He stood up very suddenly. “I must go,” he said, his heart cantering through his chest as certainty flooded him. “I must win back my wife.”
Vanessa was recovering. That is what the doctors said at least. The painwasdiminishing, so she had to believe them. Her chest no longer hurt all the time whenever she breathed, and all the cuts that had been caused by the bullet fragments had healed. She did not even have any scars which the doctors had seemed surprised about.
So yes, she was recovering physically from her injuries. During the day, she could even stroll the gardens with Phoebe and Lady Selina, and she would only tire out after an hour or more. Soon, the doctors promised her, she would be back to not only walking for hours but dancing.
With whom?she’d wondered as Dr. Langley had informed her of this.The only man I want to dance with is my husband.
But he was no longer her husband—at least in practice. He never really had been. He was just someone now
Which is why she was surprised, four weeks after he had left, when on a rainy Sunday afternoon, the butler announced that the Duke of Thornfield had arrived to see her.
Vanessa was sitting in the drawing room reading when the Duke was announced, and she barely had time to struggle to her feet and smooth down her skirts before the drawing rooms burst open and the Duke strode in, looking startlingly calm and collected, considering that four weeks earlier he had walked out on her as she lay convalescing from a bullet wound.
“Your Grace,” he said, nodding to her. “You are looking well.”
Vanessa set down her book on the cushion next to her and surveyed him coolly. Inside, her heart was beating at a hundred miles an hour. Outside, she was a statue.
“What are you doing here?” she asked. “The last time we spoke, you said I would never see you again.”
The Duke did not answer right away. He walked toward her, his expression unreadable, and then he came to stand across from her, so that they were separated by a tea table.
“You really are looking well,” he said more gently as his eyes scanned over her. “If I did not know what had happened to you, I would not know you had been shot.”
“If I did not know what had happened with you, I would not think you were a cowardly husband who abandoned me during the darkest hour of my life,” she spat back.
The Duke stiffened. For a moment, she thought he was going to respond with anger, but then his face fell. “You are right,” he said softly. “I deserve that. And more.”
“Yes, you do!” she shouted, her anger springing to the surface. “You deserve to have me throw you out of here! Howdareyou show your face here, especially in such an assuming manner, after what you did to me!”
“I dare because I love you more than life itself,” he said in a voice so adamant and so unwavering that it stopped her in her tracks. “Nothing,” he continued, “but the very deepest love, could have compelled me to face the shame of what I did to you and come back here on bended knees to beg you to forgive me. Nothing but a love so pure and so strong I would die for you could make me face the demons that have haunted me all my life in order to admit that I was wrong, that I have been cowardly and selfish, and that I want nothing more than to spend the rest of my life making it up to you.”
He looked deep into her eyes. She almost took a step back. There was so much pain there but also so much love and genuine emotion that she felt it hit her like a tempest.
Very slowly, she sank onto the couch, too stunned to answer.
Winston stepped forward, and when he spoke again, his voice shook slightly. “I know I do not deserve you, Vanessa. I know that what I did by leaving you, when you were so injured, was unforgivable. And I will never forgive myself for it. But I came back because I know now that I was wrong to think I had to leaveyou to protect you. All my life, I have believed I was responsible for the bad things that happened to the people I love. For almost thirty years, I have told myself that, again and again. And I was so sure that if I stayed here in London with you and was a real husband to you that bad things would happen to you as well. The fact you were shot when I left the house to confront Egerton only seemed to prove that to me.
“It took me too long to realize the error of my ways. And I will spend every day of my life making up for that. But I know now, with such utter certainty, that I was wrong. The best way to show you my love for you is to be here. To fight for you. I do not have to be perfect to love you, nor do I need to protect you from everything. I just have to be here. To keep showing up. Every day.”
Vanessa began to cry. Everything he was saying was exactly what she had dreamed of for the past four weeks. And yet…
“Things are not the same as they were before,” she whispered. “You abandoned me, but I am not alone. I have friends now. Income. A title. I do not need you.”
“I do not want you to need me,” Winston said, taking another step toward her. His eyes were blazing, and his cheeks were wet as well. “What I need—what I hope for—is for you to want me. And to choose me. And to let me prove to you, every day, that I will not abandon you again. Maybe I will let you down from time to time, but I will never again walk away.”
Vanessa’s heart was in her throat. She wanted to believe him. She wanted so badly to leap up and throw herself in his arms, to cry into his chest and tell him that she forgave him and that she would take him back. But how could she know he was trustworthy? How could she really know he had changed?
“You do not have to take me at my word today,” he said softly, his eyes seeming to read into her very soul. “All I ask is that you give me the chance to show you. Each and every day.”
She stood up. Something compelled her. A force stronger than reason, stronger than anger, and stronger than fear. She knew what it was, but she wanted to know he felt it too.
“Why?” she asked, her voice breaking as the tears continued to slide down her cheeks. “Why would you do that?”
A small smile flickered over his lips. “Because I love you, Vanessa. Because you are the love of my life. And I would do anything on this earth to win you back.”
“I love you,” she whispered, and she stepped forward and very tentatively placed a hand over his heart. “I love you more than words can say. And if you really mean this?—”
“I do.”
