Chapter 29

CHAPTER 29

Celia stood there, feeling completely numb.

He’s here.

She thought it had to be a dream. He’d gone off to Scotland. How could he be standing before her now as a light, misty rain began?

“You can’t be here. You went to Scotland.”

“I came back.” He walked toward her.

Celia actually took a step back in alarm, one of her hands gripping the door of the carriage.

This is not possible.

“It’s me, Celia. I’m really here,” he said in that familiar baritone that she had missed so much. “Ye were leaving me? For good?” He gestured to the bags at the back of the carriage.

She realized how this must have looked. It was the same view she’d had when he had left her the day before. She couldn’t tell him what she had been doing now. Not now—it wasn’t the right moment.

“What are you doing here?” She fixed him with a cold stare, trying not to show weakness. She stood tall, her shoulders pulled back. “You left. You made it very clear that you didn’t want to be here anymore. That you wanted nothing to do with this house, or with me. So, what does it matter if I’m leaving now too?”

The footman returned with the driver. The moment they saw Keith, they halted.

“Privacy, please.” Keith raised his hand in silent instruction.

At once, both men nodded and turned away. When a stable boy ran forward with an extra harness, the driver grabbed his shoulder and turned him around.

Alone again, with the sunset bleeding into darkness, Celia shifted her focus back to Keith. The rain was now dampening his hair and making it stick to his forehead. His shirt sleeves were becoming molded to his arms too.

“Well?” she said, determined not to back down or be meek now. “Why are you here, Your Grace?”

“Don’t call me that.” He winced.

“What else should I call my husband, who wants nothing to do with me?”

“Call me Keith.” He stepped toward her urgently. She thought he was trying to reach for her hand. Baffled, she pulled her hand out of his reach. “I am so sorry, Celia.”

She halted, waiting to hear more. She stared at him, watching as his eyes roamed over her. He even looked away, apparently making sure they weren’t going to be disturbed again, but the front door to the house was closed and the curtains had been drawn. No one would see them out here.

“I’m sorry I left. I’m sorry I didn’t explain myself. I’m sorry too that I told ye so many times I wanted to marry a woman different from ye.”

She snorted. To her mind, he seemed to have relished telling her such a thing far too much.

“Truly. I am sorry.” He stepped toward her again. This time, she didn’t step back.

“What should you have done?” She folded her arms. “What should you have told me?”

He leaned toward her an inch. “I should have told ye that ever since we met, there has never been another woman. Maybe I wished there was, aye, but it was always ye, Celia. Always ye, from the first moment I saw ye at that lake.” He sighed heavily. “I also should have told ye that I was running because I wanted to keep ye safe. Safe from myself.”

Something in her stomach knotted in fury. She dropped her arms and slapped him on the arm in reprimand. It couldn’t have hurt. In fact, he even smiled in surprise.

“Which bit was that for?” he asked.

“For thinking you are anything like your father!” she snapped. “Oh, I know what you think. I had a very enlightening conversation with your mother. She said you were trying not to be your father. That you were going so we could all be free, so that I could be free of you. When did you become such a fool?”

She pushed him back with her hands. He was so tall and strong, though, that he didn’t even flinch, let alone move back a step.

“You saved me that first night in the lake. You would never hurt me. You never have, and I don’t believe you ever would.”

“Celia, please⁠—”

“What? What!” she said wildly. “You think because you look like your father, because you have similar mannerisms or characteristics, you’d be cruel like him. You haven’t inherited your mother’s cleverness, that much is for sure.”

A flicker of a smile appeared on his lips, though it vanished fast.

“It’s what I’ve been told my whole life, Celia. Aye, it isn’t easy to get the thought out of yer head once someone plants it in there. Trust me.”

“Trust you? Oh God, do you realize how mad that sounds? Two days ago, I made a vow to love and cherish you forever, and the first thing you do is break that vow and run away. Oh, I have never been so angry with anyone in my entire life—Keith, what the hell are you doing?”

