Chapter 49

C HAPTER 49

As to marriage, I think the intercourse of heart and mind may be

fully enjoyed without entering into his partnership of daily life.

—Margaret Fuller

Cab finally kissed her. Oh, sweet heaven, so deeply, completely, thoroughly, she wondered if she had ever known how to breathe.

She leaned into the solid, sure strength of him, into the scent of starch and virtue. "Cab."

"Marigold." He spoke her name against her lips, teasing her with each breath and syllable. His kiss was gentle and bold, exactly as she might have wished. Perfect, in fact.

Until he spoke. "Marigold, I must ask. Will you marry me?"

Marigold's eyes filled with unexpected tears—heat and love and despair all piled up behind her lids until they spilled down her cheeks.

His arms around her gentled. "I didn't mean to make you cry."

"Naturally." She managed a smile. "I'm crying because I love you."

And she loved him because he was smart enough and perfect enough to understand what she hadn't said. "But"—he let out a breath even as he kissed her hand again—"not enough to marry me."

"More," she corrected. "Too much to marry you."

"That makes no sense to me," he objected. "I love you. I want you here with me, like this, every day. Knowing that you'll be by my side wherever we go. Together." He let out a breath. "But that's not what you want, is it?"

"Not exactly. Because the world doesn't work in the reciprocal way, does it? I'm not allowed to expect that you'll be by my side wherever I go."

"What is the difference?"

"The difference is in our world."

"Then damn the world." He gripped her hand and then, more carefully, her face. "I won't change my mind. I'll just keep asking."

"Do you think you'll change my mind?" she asked, before she added quietly, "Or find I just can't do without you? But the problem is, I can, you see. I already know that. And that's what makes me unsuitable."

"You're not unsuitable."

"Let me ask you this—when you were a boy and read the stories in fairy tales, did you imagine yourself the dragon or the knight?"

"The knight," he said immediately.

"Naturally." She reached out to touch his forearm—that strong, steady sword arm. "Because that's who you are. But not me. If you asked me if I would rather be the witch or the princess, I would have chosen the witch, not just because she had power, but because she was the only person who never had to please anyone else."

Cab tried to hide his disappointment. "And is that so bad, pleasing someone else?"

"No," Marigold admitted. "It is sublimely pleasurable when I can choose to please you. But it's pleasurable because I can choose to do it, or not."

"And marrying me stops you from choosing?"

"You're the lawyer—you know it does. You know under the law, I—or any woman—would be nothing more than an extension of you. Your name becomes mine. Your word, that of mine. Your will, superior to mine." She shook her head. "I couldn't abide that."

"Does the fact that I love you count for nothing?"

"It counts a great deal. It nearly counts for everything, because I love you too. With my heart and soul and body. But not with my very person. Do you see the difference?"

He was enough of a lawyer to understand. "I do. And once again, I lament that such is our world." He drew in a deep, reconciled breath. "So, no is for always?"

"No." She couldn't let him think that, even as she couldn't let him think it was yes. "It's no, not now. Not when things … when I am so unsettled. I feel much the same way I felt when my parents died." The remembrance brought a fresh wave of understanding. And sorrow. "Only they weren't my parents, were they? Only Harry Manners was."

"Who your parents were doesn't change anything about you."

"Doesn't it? I heard how you referred to Seviah, Cab, when you thought him a bastard. And that's what I am as well. I have always said that people make their own choices, regardless of their family's blood, but now that tie has been taken away from me, I understand that it was the bedrock upon which I constructed my life. Without it, I feel … adrift."

"I thought you were a New Woman, who didn't care what the world thought of you."

"I've always cared. Always cared that the world knew I was accomplished—" she began.

"You are accomplished—just look at how much you accomplished at Hatchet Farm. I fear for your becoming any more accomplished," he laughed softly.

"And therein lies the rub, dear Cab. Because I do plan on becoming the very thing you fear—more accomplished. I don't think I'll ever stop wanting and trying to be … more. More educated, more experienced, more admired, and more accomplished."

"Marigold, I was only joking. I don't fear you."

"Don't you? You're a man formed for hearth and home, Cab. You want a wife to be by your side."

"And you don't want that? You, who never had a permanent home? I thought you—"

"—would feel hemmed in," she finished. "I still aspire to becoming an archaeologist. To travel and study and research and dig."

"Can you not do that by my side?"

"Can you still conduct your life the way you want and be by my side ? Living in a tent in Greece, or wherever else my studies might take me? Would you leave Pride's Crossing and Boston and the law to come with me, if I chose to go?"

"Go where?"

She rose, the possibility pushing her to her feet. "Wherever life might take us."

He came to his feet with her. "Life needs to be paid for, Marigold. With a job."

"Then that's a no."

He sighed. "That would be a not now."

"But not a not ever?" She wanted to hope, but she had to make sure she understood.

"Yes." He reached for her hand and kissed it one last time. "And please know that no matter what, no matter where you go or what you do, I'll always love you."

"And I love you, in my own way." Marigold came into his arms, to the comfort of his broad, safe chest, where she could give in to the impulse of the moment and bask in the warmth and surety of his embrace. Just this once.

Because she didn't know when she would ever get to do so again.

And that would have to be fine.