“Oh—!” I glared at him, dashing the stupid, useless tears away with one gloved hand. “OfcourseI don’t think you want to control me. I’m not a fool! Iknowyou, remember? You’ve always cared for people who are weaker than you. That’s why you’re so good at the work that you do for the Boudiccate—and why you think you have to stay with me, too, for my sake. But I don’t want to be your pity-object! I can’t bear it.I—”
“You,” said Wrexham with furious precision, “areafool.”
“How dare you!” I reached out and yanked him toward me by his coat collar, glaring up at him ferociously. “I amevery bitas intelligent as you, and you know it! I wasjustas good at magic until I lost it, and I wasjustas goodat—”
“You still are!” he bellowed directly into my face. “You idiotic woman! How can you not see that? You know more about magic than most magicians five times your age! Your research and the articles that you published changed the way that magiciansall across the nationcast their spells. You’re the single most impressive person I have ever met, andnoneof that changed four months ago. None ofit!”
I let go of his coat, lurching backward as if I’d been slapped. “Everything changed.” The words burned against my tongue like poison. “If you can’t even seethat—”
“The only thing that changedfor me,” he gritted through his teeth, “was thatyoufinally realized I wasn’t good enough foryou.”
“What?!” I gaped at him in genuine confusion. “What are you talkingabout?”
“One moment,” he said, “I was coming to meet the love of my life, after three whole weeks that we’d been forced to spend apart. The next moment, I was watching younearly die, and I couldn’t do a single thing to stop it! Then when you finally woke up and discovered what you’d lost, you realized you didn’t want to marry me anymore. Well—why shouldyou?”
He let out a humorless laugh, his face tight. “Even that damned elf-lord could tell I wasn’t born into my rank. All I’ve ever had to recommend me is my magic. No ancient family name, no great estate, no connections...theonlything that ever drew you to me was your own magic. Once that was gone, and you could seeclearly...”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Something was rocketing around my head, some great revelation that I couldn’t yet glimpse, but there was no way to capture it with my heartbeat thundering in my ears and Wrexham filling all of my vision. “You know I never cared about family orconnections.”
“Only because you had all of that already!” He closed his eyes as if he couldn’t bear the look on my face. “Cassandra, your own mother was a member of theBoudiccate. When we met, I didn’t even have a first-hand set of student robes! Do you really imagine, if you hadn’t been a magician yourself, that you wouldeverhave bothered to take a second look atme?”
As I looked at him then, the dam that I’d locked so firmly inside myself two months ago finally broke wide open. “Wrexham,” I said unsteadily, “youidiot.I haven’t been able to take my eyes off you ever since the day we firstmet!”
His dark eyes flashed open. His chest rose and fell with his raggedbreathing.
I said, “I was trying tosaveyou, you ridiculous, impossible man!That’swhy I fought so hard to push you away! I didn’t want you to be chained to me forever just because of an old promise that you made before my magic wasbroken!”
“Then we’ve both been idiots,” he breathed, “because I swear, Harwood, you nearly brokeme. I’ll beg you on my knees, if that’s what it takes. Don’t ever abandon me like thatagain!”
Unbidden, my own words to Miss Fennell rang in my ear.“If you truly care about her, you won’t abandonher...”
I was a fool, after all, almost beyond comprehension. But I wasn’t yet too much of a fool to learn from my ownmistakes.
The snowfall might be thick, but it wasn’t all-concealing. I darted a quick look at the house behind us, full of dangerously un-curtained windows, and then another look into the privacy of the knot garden before us. Just a few more steps, and we would be safelyhidden...
No. I was thinking the wrong way again afterall.
I drew myself up to my full height and lifted my chin proudly. “Wrexham,” I said to my ex-fiancé, “prepare to be thoroughly compromised, if youplease.”
He blinked twice, rapidly. Then his lips curved. “Do you promise?” he asked. “There’ll be no getting out of it this time, youknow.”
Oh, I knew. But I didn’t bother answering him inwords.
Instead, I grabbed hold of his strong, wonderfully familiar shoulders for balance, jumped up on my tiptoes, and kissed him soundly in full view of every window in CosgraveManor.
It was time to stop hiding forgood.
11
We endedup shifting into the knot garden after all. There was such a thing as making a statement...and such a thing as much-needed privacy,too.
It had been months since I’d kissed Wrexham.Months.
I wanted to devourhim.
But there was only so much that we could do outside in the snow, even with the protection of high knotwork hedges and the perfect, spellcast bubble of warmth around us. So I finally forced myself to draw back, panting, before we could go much, much toofar.
Still, I couldn’t bring myself to remove my hands from underneath his coat. I kept them tucked there like a silent claim, fingers spread against his warm, lean back as his open greatcoat billowed around usboth.
