How horrifying, and how thrilling. It felt like a secret, a confession, a taunt: a dare to fate.
But he did not seem to think it remarkable or daring. “I know,” he said, and his thumbs stroked her wrists, once. “We love each other. And look, darling: the world continues to turn.”
She pulled out of his grip. He let her go, his fingers sliding softly over hers, a lover’s caress. She stepped around him, to put the sun at her back, and he turned toward her, and his features clarified. He smiled, and some sharp, sweet pain caught her heart.
Since Richard’s death, she had never been afraid to lose anyone. She had never entertained any suitor who might have inspired that fear.
I am so afraid to lose him.
And so—what? She must lose him now, at once, as quickly as possible?
What sort of logic was that?
She looked at him, his eyes so blue, his hair ruffling in the wind, so relaxed on his feet, hands in pockets, lounging as gentlemen were not meant to lounge, while beyond him in the garden lay one dismantled pagoda and two more awaiting the axe, and beyond them the cornfields in the sun, and the sky, and farther out yet, the sea. “I love you,” she said.
“Yes,” he said. “Say it again. Louder, if you please.”
She laughed. She could say it aloud. She could let herself say it. She could scream it. He would not leave; lightning would not split the sky. The gamble was honest and earnest and it carried no punishment. Why—how could fate be cruel? Fate had brought him to her. Alex, the most unlikely suitor in all of England, loved her!
She jumped once, and then gave a wild laugh, feeling . . . mad—insane—who cared, indeed? “I love you,” she said. What couldn’t she do, now? Especially with this garden! “Alex—help me fetch an axe!” Turning on her heel, she raced for the house.
He caught her by the elbow, laughing, breathless, just inside the door. His eyes were sparkling. “An axe, Gwen?”
“For the—oh, never mind!” she cried. “Later!” And threw herself at him, her arms going around his neck, her mouth finding his. He turned her, backing her against the wall, running his hand up her wrist, capturing it against the wall, breaking away briefly to say something—a comment forever lost as he glanced beyond her, out the door, into the garden. His gaze abruptly narrowed.
“The pagodas,” he said.
“An axe,” she said.
“Definitely.” He looked at her. “Later,” he said, and then he kissed her again, and she planted her hands in his hair and pulled him down—down, down, down; she did not worry about the ground, their inevitable collision with the marble floor, or the servants, or tomorrow, or the next day, or ten years from now. He had her in his arms and he was kissing her, and I want this, she thought. I want you. And then, as his lips moved to her throat, I need you. And finally, at last, as his arms tightened around her and the sun spilled over them like a blessing:
I have you, Alex.
I have you.