“Yours to do with as you wish.”
Seth snatched them from the desk.“What else?”
“Nothing for now. I’ll be in touch.”
Seth left the study with the weight of what he had agreed to heavy on his shoulders. An indefinite, open-ended contract with Lord Bolderwood. Ten years with Mr. Sanderson and Cooper. He bought Cassandra time, and it cost all of his. At the end of this, how could he work with Cooper for the next ten years, see her, and not hold her in his arms? Hear her laugh and not kiss her? How could he go from proposing to her to being a bystander in her life?
Seth slid his fingertip along Cassandra’s page, frayed at the edges, holes forming at the folded corners. Not able to suffer a moment longer, he made another permanent decision and opened the page. Words smudged from his body heat, but still legible, he read:
I can’t get my thoughts off of Mr. Reeves. I thought it would get better over time, but it hasn’t. Each day that I spend with him only makes it worse. How can one know if what they’re feeling is love or attraction? Closeness, or just beingclose?What do you call it when your soul meets another at the turn of a page and a smile across the room, and your heart soars for the briefest of moments before it all comes crashing down?
Is that why it’s called falling in love?
What do you call it when you cannot sleep while longing for someone you can never have, when he’s just down the hall? Is it important to name it at all, if it’s unrequited? How is it possible for a man to break a woman’s heart without ever having properly held it in his hands? But what can you call it, ifnotlove? If so, how have I loved Mr. Reeves for my entire life, and never
There were no other words.
Seth re-read the page, over and over. His heart beat wilder with each word.
She had loved him for herentire life.
He had to go to her. There wasn’t any time to waste, not when theyboth wanted the same thing.
Please still be awake.
With steady strides, he went straight to Cassandra’s bedchamber. Her door opened before his knuckle fully made contact, as if she had been on the other side waiting for him all the while. And shehad been, she had been waiting this whole time for him, and he was too foolish to see it.
Cassandra flung herself into his arms with a sob. “I’msorry.”
Seth held her, inhaling the scent of lavender, watching candlelight dance through her hair and all he wanted was to lose himself in her. But first, answers. He stepped away and held the page aloft. Her eyes widened. She was worn and worried, fraying at the edges like her diary page, but still as devastatingly beautiful as the words within.
“Is this true?”
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Where did you get that?” Cassandra’s eyes shot to the paper. “You said you wouldn’t read it!”
“You should have said something, Cassandra, you should have told me.” Cupping her face in both hands, his lips captured hers, holding her to him as if a moment of not touching her would cause her to slip from his fingers. “I’ve been in love with youthis whole time.”
Entwining her arms around his neck, she buried her face in his shoulder and her walls dropped, leaving space only forhonesty. “I was afraid.”
Afraid of being hurt, of forever wanting what she could never have. How could she have confessed something she hadn’t been able to admit to herself? There was nothing more dangerous than love. Nothing could wound a soul as deep as loving when the inevitable result was loss. And then the impossible task of trusting herself when she made so many mistakes with her heart.
“You don’t ever have to be afraid with me, love.” Tucking her under his chin, he whispered, “I know I’m not the man you hoped for. No title. I’m not civilized, not how you would prefer, and I know I drive you mad. I rushed it before, I pressured you—”
“I shouldn’t have said that,” she said in a rush. “I didn’t mean it—”
“You were right,” Seth spoke slowly. “I didn’t have anything to offer you, but I do now. Don’t be a colonel’s mistress… be agentleman’s wife.” He paused. His eyes squeezed tight and his jawtrembled. “Lord Bolderwood is going to recognize me as his son tomorrow.”
“But you’re not.” Cassandra’s eyebrows furrowed and apprehension tugged at her. To publicly acknowledge that he had a child out of wedlock would cause considerable damage to Lord Bolderwood’s reputation, especially this late in life, opening him to scorn, risking his influence and power within the aristocracy. After having recommended Seth personally to the contest, it would prove the rumors of favoritism.
There would be anoceanof scandal.
“Seth… why would he do that?”
“I asked him to.” His hair shadowed his eyes. There was a flash of pain in his expression before he stifled it. The tremble in his bottom lip tensed with the rest of his body, and she knew exactly what he had done. What he promised her.
Whatever it takes.
