Finally, he broke it to say, “I have been an utter fool, Cecelia. All these years, I was too scared to admit the truth, even to myself, and I nearly lost you because of it. You were right all those years ago, I was and always have been a coward.”
Another tear rolled down her cheek.
“I was wrong to ever call you such a thing,” she insisted, her free hand coming up to lay upon his own at her cheek. She leaned even further, the warmth of her skin a balm for his sore heart. “You are not and never have been a coward, Georgie.”
Just hearing his childhood nickname from her lips made everything else fade into insignificance.
“Can you ever forgive me?” she asked, her lip trembling once more.
“There has never been anything to forgive,” George insisted, taking his hand from her face to grip hers. Holding them both in his, he lowered them to her lap, his body urging him to inch closer. He was barely able to remain still as he added, “At least on my part. But you must forgive me for being too stubborn and too blind to see what has been right in front of me all this time.”
Her smile spread from ear to ear, her perfect pearly teeth shining with radiance as she said, “I suppose, you always have been a stubborn old goat, just like your father.”
George cringed only half as badly as he might once have done for being likened to his father. He shrugged and admitted, “I probably deserve that one.”
Cecelia’s fingers gently caressed his palm in affection as she nodded in agreement.
He felt an unbelievable urge to give into the child still living within him, to gently pull at a loose curl of her hair and then tickle her until she begged him to stop.
Instead, he blurted the words, “Will you marry me?”
They blinked together as if they were both as stunned as the other.
“Are … are you quite certain you wish to ask me that?” she asked, looking as if she knew him well enough to know that he had never really considered marriage with any real seriousness.
Clutching her hands ever tighter, he said, “I have never been more certain of anything in my life.”
The fear George felt at that moment was stronger and more heart-stopping than the moments before he received a scolding from his father, even more fear-inducing than his thoughts before he had been carted off to France, even more than the split second when he had feared he had accidentally pushed Fitzwilliam over the bridge railing.
And as her smile seemed to widen, growing so radiant it was almost blinding, George was certain that she knew his fear, certain that she was about to take great pleasure in whatever came from her lips.
“Yes! Yes! A thousand times, yes!”
Her answer lit up the entire room with such luminescence that George was forced to blink the shock away, every sense stunned by it as she threw herself at him, her arms wrapped so tightly around his neck that if he had been breathing, he would have choked.
Only when he wrapped his own arms around her and felt the solidness of her small frame against him did he allow himself to breathe a huge sigh of relief.
“There now,” she said, as she pulled back just enough to look at him, her arms still around his neck, “that wasn’t truly so hard, was it?”
With a playful sneer, George nuzzled his nose against hers, shaking his head. “You are perhaps the most infuriating woman I have ever met.”
Her mouth opened wide in shock, though her eyes glinted with playfulness as he lifted a hand to brush a loose black curl from her face.
“But you are most definitely the most beautiful woman, too,” he admitted, and against his better judgement, he allowed his gaze to fall upon her plump lips.
Only then did he realize that he was leaning in.
And to his relief and astonishment, so was she.
It was a kiss that lasted only a moment, but it was the most passionate, head-spinning of them all. All of the affection, truth, and longing of the last several years bundled up into what felt like the most astonishing few seconds of his life.
And when he pulled back, he found he was even more unable to breathe.
“Congratulations!”
The exclamation came as such a surprise that both George and Cecelia burst from their seats, their arms flailing as the drawing room doors were flung open and Mary and Catherine reeled into the room.
They came at George and Cecelia like a pair of bulls in a china shop, so excited that they knocked the two of them back down onto the couch. All four of them laughed heartily as they landed in a pile of limbs.
