his fingers into her hair, a soft pressure against her scalp, a knotted plea. “Only say you’ll have me. Only say you’ll let me try to make things right. Please.”
She looked up at him, tousled and bruised and uncertain. Sheput one hand to his chest and felt the beat of his heart—rapid, but steady. Undeniable. Hers.
“Yes,” she said. “I love you, too.”
And then she curled her fingers in his damp disheveled shirt and dragged him down to her mouth.
