It was definitely a yes.But before she could reply, a tiny snore whistled from his mouth.
He’d fallen asleep.
A tender smile curved her lips.She brushed the damp hair from his forehead.Was it any wonder she loved him?He was perfect, inside and out.She would give him his answer when he awoke.
Goosebumps danced along her skin.She crawled to her shift and slipped it on over her head.There was no sense pulling on her gown without being able to lace it.She rescued it from its ungainly heap and folded it as neatly as she could to keep the wrinkles at bay.
She glanced over at Christopher.
Still sleeping.
Another smile tugged at her lips.The cold didn’t seem to bother him at all.However, wrinkles just might.No respected member of thetonwould leave an assignation with the points of his cravat in disarray.
She snorted to herself as she folded the surprisingly wide square of silk.Soon, his waistcoat and linen shirt had joined the neckcloth in a neat pile.She reached for his coat and gave it a brisk shake to loosen the wrinkles.
Papers fluttered from an interior pocket.
“Blast,” she muttered, and grabbed them up as quick as she could before they slid beneath a bookshelf to be lost forever.
Her triumph in this mission faded the moment she realized what she held in her hands.
His ticket to India.
No.Worse.This was apairof tickets.Dual passage for himself and his bride.A year-and-a-half voyage, most of it over treacherous seas, and to him its certainty was a foregone conclusion.Her stomach twisted.
He’d called it the trip of a lifetime.An astonishing opportunity he’d dreamed of for years.It even included a personal introduction to the subcontinent by the explorer he idolized.There was no chance of Christopher cancelling such a trip.
Just like there was no chance of Gloria going with him.
A sudden tightness in her chest made it impossible to breathe.There was only one fair response to his proposal, and it wasn’t the answer either of them wished it could be.
He deserved his perfect match, and they both knew it wasn’t her.
Her limbs trembled at the thought of goodbye.It wasn’t just that he would leave her, not just that his attraction to her could never be strong enough to make him want to stay, it was that even if he were willing to give up adventures for the sake of their marriage, she had no wish to tie him down and cause him to be resentful and unhappy.
She loved him too much to marry him.
He stirred just as she was sliding her gown back over her shift.“What are you doing?”
“We’re getting dressed.”She handed him his clothes in a neatly folded stack.
He was almost completely back to rights before he recalled their unfinished conversation.With an embarrassed smile, he looked up from his boots.
“Pretend I am down on one knee for reasons other than tying my Hessians.”He cleared his throat and flung open his arms in grand fashion.“Miss Gloria Godwin, would you do me the great honor—”
Her heart felt as though it were being ripped from her chest.She loved him more than she’d ever believed possible.And she couldn’t keep him.
“No,” she whispered.
His handsome brow lined with confusion.He struggled to his feet, one boot still untied.“N-no?”
She hated hurting him.But the life she would give him as his wife would hurt him even more.
“I can’t be what you want,” she said brokenly, “and you can’t be what I need.”
“Can’t we try?”he stammered.
“It would ruin everything.”She swallowed hard as she faced the truth.“One perfect memory is all we can have.”
