Evangeline stared, hardly able to speak for the total shock that settled over her in that moment. “I don’t understand. He gave up his work?”
“Entirely.” McGilvery’s concern was real in the lines along his face. “He was grim about it, but determined. He said it was what he must do for his future. I assume that means this is something you required of him.”
Evangeline stared. “No. I would never have asked him. In fact, I encouraged him to continue.”
She thought of that day in his parlor when she’d accused him of caring more for his work than for her. Was that the catalyst of this change?
The very idea of it tore at her heart, partly because she hated to think he thought he had to surrender something so important for her. And partly because he would. And he did so without show, without performance. McGilvery said Henry had done this a week ago, but he’d made no mention of it in his letters. Her father had said nothing.
“Mr. McGilvery, I promise you I’ll go to him straight away. I will talk to him about this and encourage him to speak to you.” She turned and waved to Tibby.
“Thank you, my lady.” He smiled at her. “I can see why he cares for you so deeply.”
His words sank into her and she lifted a hand to her heart. “Good day, sir.”
“Good day,” he said as she and her maid rushed from the shop together and toward the carriage that would take her where she belonged.
To Henry Killam.
Henry sat at his desk, drawers open all around him, papers stacked high. He sorted them into piles with a frown. Burn and keep. Burn and keep.
The burn pile was teetering with copies of notes he had already delivered to the society. His chest ached as he looked at them, the work of nearly a decade, and knew that part of his life was almost over.
And yet if it brought him to Evangeline, perhaps it was worth it.
“Mr. Killam,” Deacon said, pushing the door open slightly. “You have a visitor. Lady Evangeline.”
Henry froze, hand poised over another stack of papers, and looked up at the butler. He was dreaming or hallucinating. Those were the only two options. Evangeline could not truly be here.
“Shall I send her in?”
“Yes,” Henry said, standing and smoothing his waistcoat. “Please do.”
The servant stepped away a moment and he heard voices coming down the hall. Evangeline’s voice, the one he adored more than any other.
When she stepped into his office, she stopped, looking around the mess in shock as Deacon announced her and stepped away. She swallowed and reached back to shut the door behind herself.
He tensed at the motion. It could mean something good or bad.
“You are here,” he said, rather foolishly, he knew.
She smiled. “I am, indeed.”
“I did not think you would come. I had given up hope,” he said. He watched her look around the room again and rushed around the desk. “I am sorting, not working.”
She flinched a little and ran her fingers along the top of a wobbling pile of pages. “Sorting what?”
“What will be destroyed and what will be kept. I’m afraid my papers for the house and other holdings were bound up in my work. So I must parse it all out before I get rid of what doesn’t matter.”
She let out a gasp. “So it is true, then? You really are divorcing yourself from your research?”
He tensed, his hands clenching at his sides. “I am. But…but you ask if it’s true, does that mean you already knew?”
“I ran into Mr. McGilvery earlier today and he expressed his concern over your actions.” She moved toward him and then stopped herself. “Why are you doing this?”
He sat on the edge of his desk slowly. “For you.”
She lifted a hand to her mouth and her eyes went impossibly wide. “For me? Henry, I never asked this of you. On the contrary, I arranged this entire thing so that you would never have to give up your work. Why in the world would you do it for me?”
“Because of just what you said,” he explained. “This is not what I intended. I wanted to speak to you about it after we were married, so you wouldn’t see it as a manipulation. Damned Donovan.”
She shook her head. “Forget Donovan for a moment. Just tell me what is going on.”
He sighed and reached out. She took his hand, and relief flowed through him as he guided her away from the piles of papers to the settee by his fire. The settee where he had first touched her what felt like a lifetime ago.
He pushed those thoughts away and stared into her face, memorizing every line of it, every movement. He could only pray that what he was about to tell her would give him back the chance he had lost out of foolish distraction.
“You keep your stories close to your heart, Evangeline,” he began. “But I understand some of them. I have seen firsthand how no one in your life has truly considered you. I know that’s why you are so controlled both in action and emotion. If you aren’t, there are consequences. You must manage everything because if you don’t, no one will. Am I correct?”
Evangeline bent her head, and to his surprise, tears filled her eyes. “Y-Yes,” she admitted softly. “Yes.”
He nodded and gently stroked the hand he still held. “I imagine that has been very painful. Despite that you allowed me the chance to prove I was different. But I let you down, just like the others. No wonder you were hurt and angry. I earned that.”
“You love what you do,” she whispered. “Perhaps I was wrong to react so strongly.”
“Don’t do that,” he said, touching her chin and tilting her gaze back up to his. “Don’t excuse me. I made you a promise and I didn’t keep it. Worse, I hid it from you. It might not have been the most terrible promise to break, but a promise nonetheless.”
“I still don’t understand why that means you must give up your work,” she said.
“No one has put you first,” he explained. “Including me. But I hoped that if I gave up what you know is important to me, it would send a message to you through my actions, since my words are empty, that you are the thing in this world that matters most to me.”
