Chapter Twenty-Three

Looking at it now, Weston supposed that he should have expected to see his half-sister at the residence of the man she was romantically involved with. Make that the man she was married to, he corrected himself silently. But from the moment he'd reached London, his only concern had been finding Evie.

He had discovered she was missing when she did not come down for breakfast. Eager to see her, to speak with her, to share his heart with her, he'd gone straight to her bedchamber. But when he knocked on the door, she wasn't there. Instead, he'd found Hannah, her lady's maid, in the midst of packing all of Evie's beloved dresses into a traveling trunk. And he'd known, even before Hannah told him, that she was gone.

"When?" he'd asked tersely.

"Half an hour ago, my lord," Hannah had replied.

"Did she say anything?"

"She asked me to have her things sent to a boarding house in London, and for me to look after Posy. She…she didn't appear herself, my lord." At that revelation, the maid had ducked her head and spoken to the ground as she mumbled, "I would have gone straight to you or Lady Brynne, but Miss Thorncroft asked for my discretion. I…I wasn't sure what to do." Anxiously, she'd lifted her head. "I hope I did not do anything wrong, my lord."

"The only person who did something wrong was me," he'd said darkly before he spun from the room and ordered the first footman he saw to ready his fastest horse.

After that, everything was a blur until he had arrived in London and gone straight to the boarding house. Evie wasn't there, but a kind widow named Mrs. Benedict was, and she had directed him on where to go next.

"Mr. Kincaid's residence isn't too far," she'd said. "Just a few blocks. You won't even need a hackney if you don't mind going by foot."

He'd run the entire way. Not stopping to catch his breath…or to consider that Evie wasn't the only Thorncroft who might be waiting behind the private detective's door.

"Coffee or tea?" Joanna said pleasantly. She had taken him into her husband's office and invited him to sit in a chair while she stood behind the desk, as clear a message as any he'd ever received of who was in charge.

"Neither, thank you," he declined.

"Good. Then you can tell me why you broke my sister's heart and how you intend to fix it."

Right to the matter at hand, then.

"I–" He paused when he felt something brush against his pant leg. A glance down revealed it was a black cat with green eyes and bared fangs. As he met the feline's gaze, it gave a hiss and swatted at his calf. "Bloody hell."

"James is not overly fond of liars or thieves." Joanna braced her arms on the desk and leaned towards him. "Given that you've already proven yourself a thief, I would strongly advise you against lying."

"I hadn't planned on it."

"Excellent."

"Where is Evelyn? I need to–"

"My sister is currently resting. I have never seen her this upset. If you've done her irreparable harm, Lord Hawkridge, I am afraid I'm going to have to kill you." While Joanna tempered her threat with a smile, there was no doubt in Weston's mind that she meant every word.

"I never wanted to hurt Evelyn. I came here to tell her that I…" When his throat tightened, he broke off and stared intently at a blank space on the wall. "The words I want to say are for her to hear. Your sister…your sister has changed me for the better. And I will not lose her." Distraught, he met Joanna's steady gaze. "I cannot lose her. Which is why I must speak to her."

Joanna was quiet for nearly a minute.

Just as Weston was considering if he'd be able to make it to the door before James used his claws and teeth to carve into him like a roasted ham, she finally spoke.

"Evie is upstairs. The second door on the right."

Relief washed over him. "Thank you."

"Lord Hawkridge," she said as he turned to leave the office. "When you are done groveling for whatever it is you've done, I should like us to make the time to get to know each other. Aside from you stealing my mother's ring and breaking my sister's heart, I've a feeling we might get on splendidly."

"I…I should like that as well," he said gruffly and, to his surprise, he really meant it. Where once he could not have cared less if he ever saw or heard from Joanna Thorncroft again, now he wanted to build a relationship with her.

Not because of Evie.

Well, not just because of Evie.

But because family was what you made of it. His father had taught him that, if nothing else. And if Evie would have him…if Evie would have him, he wanted to make something wonderful.

Evie lifted her head off the pillow when a quiet knock sounded at the door. "Come in if you've more chocolate," she told Joanna. "Otherwise I am going to try to take a nap."

"I'm afraid I haven't any chocolate," a deep voice replied as the door swung inward. "But hopefully, I've brought you something better."

On a gasp, Evie scrambled into a sitting position and yanked a pillow against her chest as if it were a shield of iron instead of a soft pile of feathers sewn in cotton. "What are you doing here?" she asked, gaping at Weston. "When–when did you leave Hawkridge Manor?"

"As soon as I realized that you had," he said simply. His hands sliding into the pockets of his trousers, he regarded her with a vaguely bemused expression, as if he'd been presented with a puzzle that he couldn't quite solve. "You left me, Evelyn."

"You gave me no choice, Weston." Dashing her fingers beneath her eyes to remove any stray tears, she straightened her spine and regarded him with as much composure as she could muster, given the circumstances.

Evie hadn't abandoned the manor in an attempt to lure Weston away. It was not some grand plan to get him to come after her. Rather, she'd left because she couldn't physically stand to remain in the same house as the earl…and his future countess. Listening to people congratulate them, raising a champagne glass in their honor…it would have been too much to bear. Seeing another woman wearing her mother's ring wouldn't have just broken Evie's heart. It would have shattered it. And she knew, as clearly as she knew her own name, that she'd never be able to find all the pieces.

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 to 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.