“Yes, I did.”
“Why?”
He studied her for a long moment, the lamplight catching the edges of his expression; affection, gravity, something fiercely protective.
“Because they were chains,” he said at last. “Binding you to her, to that man, to a life that should never have been yours. I could not bear to see you fettered.”
“Twenty-five thousand pounds, James,” she whispered. “That is no trifling sum.”
He shrugged lightly, though the gesture carried more tenderness than indifference. “What is fortune, Catherine, if not meant to secure the freedom of the one person who makes it worth possessing?”
Her throat tightened. “You cannot say such things,” she murmured.
“It’s nothing compared to you.”
His voice was a low growl, the kind that seemed to travel along her skin. Before Catherine could respond, James caught her hand and drew her through a narrow gate into a small, overgrown garden tucked behind the park. It was half-wild—ivy climbing over a crumbling wall, the air damp with the scent of earth and rain. Beyond the wrought-iron fence, London roared, but here it was all shadows and heartbeat.
“I would pay ten times that,” he said, stopping beneath an arch of yew. “A hundred. Anything to keep you free.”
“I’m not free,” she whispered. “I’m marrying you.”
“That is different.”
“Is it?”
“You arechoosingme.” He said it softly, as if the words themselves were dangerous. His thumb brushed the inside of her wrist, a single motion that seemed to scatter her thoughts. “That makes all the difference.”
Her breath trembled. “James...”
He silenced her with a kiss.
It wasn’t polite or tentative. It was a claiming, hungry, deep, tasting of rain and restrained sin. His hand slid to the back of her neck, angling her closer until she could feel every controlled breath he fought to steady. When he broke away, both of them were breathing as if they’d run a race.
“Two weeks,” she gasped.
“Twelve days,” he corrected, his lips tracing the delicate line of her jaw.
“Who’s counting?”
“I am.” His voice had roughened, thick with need. “Every hour. Every blasted minute.”
She tried to laugh but failed. “You’re impossible.”
“Accurate,” he murmured, mouth grazing the tender spot beneath her ear.
Her fingers curled tighter in the thick wool of his coat, knuckles white, as though she might anchor herself against the tide of heat rolling off him. The world dissolved into the scent of him, spice and starched linen, and the hard plane of his chest pressing her back into the ivy-clad wall.
“James, we shouldn’t…” Her voice fractured like spun glass.
He dipped his head, his breath a caress against the curls at her temple. “Do you think I don’t know?” His lips barely brushed her ear, the whisper equal parts confession and threat. “Every night I dream of you. That night. The next one. Every time I close my eyes.”
Her pulse tripped over itself. “James…”
“I dream of unfastening that infernal gown,” he murmured, the words grazing the delicate skin of her throat. “Of easing you out of satin and stays, of seeing you again as I saw you then—wild, unguarded, mine.”
Her knees softened, her body swaying into him despite her mind’s protest. “We are in public,” she breathed, the words a tremor.
“I know.” His gloved hand slid to her waist, fingers flexing against the silk of her gown as though testing his own resolve. “It is the only thing keeping me from forgetting myself entirely.”
