But because his knees gave way under the weight of everything he had carried alone.
“Margaret, my Margaret,” he pleaded, voice thick with reverence and wonder and desperate hope, “will you marry me?”
Another sob escaped her. She nodded—once, then again, and again, until laughter—rare and priceless broke from her throat. And when she finally found her voice, it broke the last of him.
“Yes!” she breathed. “Yes, John.”
He rose slowly from the floor, still holding her hands as though they were the only anchor in a world that had tilted under his feet. He cupped her face with both hands—a touch he had imagined and forbidden himself a thousand times—and her eyes closed for a single, decisive second, as if offering him permission she could not speak aloud.
He kissed her.
No hesitation. No apology. No fear.
It was not soft at first; he had held himself in restraint for far too long. But the fierceness lasted only a heartbeat before it gentled into something deeper, steadier, a vow forming in the press of his mouth to hers.
Margaret’s hands slid up his coat, clutching at his shoulders as though she, too, had been waiting far too long. She leaned into him with quiet possession, answering him with a warmth that traveled straight into his chest, unmaking him.
A bell rang outside—clear, bright, jubilant—pealing across Harley Street in a burst of Christmas morning joy.
He felt her smile against his mouth. “Merry Christmas, John.”
He drew back just far enough to see her. Her lashes were damp, her cheeks flushed, her lips softened by the warmth of his kiss. He touched her face again, reverently this time, as though memorizing her for the rest of his life.
“Margaret,” he whispered, voice roughened by emotion he could no longer hide, “I will spend every breath I have proving myself worthy of this moment.”
She lifted his hand and pressed it to her cheek. “You always were.”
He might have kissed her again—he meant to, in fact, and she seemed quite prepared to let him—when a sudden clatter rose from the steps outside. The clamor of voices followed, cheerful and loud, boots thudding on the pavement, a child shrieking something about snow.
They froze.
Mrs. Lennox’s laugh carried through the door. Captain Lennox muttered about lost gloves. Mrs. Shaw declared she could not take another gust of cold wind.
Thornton looked back at Margaret. She was biting her lip and staring at the door.
The spell was broken, but not lost. Only postponed. The kind of interruption that made the moment sweeter, not diminished.
Margaret touched his sleeve. “We will tell them… soon.”
He lowered his forehead to hers in a brief, tender confession of a gesture. “Whenever you wish.”
Another shout from the corridor. Dixon ordering someone not to track snow into the drawing room.
Margaret stepped back, laughing as she brought his hand to her lips, to her warm cheeks. “Come,” she said softly. “We should meet them before Dixon suspects the entire truth at once.”
He smiled—an unguarded, utterly undone smile that felt like the first true breath he had taken in months.
“Yes,” he murmured. “As you wish.”
12
The sound of bootsand laughter filled the corridor like a sudden gust of cold, bright air. But nothing—nothing—could dim the warmth inside her chest.
John’s hand remained in hers as they stepped out of the study, fingers brushing only lightly, yet the contact felt like a blazing declaration. She had expected awkwardness, some flustered scramble to rearrange her composure—but instead she felt light. Sure. Almost radiant.
For the first time in months, her heart moved in harmony with her mind. Perhaps for the first time in her life.
Dixon was the first to appear around the corner. She stopped mid-step. Stared. Narrowed her eyes. Then widened them. Then narrowed them again.