She had forgotten to use his title in her shock.

He had dropped down onto his knees in the gravel before her. He didn’t seem to care that he was kneeling in a puddle, nor that the rain was getting worse and was now running off the side of the carriage and onto his shoulders.

“I’m sorry.” His words were even more heartfelt this time, his deep voice more passionate. “I realized something last night. I broke my heart, running away from ye, and I could never be the same again if I made it all the way to Scotland. If I had caused ye the same pain…” He paused, sighing heavily. “Then I was making us both miserable.”

“I could have told you that.” She was still staring down at him.

“Well, it took me a while to realize it. I also saw that I had become the very man I didn’t want to be. Aye, I stole yer decision. I stole yer freedom.”

Her eyebrows shot up in surprise.

“It should have been yer choice to be with me or not. From now on, it will be.” He held his arms open wide. “I’m here on my knees, begging ye to give me a chance. I’ll try to be the best husband I can be to ye, but if I become overbearing, if ye grow tired of me, then it will be yer decision to send me away or to keep me by yer side. Ye have the power, Celia.”

Celia couldn’t move. This was the stuff of dreams to have Keith come back to her and declare such things.

“Keith…” she whispered.

He could clearly sense her relenting. He stood up quickly and took her hand in both of his. With the rain falling between them, it made their palms damp.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered again. “But let me make it up to ye. Let me try and be a husband. A real husband, not just in name.”

“You… you are such a fool,” she whispered, though she was smiling now.

He must have seen hope, for he lifted her hand to his lips and kissed the back of it.

“You’re insufferable. I can’t stand you,” she said, though her smile grew impossibly wider as she said it. “There is so much that infuriates me about you.”

“But?” he said with hope, turning her hand over.

He placed his lips on the inside of her wrist. Rather than kissing it, he nipped it and then soothed it with a lap of his tongue. It made her breath hitch.

“But… I fell in love with you anyway.”

“I love ye too.” He moved forward so fast, taking her lips with his own, that she nearly fell over in surprise.

She clutched at him, her hands gripping his biceps tightly as she anchored herself to him. He wrapped one arm firmly around her waist, making her body melt into his chest.

To feel his body against hers again, to know the sensation of his lips on her own was a thrill. It made her warm, so happy, for she had once thought this feeling an impossibility.

She pulled away a little, though he seemed in no hurry to let her go and kept trying to steal more kisses.

“I’m going to make you my mission,” she whispered between his kisses. “After five nights with me, I’ll make it so you’ll never want to leave me again.”

“There was a part of me that wanted ye forever the moment I saw ye naked at that lake.” He kissed her again.

When his words registered, she pushed him hard in the chest. He laughed, though he didn’t release her.

“You said you didn’t see anything that night!”

“Well, sweetheart, ye’ll never quite know the truth.” He winked at her, and she tapped him on the arm in reprimand again.

“Insufferable,” she whispered playfully.

She looked at the carriage. She didn’t want to go back into the house just yet. The moment they went in, Elizabeth and Frances would descend on them with questions.

She wanted to spend more time with Keith. Perhaps she should drag him into the carriage to spend a few more minutes alone with him.

“Where were ye going?” he asked, noting where she was looking. “Were ye going to yer parents’ house?”

“Might have been there, might have been to Scotland.” She turned back to look at him with triumph, then repeated his words back to him. “You’ll never quite know the truth.”

He chuckled deeply and leaned toward her. “Ye were coming to me?” he asked, his lips hovering over hers.

“Perhaps.” She grimaced. “A little desperate?”

“Not as much as me,” he whispered, then kissed her again.

She molded her body to his as much as she possibly could, well aware that their wet clothes kept them apart. She wanted to feel his skin on hers, touch him and explore him, but she didn’t want to have to wait until they were done talking to Frances and Elizabeth.

She pulled back from him.

“Don’t pull back now,” he begged.

“I’m not intending to pull back for long.” She pushed the carriage door open again. “Fancy following my orders for a change?”