Page 30 of Caroline Bingley’s Last Chance At Love

"How on earth did you do all this?" she finally managed.

"I have my ways," Edward replied with a roguishly proud grin. He had the air of a man perfectly aware that he had accomplished something impressive and determined not to spoil it by appearing overly smug.

A small boat rested at the bank. Inside, arranged with a sort of casual elegance that could only have been achieved through considerable effort, were several larger lanterns waiting their turn to be admired by her. He helped her aboard the boat with a steadiness she appreciated, for the boat behaved with all the bright unpredictability of things designed to float. Once she was settled, he took the opposite bench and lifted the oars with confidence.

She picked up one of the lanterns from the pile beside her and held it in the light from the water. The paper was thin and fine, and up close she could see that it had been pressed with small patterns, tiny flowers, and trailing vines that she had not been able to make out from the bank. She turned it over carefully in her hands.

"They are lovely," she said, and it was not at all the sort of remark she usually made about anything. Yet in that moment it felt like the only word that belonged.

He rowed them toward the center of the lake in slow, easy strokes, as though they had all the time in the world. When he set the oars aside and allowed the boat to drift, it turned gently in the current until the shore vanished behind them and they were surrounded entirely by lanterns and water and a sky so dark and richly blue that it looked almost unreal. The stars crowded above them in such numbers that it seemed someone had flung them across the heavens in a fit of enthusiasm.

Caroline tipped her face upward and watched them for a long while without speaking. Edward remained silent as well, and she appreciated that more than she could say, for she felt quite unequal to conversation and profoundly unsure of what words might come out if she attempted any.

"I owe you an apology," she said finally.

He glanced over at her from his seat. "Do you?"

"For the afternoon at the tearoom." She kept her eyes on the sky because it was far easier than looking at him. "I managed to make an absolute muddle of what should have been a perfectly pleasant day, and I have been thinking about it far more than I would like."

"You do not owe me anything for that," Edward said.

"I was antagonizing you," Caroline said, choosing each word with care. "I was asking questions I already knew the answers to because I did not wish to hear them. Then I was upset when I heard them anyway, which is not even remotely your fault."

The boat drifted a little more, turning just enough that a lone lantern floated past, its light sliding softly across the water.

"Don't be," Edward said, so quietly she almost missed it. "I am glad you said it. I had been very determined not to think about certain matters, and your very deliberate questions gave me far less room to avoid them than I had planned on." He paused, and she heard him draw in a slow breath. "It left me with just enough time to arrange this. I knew tonight needed to be something worth remembering."

Caroline lowered her gaze to the lantern resting in her hands. There was something different in his voice, something she had not expected, and she was not at all sure what to do with it.

"Because this is the last day we have together," she said.

The words came out softer than she intended. Less a declaration and more an admission. More sorrow, if she were admitting the truth, than she had ever meant to show.

There was a silence so long that the boat had almost completed a full turn before he spoke again, and when he did, it startled her in spite of herself.

"It does not have to be."

She looked up at once. He was watching her from across the small space between them with an expression she had never seen before, the look of a man who had come to a conclusion only after considerable argument with himself and was not yet entirely certain whether he would be met with approval or disaster.

"I beg your pardon?" she said.

"I told you something that was not entirely accurate the last time we met," he said. "When I said I had not been thinking about what would happen to us in the future. I had, in fact, thought about it rather a great deal. I considered it at length and then dismissed every conclusion I reached, because none of them seemed possible or sensible or anything other than the sort of hope a reasonable man ought not to indulge in for fear of what it might do to him."

"Edward," she said, because his name was the only thing she could think to offer him.

"I know what I would like," he said. His voice was steady, unadorned, without any of the careful embellishment of a man attempting to soften a woman.

"I would like you to come back to America with me."

The lake remained unnaturally still. Somewhere behind them, a lantern gave a faint, gentle hiss as it drifted across the water. Caroline felt quite similar to that lantern right now.

"I have been acquainted with a great many people in my life," he continued. "Some genuine, some considerably less so, and rather more of them tedious than I would have preferred. And in all of that time, I have never encountered anyone who spoke to me the way you do. Who thought the way you do." Something shifted in his expression, warm and unguarded. "Who looked at a woman being humiliated across a ballroom, and instead of defending her in an normal manner chose instead to throw her punch at the culprits' faces without a single moment's hesitation."

"That is a rather unreasonable quality to look for in a traveling companion," Caroline somehow said through the lump in her throat.

"It is," Edward agreed with a nod. "Which is why I am not asking you to be my traveling companion."

She looked at him then, and he held her gaze with a steadiness that left no room for misinterpretation.