Chapter 23

CHAPTER 23

This was ridiculous.

That she should have ordered the carriage to a halt, climbed out into the rain, and taken this path into the meadow was the most pointless thing she had ever done in her life.

Rain drenched her, sticking loose wisps of hair to her neck and cheeks. The stone fence glistened. The woods on the other side swayed and shuddered, and the wheat-colored meadow grass bent beneath the downpour.

Mr. Oswald had never appeared more injured.

Indeed, he had smiled at her—a bit shakily, perhaps, and his breathy laugh had quivered—but he had picked himself off the floor anyway. "You must forgive me if I do not so easily relinquish my hopes. I have a lifetime to change your mind."

"I fear my mind cannot be changed."

He had talked with her a long time after that, his manner calm, his words less cryptic and imposing than was his custom. He talked of Simon too. He even remarked on his bravery and said that Georgina might help herself to the trunk of paintings Simon left behind.

She should have wanted no part of those paintings.

But she did.

Every part of her ached and longed and shivered to treasure them, to carry them to her chamber, to keep a part of Simon no one would ever take away.

Perhaps accompanying Mr. Oswald to retrieve them was unkind to his heart. But somehow, she had been afraid that if she did not go now, she never would.

Leaning back against the stone wall, half-sheltered beneath the boughs, she wiped her face. Why had she come here?

A strange grief had constricted her moments ago, when she had departed Sowerby House for the last time. All her memories were shut up in that house. People she loved. Days she could not return to.

Perhaps she just needed one last chance to say goodbye to this too. The little road where Simon had always taken the carriage. The meadow path where once they had strolled.

If she had ever been happy in her life, it was here.

Everything before and after the summer carriage rides had been a void. She had come alive for such a short time. She was resigned to endure the rest of her life dead.

A prickling sensation crawled the back of her neck, as something moved in the corner of her eye. Likely the carriage driver, impatient she return to where she'd left him.

But when she turned, her breath caught.

Down the path, Simon stood alongside the mossy stone fence, rain dripping down his face, watching her.

Humiliation stoked flames in her stomach. To be caught here, to be seen this way—she was exposed in every imaginable way, and he would know everything. Why was he not on the ship? How long had he been here?

He should have moved. He should have called out to her.

He should have done something, anything, except stare at her as if—she didn't know what. She had never seen him look this way. Not when they were children. Not even in the fire, when he had kissed her.

When she walked toward him, he walked too. They met beneath the ash tree, the limbs trembling above them, the leaves shiny and dripping.

She pushed wet hair out of her face and despised that her fingers shook. "What are you doing here?"

"I was on my way to Sowerby House. I saw the carriage."

"The ship—"

"Sailed without me."

She couldn't imagine what had delayed his leaving. She only regretted it had. "The driver is waiting for me. I should not keep him—"

"Are you marrying him?"

Her chest hitched. When she didn't answer, he said again, lower, "Are you marrying Oswald?"

"There is no reason, sir, I should not."

He did not give her reasons. He looked at her longer, deeper, from her eyes to her lips to her eyes again, with a grief so stark and raw that her heart twisted.

"I should go," she said again, but his fingers snagged hers.

"Not yet."

"Simon—"

His lips silenced her—wet, cold, desperate, pleading. His hands found her face, pulling her close—

"No." She stumbled back, startled, and wished she could wipe the kiss from her lips. He had no right to torture her. He had no right to say goodbye this way. "I have to leave." She choked. "You should leave."

"He loves you."

"I know."

"I love you more."

The words stunned her, paralyzed her, until she could no longer meet his eyes. What was he saying? Why now, when he had already promised his children America, did he confess the one thing she'd always thirsted for?

A small cry escaped her. She shook her head, cupped her mouth, turned away from him, but he circled back in front of her.

"I do not expect you to marry me. I do not expect anything from you, Georgina." The determination she'd always admired in him now flared with scorching power. "But my children and I are not leaving London. I don't care what I have to do or how long I have to wait—or how many times I have to bang on your door or how many years it takes to convince you." His eyes wept. "I need you. I wish I could say it better. I wish I could make you see."

She wanted to protect herself. This insane desire to deny him, to run, to warn herself that despite what he said now, he'd one day do what everyone else always did.

What he'd already done once.

"You can marry Oswald and you can punish me for all the times I hurt you. I wish I could change what I did. I wish I could go back." A knot rose and fell in his throat. He reached for her, pulled her against him, said against her lips, "You can forget about me, Georgina Whitmore, but do not ever think that I could ever forget you again."

She leaned into him, drinking him, tasting of his lips as if to determine their truth. Every part of her quivered in disbelief, anguish, hope. "Simon." The rain took her tears. "I told Mr. Oswald no."

His breath exhaled on her face. She smelled rain and summer and earth and Simon, as he kissed her cheek, then her forehead, then her mouth. "How many more times are you going to tell me no when I ask you to marry me?"

"Ask but once more."

"I love you."

"Ask me."

"Be my wife—please be my wife."

The words seemed more dream than anything else. She was caught up in the shocking warmth of his hands on her face, the calluses of his skin, the thump of his heart she could feel beneath his shirt. Overwhelming joy seeped into her soul. "That's the only thing I've ever wanted to be…my whole life."