He leaned forward, and now he caught both her hands. “Evangeline, when I said I loved you, that was true. I do love you. I have loved you for a very long time, though I thought I had no chance in the world with you and was too cowardly to do anything about it. When I had my opportunity, I should have moved heaven and earth to make certain I didn’t lose you. I’m sorry I didn’t. And I hope that this action I took will show you how serious I am. If not, that’s fine. I accept your reticence. But please know that I intend to keep trying to prove myself to you from now until the day I take my last breath. And that’s all. That’s everything.”
She pulled one hand away and rested it on her forehead. “You would give up everything just for a chance to have my faith?” she asked, he thought more to himself than to her. “You would surrender all you are.”
“I would,” he said, and when she was sitting with him, the sting of that surrender was far less harsh.
She was silent for a moment, then surprised him by leaning forward and cupping his cheeks. “Oh Henry, you great, wonderful idiot. I…”
She drew a very deep breath and her face flamed scarlet. “…I love you too.”
Chapter 18
Evangeline smiled as she said those words, and it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. As was the confidence in her tone when she said them. It almost made him think they could be true.
He stared at her, his eyes wide and his lips trembling. “This is a dream. I believed it before, I know it now.”
“Because I said I loved you?” she asked with a laugh. “Well, if it is a dream, I say we work hard to not wake up.”
“And you don’t say it as some kind of…I don’t know, way to manage me?” he asked.
“You do know me well, but no. I think I realize love is utterly unmanageable.” She reached up to cup his cheek. “Dearest Henry, I never wanted you to do this gran
d gesture, as much as I appreciate the sentiment behind it. I have watched multiple generations of women surrender all they were for men who didn’t appreciate it. Saw them wait around for those same men to grant favor. It was horrible. I didn’t want that for myself, but nor do I want it for you. I want us to each have our independent interests and lives. I love the idea of coming to our table or…or our bed and talking about your latest venture at the Society or my current project secretly taking over London’s most influential.”
He laughed. “Is that what you’re doing?”
“As often as I can.”
“But if I cannot have this grand gesture, as you put it, how can I prove to you that you are most important in my life?” he asked.
“Just as you have,” she said. “I admit, I was upset, and those feelings made my heart so clear to me. That was frightening, perhaps it still is. But you have restored my faith in you. In us and our future. But can you get back your equipment and your membership?”
“I’m certain I can. I’ve had desperate messages all week asking me not to walk away.” He leaned closer. “Do you truly want me to do this?”
“Of course. At any rate, I wouldn’t want your quitting to undo all my work on my father. I almost have him convinced it was his idea for you to carry on with your work and make it public what you do.”
He blinked. “What? Would he really agree to that?”
“If you let me alone to trick him into it, certainly,” Evangeline said. “And I will stand beside you proudly as you become the one to prove a planet into existence and whatever else strikes your fancy after that.”
He leaned forward and wrapped his arms around, dragging her into his lap as he kissed her. God, but he loved her taste. He’d almost forgotten it after what seemed like a lifetime apart. He never wanted to lose that or her again.
She ground down against him gently and then pulled away. “Henry, I would like to…to be with you. But I want all of you. Not just a taste. All.”
He sucked in a breath. God, but he wanted that too. “But what about—”
She held her hand up to his lips to silence him. “No more what ifs. I cannot control the future, try as I might. But what I want in this moment is perfectly clear. Please? Please won’t you give that to me?”
He stared into her eyes, that dark blue capturing him as it always did. He couldn’t deny her. He didn’t want to. So he leaned in and just before he kissed her again, he whispered, “Yes.”
Evangeline’s heart raced as Henry broke yet another searing kiss and moved to the door. He locked it and stood there staring at her. “Your maid is here, and my servants,” he said. “So there will be very little time to make this as perfect as I want to.”
“It will be perfect because it’s us,” she reassured him, and stood to unfasten the line of buttons along the front of her dress. She pushed the gown away, then the chemise, and stood before him naked.
He caught his breath, just as he had the first time he’d seen her like this. Unlike that time before, she was not embarrassed to have him see her. After all, she was his. He hers. This was meant to be.
She beckoned him closer, and he came in three long steps and gathered her to him with a passion that quickened her blood. Her heart raced as she tugged at his jacket and he cupped her backside with both hands and rubbed her against his cock. She arched with a soft sigh as pleasure ricocheted through her.
“Hurry,” she murmured, not only because the time was short but because she needed him, needed this, needed to solidify in a physical way the promises they’d just made.
She wanted to be loved in a manner she would feel throughout her whole body and to love him that way in return.
He unfastened his trousers and she licked her lips as she gripped him, stroking him as he backed her toward the settee. They fell onto it and he half-covered her as his hands roamed up the length of her body, lingering in the places where he’d studied her pleasure over the past few weeks. She gasped at his fingers grazing her side, cresting over her breast, playing with a sensitive nipple as she sucked his tongue gently.
