Thus she had run, as far and fast as she could. And in all that running, she had never–not once–allowed herself to think that Weston might actually follow. Yet here he was all the same. Dressed in the very same clothes he’d worn yesterday. His hair tousled and his face red from the wind, as if he had galloped the entire way.
To her.
“What are you doing here?” she repeated quietly. “Why have you come?”
“It was not only me you left behind.” Stepping into the room, he closed the door behind him. Sunlight trickled in through the window beside the bed, softening the stern brackets around the edges of his mouth. “Posy will wonder where you’ve gone.”
Evie hugged her pillow closer. “I left her in the care of my lady’s maid. She’ll feed her with a bottle until she’s grown enough to be with the other sheep. I couldn’t bring a lamb to London.”
“And an earl?” he asked. “I suppose you couldn’t bring one of those either.”
“I would have, but I–” She stopped herself short. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me.” He moved closer. “You matter to me, Evelyn.”
Her brow creased with annoyance. “You’ve an odd way of showing that.”
“I know I haven’t made any of this easy. For you, for me. I was…I was in a constant battle, between my head”–sliding his hand free of his pocket, he grimaced as he tapped a finger against the side of his skull–“and my heart. A long time ago, I made the decision that I never wanted to be hurt or disappointed by anyone ever again. But in order to do that, I had to close myself off. From the bad and the good. From what had been, but also from what could be. And I grew so accustomed to being in that isolated room that I never even noticed when the walls closed in and the light turned to shadow.”
“Why…why are you telling me all this?” she asked, wetting her lips.
“Because I would have stayed in that dark, windowless room for the rest of my life if not for you.” His mouth curved in a wry grin, the first she’d ever seen. It made him appear more youthful. More carefree. As if an enormous weight had been lifted off his shoulders. “You didn’t just open the door, Evelyn. You kicked the damned thing down.”
“I have been told I am very strong for my size,” she said modestly.
His grin deepened. “I should have just walked right through the door the minute you kicked it down. It was open, and you were standing on the other side of it. Bold, and brazen, and beautiful. I didn’t know what to make of you. Hell, part of me still doesn’t. But I do know that I never want to lock myself in that room again. I want the light, Evelyn. I want you.”
It didn’t feel real.
He didn’t feel real.
But wasn’t that the very definition of a dream? All of your wildest fantasies come true. Except it was happening while she awake. Unless she was asleep. Slightly panicked, Evie pinched the inside of her elbow.
“Ouch,” she exclaimed, and Weston chuckled.
“Come here,” he beckoned, extending his arms.
“Why?” she asked, even as she set her pillow aside and slid off the edge of the bed. The floorboards were cold against her bare feet, but Weston’s hands were warm when he gently grasped her face, his thumbs resting on the edge of her jaw as his fingers splayed across her cheeks.
“Because,” he said huskily, “when I tell you that I’ve fallen in love with you, I want to be able to look straight into your eyes. Do you know that since the day I met you, I have started noticing blue everywhere? The sky in all its varied shades, the water, even the damned curtains. But there is no blue more clear, nor more stunning, than the blue in your eyes.”
As the floor tilted beneath her, Evie grabbed on to the lapels of Weston’s jacket to steady herself. “You’ve fallen in love with me,” she echoed, unable to keep the astonishment out of her voice…or her heart from doing a joyous leap within her chest. “Is this…is this a jest?”
“No, I am not jesting. Nor would I about something this important. I may have resisted falling at first–”
“May have?” she said, arching a brow.
Another grin, this one even bigger than the last, as if his facial muscles had been frozen along with his heart, and when his chest had finally thawed so had every other part of him. “All right, I chained myself to a boulder. But you held the key. All this time, you held the key. I could have no more not fallen in love with you than the sun could stop shining in the middle of a summer day, or the rain could stop falling in the midst of a storm.” His knuckles brushed across her cheekbone as he tucked a loose curl behind her ear. “Loving you was always inevitable, Evelyn. Always.”
It was everything she had wanted to hear. Everything she had dreamed of. Everything she had waited for.
And she was at a complete and utter loss of words for how to respond.
Her mouth opened. Closed. Stunned, she could only blink slowly at him, like a fish staring out of a glass bowl.
The man she loved beyond reason, the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with, had just confessed his love for her…and she’d turned into a goldfish.
“Why, Miss Thorncroft,” Weston drawled, as if he sensed her dilemma and was thoroughly amused by it. “Have I done the impossible and rendered you speechless?”
“I-I am not speechless,” she said defensively. “I just…don’t know what to say.”
“Unless I am mistaken, that is the very definition of–”
“Oh, just be quiet and kiss me.” Rising onto her toes, she pressed her mouth to Weston’s and with a low chuckle, he obeyed her request.
There were no need for words after that.
At least, not for a very long while.
But when they eventually surfaced from their haze of passion, there was something Evie needed to say. Lifting herself up on her elbow (somehow, they’d ended up sprawled on the floor in a tangle of limbs), she absently drew a circle in the middle of his abdomen with her finger.
“But what about Lady Martha?” she asked, stealing a glance at him from beneath her lashes. “I saw you proposing to her in the parlor. That was why I left. I could not bear the thought of you marrying another.”
Capturing her wrist, he raised her hand to his lips and kissed the back of it as he gazed steadily into her eyes. “I was not proposing, I was searching for an earring that she dropped. And explaining that while she will undoubtedly make a man very happy one day, I am not that man. I took it upon myself to steer her in the direction of a good friend of mine. If I had to guess, she’ll soon have the proposal that she wanted. Which reminds me…”
Rolling nimbly to his feet, he briefly scoured the room before he found his jacket draped over a bedpost. From an interior satin pocket, he pulled a square wooden box, and from the box he removed a gold ring with a ruby heart in its center and a diamonds on the side.
