Silas clutched at his heart, not for dramatics, but because it felt as if it were shattering within his chest. “I told myself you’d be better off. That I’d be better off.” He nearly spat the words in his revulsion at the memory. “What a fool I was. To sacrifice so much for...”
“Comfort? Convenience?” Grace’s expression softened, but only by a fraction. Her blue eyes bore into him, still so painfully, impossibly lovely.
“Cowardice.” His confession dropped the last barrier he had held onto. The echoes of it reverberated, shaking him to his core.
His breath was ragged now, coming in uneven bursts. “I was a coward. So worried about what people would think, so worried about whathewould think, that I lost the only woman I ever loved. I wish you’d sent word to me, though, to let me know about the babe.”
Grace shook her head and moved away from him, out of his arms, leaving him cold. So cold he could barely stand it. Holding her again had made him feel complete, and now he feared she’d never allow it again.
“How could I trust that you’d want her?” The question rang with the pain his rejection had caused her, the terror she musthave felt to have been sent out into the cold, alone. “You did not want me.”
Silas recoiled as if he’d been struck, but the truth was a pain he knew he had earned. “I was young, arrogant. A spoiled child playing at being a man. I thought titles, estates... duty... mattered more.” His voice quieted, barely a breath. “I was wrong.”
Years of unsaid words hung between them, all the loneliness and sadness they’d both experienced during their time apart. Grace seemed to weigh the sincerity of his words, looking into his very soul to see if this time, finally, she could trust him.
“I don’t know what you want from me,” she said at last. “I don’t know where we go from here.” But she leaned back toward him, just a bit, and it was enough to make him believe that perhaps all was not lost.
“I can never undo what I’ve done,” Silas continued. “But I will do anything to make it right between us. If you don’t want anything to do with me, if you want me to provide for you and Emmaline financially but never see me again, I completely understand. I’ll buy you a house in the country and give you a comfortable yearly allowance. You can communicate with me through my solicitor. I won’t force myself on either of you. ”
“Is that what you want?” she asked tentatively.
“No.” He shook his head, willing her to see how much she and their daughter meant to him. “I want to be a part of your lives. I want us to be a family. Please, Grace. Give me this chance.”
“And if I do?” she asked, finally showing a hint of vulnerability. “What then?”
“Then I will never stop making amends.” He’d pushed his love for this woman so far down that he’d nearly convinced himself he’d never felt it at all. But it rose up now, so intense ittook his breath away. “I want to marry you, Grace. As I should have done back then. I’ll love you forever, if you’ll let me.”
“You’ll marry me?” Her expression shifted, her obvious disbelief chasing away the tentative hope. “An earl and a factory worker from the East End? It’s impossible.”
“I’m the Earl of Coldharbor,” he said imperiously, his heart thudding wildly as the possibility of redemption glimmered just out of reach. “Nothing is impossible for me, Grace. Especially when I don’t care what other people think.”
“Did you ever actually love me?” she asked, her eyes filled with vulnerability.
“I loved you.” He reached between them and took her hand in his, needing at least that little connection. “I love you still.”
Grace hesitated, staring into his eyes as though she could see into his very soul. “And Emmaline?”
“Emmaline will have the loving father she deserves. I swear it.” His voice grew urgent, thick with the weight of promise.
Her eyes remained guarded, but there was something else there, too. The smallest, most fragile hope. “I will consider your proposal, my lord,” she said, the title carrying both the sting of their history and the potential of something more. “But for now, let’s concentrate on giving our daughter the Christmas she’s always wanted.”
