He did not give her reasons. He looked at her longer, deeper, from her eyes to her lips to her eyes again, with a grief so stark and raw that her heart twisted.
“I should go,” she said again, but his fingers snagged hers.
“Not yet.”
“Simon—”
His lips silenced her—wet, cold, desperate, pleading. His hands found her face, pulling her close—
“No.” She stumbled back, startled, and wished she could wipe the kiss from her lips. He had no right to torture her. He had no right to say goodbye this way. “I have to leave.” She choked. “You should leave.”
“He loves you.”
“I know.”
“I love you more.”
The words stunned her, paralyzed her, until she could no longer meet his eyes. What was he saying? Why now, when he had already promised his children America, did he confess the one thing she’d always thirsted for?
A small cry escaped her. She shook her head, cupped her mouth, turned away from him, but he circled back in front of her.
“I do not expect you to marry me. I do not expect anything from you, Georgina.” The determination she’d always admired in him now flared with scorching power. “But my children and I are not leaving London. I don’t care what I have to do or how long I have to wait—or how many times I have to bang on your door or how many years it takes to convince you.” His eyes wept. “I need you. I wish I could say it better. I wish I could make you see.”
She wanted to protect herself. This insane desire to deny him, to run, to warn herself that despite what he said now, he’d one day do what everyone else always did.
What he’d already done once.
“You can marry Oswald and you can punish me for all the times I hurt you. I wish I could change what I did. I wish I could go back.” A knot rose and fell in his throat. He reached for her, pulled her against him, said against her lips, “You can forget about me, Georgina Whitmore, but do not ever think that I could ever forget you again.”
She leaned into him, drinking him, tasting of his lips as if to determine their truth. Every part of her quivered in disbelief, anguish, hope. “Simon.” The rain took her tears. “I told Mr. Oswald no.”
His breath exhaled on her face. She smelled rain and summer and earth and Simon, as he kissed her cheek, then her forehead, then her mouth. “How many more times are you going to tell me no when I ask you to marry me?”
“Ask but once more.”
“I love you.”
“Ask me.”
“Be my wife—please be my wife.”
The words seemed more dream than anything else. She was caught up in the shocking warmth of his hands on her face, the calluses of his skin, the thump of his heart she could feel beneath his shirt. Overwhelming joy seeped into her soul. “That’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted to be…my whole life.”
EPILOGUE
January 1815
Marwicktow, North Carolina
“I’m worried for him.” Georgina slipped under four layers of quilts, each a gift from neighboring settlers, as the wooden bed frame creaked. The room smelled of fresh-hewn pine and river birch. The lantern sputtered a glow across the walls—the thick, barked logs, the curtained window, the paintings she’d hung. “It is too cold. He should not be out there.”
“He is a strong boy.”
She leaned up. “Perhaps I should take him one of our quilts—”
“Wife.” Simon pulled her back down, arm slipping under her, shifting her against him. His warmth poured over her with heart-pounding pleasure. “He will be fine.”
“You are right.”