A ring that had belonged in his family for generations…until it was given away to an American with Evie’s blue eyes, Joanna’s willful spirit, and Claire’s tender heart.
“When my father gave this ring to your mother, he broke a long-standing tradition,” Weston said quietly as he knelt in front of Evie and reclaimed her hand while she sat absolutely still, intent on his every word. “You see, the men in my family are not meant to love their wives. Or if they do, it is a happy convenience that occurs over time. But for all of his many faults, the Marquess of Dorchester loved Anne Thorncroft. More than he loved my mother. More than he will ever be capable of loving Brynne or me. And I am glad that he did. I am glad that he loved her, for if he hadn’t…if he hadn’t, this ring never would have led me to you.”
“Weston.” When tears threatened, Evie blinked them away. She wasn’t about to ruin this moment by letting her eyes get anymore puffy than they already were. “I never wanted this. I mean, I did.” She gave a watery laugh. “But only because I desired your title and your wealth. I wanted to be the Countess of Hawkridge. I wanted to incite envy wherever I went. I wanted those who had turned me away t
o feel poorly for their decision, and beg me to be their friend once again.”
Weston frowned. “Is this a declaration of love, or a list of reasons why I shouldn’t marry you?”
“You made me wait long enough,” she said, flicking his thigh. “You can wait a little longer. I’m just getting to the best part.”
“By all means, then, continue.”
“As I was saying…I wanted frivolous things. Prideful things. Things that would never make me happy in the end. And it took falling in love with a stubborn, arrogant, mule-headed–”
“Maybe we can skip this part,” Weston interjected.
Another flick. “–handsome, intelligent, protective earl to fully understand that love is what’s important. Love is what will see you through the years. Love is what will keep you warm at night, and greet you each morning. Money, prestige, social influence–they are no substitute for what matters most.” Her lips curved. “Not to say it hurts anything that you’re an incredibly rich nobleman who will one day inherit a dukedom, but–”
“Be quiet and kiss me,” he ordered, dragging her onto his lap.
“And now?” she asked, looping her arms around his neck after she’d pressed her mouth to his in a quick, impertinent kiss.
“Marry me. Marry me, Evelyn, and be my wife.” Reaching between them, Weston gently placed her mother’s ring upon her finger.
It fit perfectly, and even though Evie had never tried it on, she knew, somehow, that it would.
“Yes,” she said, and now she did let herself cry, but they were happy tears and her smile blossomed through them, like a flower unfurling its petals to soak in the first gentle mist of spring. “Yes, I will marry you. I will love you. I will be yours, always.”
In the end, there was nothing else to say but that.
Epilogue
“A correspondence for you, my lady. From Lord Hawkridge.”
Brynne paused in her painting and carefully set down her brush. A light breeze moved through the gazebo, tickling her hair against her cheek as she rose from her chair to accept the letter. “Thank you, Mae. Please tell Cook that I shall take dinner out here this evening. The sunset promises to be a beautiful one, and I wouldn’t want to waste such colors by sitting inside.”
The maid nodded, curtsied, and then returned to the house where a massive cleaning was underway. The last of the guests had left early in the morning, and the estate was almost eerily quiet. Taking full advantage of her newfound solitude, Brynne had retreated to the gazebo where she’d been painting for hours, stopping only to rest her wrist and take a stroll around the pond to toss breadcrumbs to the swans.
Leaning against the railing, she opened her brother’s letter. As she read it, a smile slowly dawned, and by the time she’d reached the end, she was all but beaming.
“You lummox,” she murmured with great affection. “You did it.”
Dearest Sister,
I am writing to let you know that I have chosen to remain in London until Christmas. I invite you to join me at your earliest convenience. You shall be pleased to know that I have asked Miss Thorncroft to marry me, and she has accepted. If you would do me one small kindness, do refrain from saying “I told you so”.
I have also met and spoken with Joanna. Our initial meeting began with her threatening to murder me. I should think you will like her very much.
If you are amendable, which I have a feeling you will be, I should like to have all of us spend the holiday together at Hawkridge Manor.
We are, after all, a family.
With my love,
Weston
After reading the letter twice, and then once more for good measure, Brynne tucked it into the pocket of her burgundy frock coat and resumed painting.
As it often did, the rhythmic strokes of the bristles across canvas soon carried her away to another place, dimming the sights and the sounds all around her. When she was in the midst of transferring her art from her mind onto the paper, she might as well have been in a castle high in the clouds, or a ship in the middle of the sea, or a cottage deep in the woods.
Such was her level of absorption that she did not hear the sound of approaching footsteps until they were on the steps of the gazebo and a shadow, long and dark, fell across her line of vision.
“Could you step to the side, please, Mae?” she asked without glancing up from the easel. “I fear you’re in my light.”
“Is this better?” a deep, achingly familiar voice drawled.
The shadow shifted to the side and Brynne, her face draining of all color, let the brush slip through her bloodless fingers and fall to the ground in a splatter of blue paint. As her stomach pitched and her pulse raced, she rose to her feet and met the amused amber gaze of the last person on earth she had ever wanted to see again.
“Get out of here,” she whispered, raising her arm to point at the drive. “Before I pick up that brush and stab you through the heart with it.”
Lord Lachlan Campbell clucked his tongue. “Now, Bry, me love…,” he said, flashing his teeth in a wolfish grin. “Is that any way tae greet yer husband?”
THE END
About the Author
Jillian Eaton grew up in Maine and now lives in Pennsylvania on a farmette with her husband and their three boys. They share the farm with a cattle dog, an old draft mule, a thoroughbred, and a mini-donkey—all rescues. When she isn’t writing, Jillian enjoys spending time with her animals, gardening, reading, and going on long walks with her family.
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