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She gripped his forearm tightly enough that her own arm trembled up to the elbow. “Me too.” The hot trail of a tear skirted down her cheek, and she made no effort to brush it aside.

Someone had done this to him. If he’d thought, even for a moment, that they might never meet again, his life had been in peril. Rafe, her Rafe, had been subjected to violence, abuse, perhaps even torture. But abuse, in its less visible form, had been a part of his life for years, had it not?

The thought scalded her to the bone. She met his eye, her gaze fiery. “Was this your father’s doing?”

“In many ways, yes.” His voice was cool, steady. The attentive tracing pattern of his touch did not slow. “But you know what I’ve just told him?” A slow smile spread over his mouth, and his thumb stilled at the center of her lips. “That he’s never to lay a hand on my wife, my son, or my mother.”

“Rafe—”

“Am I being presumptuous?” He drew her closer. “I sure as hell hope not. I promised myself if I returned, I’d have something to say to you.”

Please. Please, please, please. Her heart clamored in her chest.

“I love you, Sophie.”

“I—”

“I choose you.” He kissed her, full and slow. “Every godforsaken time. My first choice and my last. No matter what’s to come.”

His lips met hers again, hot and sweet, the texture of his bristly cheek almost soft beneath her palms. “I lied,” she said, once able to get breath. “I told a big and horrible lie.”

Rafe’s laugh was a balm to her spirit. “Oh?”

“That’s right.” She nodded several times before she could open her eyes and focus on his face. “I would have waited on you for eternity. But I am so awfully glad I don’t have to.”

Amazing, how very green his eyes looked just now, sheltered beneath those dark golden lashes.

“I love you, Rafe.” She mimicked him, putting her forefinger to his lips. “More than I can bear. Which is why you will never be permitted to leave my side aga—”

Someone cleared their throat, and the sound rippled down the corridor in an echo.

Sophie didn’t bother turning around. She didn’t disentangle herself from her lover, her betrothed, the man who held her heart, but finished her declaration in a private whisper. “Again.”

He looked at her as if the world did not exist. Or, perhaps, like she was it. She scratched the backs of her nails against his stubble, not breaking his gaze. She could almost taste their words; they hovered in the air, a profession of permanence.

Rafe’s thumb and forefinger slipped under her chin, traced the matched lines of her throat, down and down, even as his eyes reluctantly disengaged hers. “Yes?” he asked whoever stood behind her.

How thrilling to be shamelessly in love. The feeling raced along the synapses of nerves, drew her whole being into bliss.

“Apologies for interrupting, but Miss St. Quinton is next to be summoned.” Hansbury’s voice held a note of shock. Strange, that she’d been subjected to the man enough to notice the difference.

We’ve proven them all wrong. His footsteps receded, leaving her and Rafe alone again.

“Are you ready?” She posed the question with a smile. Perhaps it was her imagination at work, but the lines between his brows seemed to be fading already.

“For anything, so long as I have you.”

The directors sat in a semicircle, brows lowered as if in universal disapproval. Perhaps it was tact that prevented them from commenting on Rafe’s appearance as he and Sophie announced themselves, their purpose, and their connection to Vice Admiral Crofton. Perhaps it was their unity.

He stood to full height and watched Sophie in his periphery doing the same. He wasn’t ashamed of his filthy dishevelment. He’d earned it defending his very life, hadn’t had the chance to correct it for he was a man of priorities now, and returning to Sophie, to this meeting, was at the top of his list.

“When is the anticipated date of marriage?” asked one of the directors. He was a wiry, bespectacled man, no doubt the youngest of his lot.

“Within the next few weeks, certainly.” The answer rolled off his tongue. The wiry man bent his head, making some notation on his paper, and Rafe glanced down and to his right.

Sophie’s cheeks glowed, like rose petals touched by the dun of evening. She nodded, her mouth struggling against a smile. Lord in heaven. He really was the luckiest fool to have ever drawn breath.

“And where is your place of residence?” The man at the group’s helm looked down, tucking one sheet of paper under another. His whole figure was hunched—a sweeping and judgmental frown, a broad torso that sagged over the desk, imposing itself in the way of his work.