CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Clarissa’s eyes fluttered open on Christmas Eve. She looked out of the window at the sky above and frowned.

How have I come to be here? She thought in confusion. The last thing she remembered was the carriage ride and then that jolt as she had been thrown from Emily’s side into the coldness of the snow.

She winced. It was not just the thudding pain in her head that caused it. She remembered the preceding events leading up to the crash. She remembered Lord Bolton with Lady Wilde, her hand on his chest, leaning toward him as though in the act of kissing him.

Her stomach lurched unpleasantly.

“Clarissa.”

She looked over at the sound of the plaintive voice and was surprised to find Rosemary beside her. She was very pale, her hand clutching Clarissa’s tightly. Rosemary smiled with relief as their eyes met and stood up, brushing some hair from Clarissa’s forehead.

“How are you feeling?” Rosemary asked.

“My head hurts, but otherwise, I feel fine. How long have I slept?”

“Many hours. But the doctor insisted we were not to wake you. He said you need to rest to regain your strength. Come, shall I help you sit up?”

Clarissa nodded very gently, mindful of her thundering headache. She was grateful to Rosemary as she stacked some pillows behind her and helped her to get into a sitting position. She instantly felt more comfortable.

As she leaned back, images of Lady Wilde and Lord Bolton flooded her mind again, and she clenched her lips together, fighting back tears.

“Are you in pain?” Rosemary asked urgently, looking at her with concern.

“No. No. I am well,” she lied quickly and settled herself in her cushions, gratefully receiving some hot tea that Rosemary passed to her. It was refreshing for her parched throat, and she smiled at her friend gratefully.

Rosemary’s eyes met hers again, and her expression was very serious. Clarissa’s gut clenched.

“Someone has been waiting outside your room all night long, desperate to see you.” Clarissa held her breath, watching her friend’s eyes grow warm as she squeezed her fingers. “May I admit him?”

Clarissa was torn between a desperate wish to say yes and concern over what she had witnessed. She did not know what to think anymore; all she knew was that she, too, was desperate to see him, for better or worse.

“You may,” she whispered. Rosemary gave her hand a final squeeze and went to open the door. Clarissa’s heart almost beat out of her chest as she watched Lord Bolton enter.

His eyes never left her face as he paced toward her across the room and came to sit beside the bed. Dark circles were beneath his eyes, and his usually happy expression was particularly grim.

Clarissa turned away from him. The image of Madeline Wilde was too recent and too painful to overlook. She fixed her gaze on the snowy landscape out of the window.

As though recognizing their need for privacy, Rosemary stepped to the door where she had remained at the back of the room.

“I shall return shortly,” she said. A look was exchanged between her and her brother, Rosemary’s eyes gleaming with something akin to a warning. Then the door closed behind her, and they were alone.

For several minutes, they sat in intense silence. Clarissa did not know what to say, and it seemed Lord Bolton was also reluctant to begin speaking.

“I am a fool,” Lord Bolton stated simply. Clarissa could not help turning back toward him at those words. She stared at him as he began to speak, hesitant at first but growing more fervent the longer he continued.

“Miss Crompton, you have my unreserved apologies for what you witnessed between Lady Wilde and myself,” he began, his voice low and filled with emotion. “What you saw, despite how it appeared, was entirely one-sided. I have never knowingly encouraged her, nor was I in any way interested in her proposition. She is eager to remarry. I did not realise how firmly she had fixed upon me as her intended choice. Nothing could have been further from my mind when she spoke with me. What you witnessed was my rejection of her advances in the strongest possible terms and nothing more.” His eyes were entreating as he met her gaze.

“I, too, am eager to marry,” he murmured. “But Lady Wilde is not the object of my affection. It has been many days now where one woman alone has captivated my heart. I have found love at last, only to almost lose it in the cruellest circumstances imaginable.

“You have changed me, Miss Crompton, in ways I did not believe possible. I thought I was happy before we met. I realise now that could not have been further from the truth. You make me want to be a better man.” He sighed, glancing away and then turning back to her. “I know of my reputation, of what you have heard of me. I believed I had an excuse for my actions because I thought myself heartbroken. I realise now how foolish that was, and what my conduct might have cost me. I can do nothing to erase my past, but I can make its lessons build my future.”

Clarissa’s heart swelled at his words, but the doubts would not abate. Her family had been through so much. Can I believe him? Does any man ever truly change?

She wanted to trust it was possible, but Catherine’s scandal was prominent in her mind, her sister’s face floating across her vision like a spectre.

Lord Bolton lowered himself to the floor, kneeling beside the bed, and took something from his pocket, his eyes urgent. Pulling it free, he presented her with a silver chain in the palm of his hand. At the base of it was a beautiful locket, engraved with leaves across the lid and more intricate than anything Clarissa had ever seen.

“Clarissa,” he said haltingly. His hands shook as he showed it to her, a thrill of pleasure pulsing through her breast as he used her Christian name. “My aunt gave me this to give to you. It is a family heirloom, a symbol of true and lasting love. My father gave it to my mother when they were married, and it is my dearest wish that I can bestow it upon you, too.” His voice caught on the words. “I have spoken with your father. I know it was presumptuous of me, but I did not wish to let you slip through my fingers. You have no notion of how lost I was before I met you.”

He took her hand in his. She gasped but could not bring herself to pull away.

“He has given me his blessing,” he said solemnly. Clarissa looked at the sincerity of his face, almost unable to believe her greatest wish had come to pass. “I want to be at your side. I would think it the greatest honour to pass through this life with you, to be loved by you if I can but hope. Will you let me prove my love to you? I will show my devotion for as long as I live, if you will but give me this chance.”

Clarissa felt the tears she had held at bay for so long begin to fall down her cheeks. The man kneeling before her was not the rake of his past but the man of her future. He had opened his heart to love and commitment for the first time, and in his earnest gaze, she found her answer.

She thought through everything she had experienced in the last few weeks. She recalled the sincerity, easy charm, and kindness he had shown her whole family. Lord Bolton had been attentive and sincere since the first day she had met him. His imploring gaze was desperate and hopeful, and her throat clenched as she recognized how her feelings had changed.

“I have been in turmoil these past weeks,” she confessed. “I have tried to stop myself from falling in love with you.” She frowned at him. “You have made it exceedingly difficult.”

He gave a startled laugh and surged forward, gently sitting beside her on the bed.

“I will not lie and say that your reputation did not concern me,” his frown deepened, “but I have come to realise that we are not built by our past actions. I pray and hope that is true of my sister, and I can only hope it is true of you.”

“I swear to you, on everything I love in this world, that I will never return to that life. I was living in a delirious dream, ignorant of the world I truly wanted. Perhaps it was a nightmare; it certainly brought me no fulfilment. Nothing like I had felt with you.”

“And you never thought of Lady Wilde—”

“Never,” he said firmly. “Not once. Since I met you, you have consumed my entire being.” He gave her a gentle smile, his fingers still tangled in her own.

She smiled, her lips trembling as she nodded just once, the fluttering in her chest almost all-consuming.

“Yes,” she said, with pure happiness, “Nicholas Bolton, I will marry you.”

He let out a great rush of air, and that wonderful smile spread across his face—the real smile he reserved for her alone, the smile she had grown to love so much.

With gentle, tentative movements, he took her face in his hands and brought their lips together with a feather-light touch in a wonderful, secret kiss filled with light and love. She felt his hands tighten around her, his scent envelops her, and for the first time in three long years, the pain she felt dimmed to nothing in his presence.

As they parted, both a little breathless, Nicholas rested his forehead against hers, and they each let out a sigh together.

It was the end of something between them and the start of something bright and new.