But she felt so deeply. He knew, even without having known Martha, that she was just good enough of a person to care about it herself as well.
“I was so terrified that I had lost you too,” Henry whispered, lifting his hand to cup her face. Her skin was cold in his hands, clammy almost, and he cursed the injury that likely had made it so. “I thought I had lost you just like I lost Martha and …”
His throat constricted, cutting his words off.
Josephine looked surprised, her eyebrows furrowing. She searched his eyes but said nothing for a moment, her smile hesitant as she leaned into his hand.
“Well, I am glad not to have been lost,” she muttered with an attempt at humour. “I wouldn’t want you retraumatized by such a thing.”
Her joke fell flat, and Henry found himself frowning.
“You misunderstand me, Josephine.” His thumb arched, tracing the line of her cheek as he took in her features again. He couldn’t stop looking at her. It was as if he needed to be touching her, seeing her, memorizing her, just in case. “I wasn’t terrified of reliving losing her again. I was terrified of losing myself when I lost you.”
For a long moment, his words hung between them, his heart along with them.
“I never imagined a life anything more than the half-life I had conscripted myself to.” His thumb dropped, tracing the secretive well at the right-hand corner of her lips. “I was shocked to find I could feel anything for you at all. Shocked and pleased.” His lips twitched at the memory of the night before, at the way that her cheeks grew rosy as she likely thought of the same memory.
“I told myself that I couldn’t possibly love you,” he continued, laughing at the absurdity of it in hindsight. “I really didn’t think it would be possible. And yet …”
“Henry … Are you trying to tell me that you love me?” Josephine’s voice was small, and her words stilted as she looked between his eyes as if expecting him to laugh or try and deny it.
There was nothing funny about it, though. Certainly, nothing for him to deny.
“I love you past the point of reason,” he admitted solemnly. “I knew if I lost you, that I lost, too, my last chance at love.” His eyes drifted from her eyes to her lips and back again, his whole chest tight like it had been stuffed too full. “I don’t expect you to say the same nor to feel it,” he rushed to assure her. “It is enough tha–”
“You silly, stupid man.” Josephine laughed suddenly, her voice cutting off at the end as she winced, and her hand jerked from his face to drop to her midsection where it was bandaged.
Henry’s eyebrows rose, surprise and confusion warring with his concern.
“You realize that many people, injured or otherwise, would hesitate to talk to a duke in such a way?” he teased her gently, checking her wound with her as she sank back into the pillows with a wan smile.
“Take it up with me when I am well,” she muttered.
“Are you going just to insult me then? Or do you plan to share with me why I am a ‘silly, stupid man’ for loving you?”
Josephine’s eyes softened, her gaze drifting over his features with such deliberation that, for a moment, Henry worried she wouldn’t explain.
“For loving me? I’m sure I could think of something. But that isn’t what I called you silly or stupid for, Your Grace.” Her lips shifted, her smile growing even more fond. “I say it because you are a fool to think that I do not share the same sentiment,” she whispered. “Though I can’t tell you exactly how or when. I fell in love with you before any of this.”
The air around them seemed to gather, to press in on them as he leaned in again, resting his forehead against hers as he took a deep, appreciative breath.
She had been stabbed. His wife’s murder was solved. His sister-in-law was in the custody of the asylum.
But she loved him.
It was such an odd turn of events to be grateful for.
“I suppose this is normally the bit where I would fall to one knee and propose,” he mused, his nose brushing against the side of hers with a deliberate softness.
“But we’re already engaged,” she said, laughing breathlessly.
“So we are,” he agreed. He paused, looking between her eyes for any sign of displeasure or uncertainty, but she stared back at him with her heart shining from those blue depths …
And he felt as if his own eyes matched. They had to with as hard and heavy as his heart beat in response.
“I love you, Josephine,” he said aloud finally, putting words to the emotion plaguing him for days.
“I love you, Henry,” she whispered back.
