Page 47 of How to Wed a Courtesan

‘You appear flushed, Miss Rossington,’ Evander said with a wink.

She immediately caught on to what he implied. ‘Mercy me, I am feeling rather warm. Do excuse me. I require a moment on the terrace.’

‘Of course.’ He stepped back to allow her to pass through the double doors at the rear of the ballroom.

Lottie stepped out into the cool summer night. It was colder than previous summers, but at least the rain had taken a respite. Overhead, in a cloudless sky, stars winked like diamonds, and all around her the quiet of a still evening cast a reprieve over her ears after the volume inside.

The door opened and Evander exited the ballroom on a wave of raucous music and humming conversation. It faded to a light background murmur as the door closed behind him.

He strode to where she stood in the shadows. ‘I won’t keep you, but I was not yet ready to let you go.’

‘Nor was I ready to be released.’ She rested her hands on the cold stone railing. ‘I wish it was possible for my every dance to be with you.’

‘It could be,’ he answered slowly. ‘If we were to wed.’

The suggestion hit her with a mix of excitement and fear. She didn’t respond, unable to summon any sort of proper thought as his words hung between them. It was one thing to see him again, to allow her walls to crack. But marriage. It was so large, so permanent.

Too much.

She had said yes to his proposal of marriage before and then he had wounded her deeply. It was impossible not to think of that now. Just as it was hard to push aside the rise of melancholy inside her.

Coming out this night had been a poor decision.

He cleared his throat. ‘It’s too soon.’

‘Yes.’

‘But not for me.’ He put his large, warm hand over hers. ‘I’ve wanted this for six years. I’ve wanted you that long.’

She swallowed and looked out into the garden. Her heart was pounding hard in her chest, its beat whooshing in her ears. Memory pressed on her once more, of an anniversary she would never forget—one that loomed in her mind, in her heart, and twisted through her, bringing agony.

‘I’m not ready,’ she whispered.

Evander studied her, his expression tender, patient. ‘I understand.’

But he didn’t. Not really. And he probably never would. Not when she couldn’t bring herself to be wholly honest with him about what had happened in his absence.

He reached for her then, his touch a gentle, loving caress down her cheek. ‘I would wait a lifetime for you, Lottie.’

She wanted to say she didn’t need a lifetime, to laugh it off and kiss him. But she wasn’t at all sure when she would be ready. If she would be ready.

She truly wished to give him a second chance, but she needed to move slowly, day by day, and not with any immediate promise of a future together.

But, after everything they had been through, was it even possible to open her heart completely again?

Evander eased away from Lottie. Not only to offer a respectable distance between them, should someone else escape to the terrace, but also to allow her the space she needed.

Her hair was styled simply—it was something he’d noticed earlier, as well as the delicate necklace at her throat, that made his eyes wander towards the graceful line of her neck rather than to the jewellery. She always had been most beautiful to him when she was simply adorned.

Though they had spent more time together in this season than the previous two years, he sensed in her a nervousness, like a skittish deer teetering on the edge of bolting. The anxiety which had all but disappeared these last few days, suddenly resurfaced at the mere mention of marriage.

While disappointing, it did not mean she would never be ready. He had hurt her—he knew that. He knew that and he hated it. But she could not seem to move past what she had become in life.

A courtesan.

It had changed her in some ways. She was sure of herself, more flirtatious, confident. But this new woman made Evander less certain—as if one wrong word or action might make her run from him for ever. As if she was always holding something back from him.

This was the woman she had become—what she had salvaged from the ashes of his betrayal, rising with armour intact.