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The train started moving, and with it, the hiss of the steam engines and the screech of the gears filled the car. It provided a little cover for their conversation.
“No?” He leaned forward an inch. “Who do you want?”
Her cheeks pinked a little, but she looked out the window. “I have no intention of becoming an object of curiosity in polite society. They’d let me go to a few of their balls and they would gawk at me and ask me if I had really been married and if the marriage had really been annulled and what I had been doing beforehand.” Camilla shrugged. “They would want me to feel ashamed of where I have been, and I have had a lifetime’s worth of shame. I don’t want to marry a man who will forgive me for what I have done. I want someone who will treasure me for it. You know what I want.”
“You want to be chosen,” he said in a low voice. “You want someone who thinks of all the women in the world and decides that he wants you above any other. You want a long, slow falling in love.”
Her eyes fluttered up to his. Her cheeks were rosy, and the way she looked at him made him want to take her in his arms, and damn the other passenger.
“A point of clarification,” Adrian asked. “Precisely how long a falling in love were you hoping for? My parents took three years. As for me, that sounds rather excessive.”
She colored further. “I should like to reach our destination, at a minimum. Any time before then would be too fast.”
“I see.”
“Longer than that, I suppose, is up for debate.” She grinned at him. “But I’ve spent this entire time talking of myself. Tell me about you. What did your brother think? Have you started producing the plates for the exhibition? When is the exhibition, and would you mind horribly if I came?”
God, he had missed talking to her. He had missed hearing her voice; he had missed seeing the glow in her eyes as she drank in his every word. He’d missed the way she laughed and the way she looked at him and the way she reached out at one point and tried to remove a piece of fluff from his lapel, and the way his whole body responded to that touch of her finger on fabric.
He had missed everything about her.
“I didn’t ask before. Why Somerset?”
She looked down. “Well, since we couldn’t talk to one another before the annulment, I decided to put my time while I was waiting to good use. You know how I felt about looking back.”
He nodded.
“I’ve been looking back,” she confessed. “I went to visit Mrs. Marsdell—the woman who taught me to crochet. She was dead. I left flowers on her grave. I visited my uncle; he apologized, believe it or not, and I had the pleasure of seeing him very embarrassed. He had no idea what was going to happen, but that is no excuse for what he did. I visited his cousin, who was terrible. I went up to see Kitty; she’s settling quite well into her new position, and she’s so happy to have her daughter with her that I cried for her. I thought it would…help, perhaps? If I saw everyone who had once mattered to me.”
He knew he should ask if it had helped in truth. Still, some dark impulse made him ask this instead: “Did you visit James?”
Somehow, the idea of her talking to the footman who had promised to love her and left her to the care of Rector Miles made him feel just a little angry.
Her lip quirked up. “No,” she said simply. “Not him. He didn’t deserve me, and when I thought back over that time… There was nothing I wanted to look back for. But I did go to see Larissa.” Her eyes dropped. “I mentioned her to you once. We were particular friends. Or at least I thought we were. I always did wonder what had happened to her, after her parents separated us. She’s… Um, how shall I say this?” She glanced across the car at the other occupant.
Camilla had mentioned that she had practiced kissing with Larissa.
“We were both very young,” Camilla said. “But she has apparently taken Mrs. Martin’s path.”
“She’s found a sweet young thing?”
“Someone a little older than her, actually. We hugged and she said she was sorry I was sent off, but that without me, she might never have realized that…”
“That like Mrs. Martin, she had no use for men?”
“Are you shocked?”
“Someday, I will tell you about my great-great-uncles. And… Never mind; I’ll let her tell you herself. Who are we here to meet, then?”
She cast him a coquettish glance. “Can’t you guess?”
He really couldn’t.
“I’m going back and revisiting everywhere I ever stayed,” Camilla said. “Everyone I wanted to love. Who do you think is left?”
He wracked his brain, trying to remember. He had absolutely no idea.
She had arranged to have a hired cart waiting for them at the station. The day was beautiful—just a few fluffy white clouds under a bright, sunny sky. He took the reins when she offered, and she pointed down the dry dirt road leading south. “That way, please.”
They drove out of town.
There were no houses in the direction she had pointed them. Maybe there was a hamlet over the next rolling hill; maybe their destination lay ten miles distant.
After half an hour, she stopped the cart and opened the massive bag she had complained about earlier. She produced a bottle of soda water and some meat pasties. “Here,” she said.
“You want to stop here for a rest?”
“I want to stop here because it’s our destination.”
Adrian looked around. He looked up, at the blue sun-kissed sky, and around them, at the landscape. There was a small copse of trees and the sound of a running brook. The grasses were green and the last late flowers made a riot of color.
“Here?” he asked dubiously. “Who are we visiting here?”
“Adrian,” she said. “Isn’t it obvious who I’m visiting here?”
“No. Not at all.”
She gathered up her bag and stepped down from the carriage. “Don’t be silly. It’s you.”
Oh. Oh. “And we couldn’t have visited in London?”
“We could have,” she said, “but this is prettier, and I have fewer sisters present.” She winked at him. “In fact, there’s nobody present here at all, and what my sisters don’t know won’t shock them.”
After that, there was nothing to do but tie the horses to a nearby sapling and follow her into the field. Little insects flew up underfoot as they walked.
He reached out and took her hand, entwining it in his. “I never got to do this,” he said. “Not at any point when we were together. We were always so intent on holding ourselves out as not married.”
She did not pull away. She just smiled. “And how do you like it?”
“I like it very well. I find myself never wanting to let go.”
Another shy look over her shoulder. “Adrian. You know you don’t have to.”
“I do, Camilla.” He looked at her. “I’m afraid to tell you—but I do. I have to let go now. I had a long talk with Grayson. He urged me to find a way to be happy for myself, and the thing that would make me most happy right now is if I let go.”
The look on her face—the way her eyes widened, the way her lips parted just a little bit—made him almost regret relinquishing her hand. Almost. But he did. He pulled away from her.
“You see,” he said softly, “if I do not let go of your hand, I cannot reach into my pocket—my tailor, by the way, is kind in the matter of pockets—and take out…” He found what he had been searching for, and made a fist around it, and held his arm out. “This.”
He opened his hand.
Her eyes widened even further.
“I didn’t think you would want something ostentatious,” he said. “And it turns out, I know some excellent artists who are skilled in enamel work. I asked them to put together a design while we were waiting for the annulment.”
She did not move to take the ring from him. “Adrian.” Her voice shook. “Is that an enamel tiger?”
“Yes,” he said, “and I hope you’ll forgive the few s
mall stones, but I wanted to make sure that our tiger was crowned in the sparkliest of dreams.”
“I love it.” She looked up at him. “Is it intended for me?”
“Give me back your hand. No, without the glove.”
She smiled, baring her hand. He slid the ring on her finger, gold and radiant for all to see. Her eyes shone.
“Camilla,” he said, “I love you. I love you more than any other woman in the world, and I want you by my side for decades and decades. I choose you above everyone else. Will you please make me the happiest of men by giving me your hand in marriage?”
Her eyes sparkled. “That was so good,” she said. “That was the best marriage proposal I’ve ever received.”
“Oh, you’ve received a lot of them, have you?”
“Yes,” she said. “Last time you had to marry me, you said ‘no.’ This was a thousand times better.”
