Page 106 of The Winter Companion

“What they must have thought…”

Neville’s mouth hitched in a wry smile. “They weren’t surprised. Tom and Alex suspected. And Justin… He understood.”

A blush crept up her throat and into her face. “Was Mrs. Bainbridge as understanding?”

“Does her opinion m-matter?”

“Well…yes. She’s my employer. And she…” Her words trailed away as Neville reached to brush a stray lock of hair from her temple. He tucked it behind her ear with gentle fingers.

“Clara…”

Her heart beat hard. “Yes?”

“You…you never said what your other dreams are. What else you want b-besides being a…a secretary.”

“Oh. That.” It took her a moment to get her bearings. “I’m afraid my dreams aren’t very realistic.”

“Tell me.”

“I’d be embarrassed. It’s silly to want things you have no way of getting. A goal should be practical.”

“I d-didn’t ask about your goals.”

“My dreams, then.” She fell quiet a moment. Her face heated with a self-conscious blush. “I suppose—if everything were perfect, and there were no concerns about money or propriety—I’d want this. This moment. Here with you, on this farm. With the ponies, and the stone manor house, and the gardens. I’d want to be here with you in the spring to see the flowers bloom. To see Betty and Firefly run in the sunshine.”

“Is that all?”

She huffed a short laugh. “As if it’s not already too much!”

“What else?” he prompted.

“Very well. As long as I’m dreaming, I’d like books to go along with it. Research books on flowering plants, butterflies, and bees. And fiction, too. Books of poetry and prose. A whole library of them. I’ve a great deal of reading to catch up on. Indeed, I believe I shall have to spend the next year with my nose firmly in a volume of poetry in order to make up for lost time.”

“If you m-marry me, you may read as…as m-much poetry as you like.”

She stared up at him, her smile fading. “I beg your pardon?”

A flush of color darkened his cheekbones, but there was no hesitation in his manner—or in his words. He spoke them in a deep, unwavering voice, as if they were bold and clear in his mind. An incontrovertible fact. “I love you, Clara. More than anything.”

Her vision blurred, even as a glow of pure happiness spread through her heart, and soul, and limbs. She swallowed hard.

“You don’t have to love me back,” he said. “But if you’ll be m-my wife, I promise, I’ll—”

“I don’t have to love you back?” She was incredulous. “Do you think I don’t love you? That I haven’t been in love with you since we parted in the Abbey stables?”

He loomed over her, his pale blue gaze burning with a peculiar intensity. “Clara—”

“What possessed you to write to me as you did? To say that if things had been different you might have loved me the rest of my life? I don’t need things to be different. And I certainly don’t need you to be different. I love you exactly as you are.”

His hands closed about her shoulders.

“And yes,” she added. “I will marry you.”

A spasm of deep emotion crossed over his face. “Do you mean that?”

“With all my heart.” She might have said more, but in the very next instant, his head lowered to hers, and he captured her mouth in a slow and thoroughly devastating kiss.

Heat sparked in her veins, flooding her body with knee-weakening warmth. There was nothing she could do but circle her arms around his neck, stand up on the toes of her muddied half boots, and kiss him back. Softly, sweetly. A deep, clinging kiss that left them both breathless.