“Hurry,” she repeated, opening her legs a fraction.
He drew his head back and stared down at her. “This is the first time either of us will ever do this,” he said, his breath short. “And you will be the only woman I will ever share this with. So please look at me, Evangeline.”
She held his gaze and smiled. “Never look away.”
He didn’t as he positioned himself at her wet entrance. He didn’t look away as he eased a fraction inside of her and they both moaned in time. Her body stretched, a mixture of pleasure and pain, and she fought to keep her eyes on his.
He brushed his thumb against her jawline and whispered, “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t mind,” she said, and it was true. He pushed farther and she dug her fingers into his shoulders as he fully seated himself.
They rested that way for a few seconds, their breathing slowly matching as their gazes remained locked. At last she gripped her sheath around him and he made a garbled sound that swelled her sense of power to new heights. She liked making him surrender this way. She liked doing the same with him.
He ground his hips, thrusting gently, and she gasped a second time. Those short, focused movements put pain in the background and rubbed their pelvises so her swollen, sensitive clitoris was massaged. And it felt good, so very good as pleasure built like a wall within her. She crested that wall with him, meeting his strokes, holding his gaze until finally the pleasure was too much and she fell into the oblivion of release.
Only then did he break their stare, catching her soft cry with his mouth and kissing her through the crisis as his thrusts increased. She felt him straining, reaching for his own release, and she clawed at his back as he arched his head back and groaned her name. He pumped hot into her body and she took it all as tears began to roll down her face.
His breath slowed and he leaned back. Immediately horror registered in his expression and he rolled away, parting their bodies as he crouched beside her.
“I hurt you, I’m so sorry,” he murmured.
She shook her head. “No, it’s not the pain,” she said. “It’s the knowing that you are mine now. Truly mine. And I’m yours. And once we say our vows, we never have to be apart again.”
He smiled at those words, which had been so hard won and hard fought for. She was glad she had never gifted them to another man, nor tried to seek out someone else’s affection. She loved that her heart belonged fully and completely to Henry Killam.
And always would.
Epilogue
The wedding of the year happened long before the beginning of the Season, and the lucky guests invited to the big day were treated to the party of the century afterward, as well. Evangeline smiled as she passed by one of the debutantes who would be coming out in the spring. The girl was pouting about how no one would even look at the new batch of diamonds when they could talk about Evangeline and Henry and their winter romance.
Of course, that wasn’t true and Evangeline knew it. Life moved on and everyone would forget the love story of the scientist and the diamond long before the summer began. Then that story would only belong to her and to Henry, just as she liked it.
As she stepped around a giggling group of her acquaintances, she found herself face to face with Donovan McGilvery. He bowed. “Mrs. Killam.”
“I’m so glad you could come,” she said, and meant it. She liked her husband’s partner in astronomy.
“As am I. And very glad that your new husband has come back to the fold.” He did look truly happy.
She nodded. “I would have him nowhere else.”
He shifted slightly. “I never apologized to you for the trouble I caused with the article in the society journal a few weeks ago. I realize it created pain and I…I should have been more strenuous in making sure it wasn’t published until Henry was ready.”
Evangeline reached out and briefly touched the other man’s arm. “I
don’t know the circumstances of how that all happened, but in the end they pushed us to where we needed to be. Mr. McGilvery, I know you care for my husband. I never wanted him to be kept from his work or from the credit he deserves.”
McGilvery was still for a moment and then he inclined his head. “I only hope I shall be so lucky as to find a lady as invested in my hopes and dreams. If such a woman exists, I can see she would be worth winning.”
Evangeline blushed at the compliment and her smile widened. “I hope you’ll come and dine with us, once the excitement calms down.”
He looked surprised at the invitation, but inclined his head. “I would very much like that. And now I see a lady racing across the room and she can wish to speak to no one but you. I will leave you to it.”
He stepped away, and just as he did there was a cry behind her. “Evangeline!”
She turned and found Tamsin coming toward her. She had a bright smile, making her happy face all the more beautiful. Evangeline moved toward her and folded her into her arms for a brief hug that seemed to surprise her friend.
“Thank you for coming!” Evangeline said as they parted. “Mrs. Cathcart!”
Tamsin’s smile became dreamier. “I am still not accustomed to being called by my married name. It all happened in such a whirlwind.”
“I imagine so!” Evangeline said. “Considering not so long ago, you wanted a peaceful man-free existence.”
“I thought I did.” Tamsin laughed. “Until I didn’t.”
“So you love him then?”
Tamsin nodded with enthusiasm. “I do. More than I thought was possible. Simon is my perfect match. Thank you for kicking him awake that fateful night. Otherwise I might never have known him.”
Evangeline let out a happy sigh. “I could thank you for the same, for I love Henry with the depth that you describe. But I’d known him forever and never admitted my heart to myself. None of this would have happened had you not put the idea to pursue him for my own purposes into my mind.”
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