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Never.
Another might have heard that word whisper by and imagined a lifetime, cleaved in two—the past and the future. A new beginning, finally understanding what others meant when they said they were content.
Adelaide knew better. There might be a past and a future. A new beginning. A new understanding of what could be. But whatcouldbe was not whatwouldbe.
Moments like this... they weren’t forever.
If her wildest, most private dreams came true, and Henry wanted to keep her—even for a short while, even for stolen nights in her rooms above The Place, for quick moments in the shadows of Westminster, for heated kisses on the docks—here, in the heart of Lancashire, in the middle of nowhere, unwed and secret in a place all their own—it would not last.
It could not. And every time she looked at him, every time he smiled his beautiful smile that softened the stern lines of his perfect, aristocratic face, she would have to remind herself...he is not yours. Not really.
Not forever.
Could she live with that?
She stiffened at the thought, the way it tightened her chest. The way it stung in her throat, even as he turned his head and kissed her temple again, breathing her in. Stealing more of her. Parts she would never get back.
Already gone, promised to him, like the rest of her.
He might not be hers, but she would always be his.
“Adelaide,” he whispered, and she closed her eyes, trying to commit the word to memory. The way it sounded on his breath. On his tongue. In his perfect accent, honed in extravagant schools and the halls of Parliament, where he spoke for those who had no voice.
“Henry,” she whispered back, wincing at the way her emotion revealed her truth. The jagged cobblestones of Lambeth. The twisting, uneven steps of the South Bank.The raw education of the thousands of pockets she’d picked.
The rotten, soiled past reaching its tendrils up to remind her she could never have forever with someone like him. That this—whatever it was, whatever it might become—would mark him if it ever became public. The daughter of the leader of London’s largest crime ring, born in the gutter and raised in the streets, her proudest accomplishment her nimble fingers—a South Bank pickpocket. And aduke.
It was laughable.
Don’t laugh, she willed him.Not yet.
Give us a little more time.
She was lost to him and to this, to his rare smiles and his strong arms and his pride and hisgoodness.
After all this time, Adelaide had found a good man. And she would take a moment with him over a lifetime without him, without hesitation. She would be with him for as long as he’d have her, and count herself lucky to inhabit even a small, secret corner of his life. And when the time came, she would let him go, free and clear, and ignore the hole in her chest where her heart used to be.
Her decision made, his hand stroked down her spine, his touch holding her like a breath. Andthen he asked, “Where is my box?”
Chapter Nineteen
As they lay there, the light shifting through the room, moving from morning to bright noonday sun, Henry marveled at the quiet of the countryside, and breathed in the smells of the autumn in the world beyond the windows, and wondered how much it would cost to buy this little house on this little hill in this little town and live here with Adelaide for as long as it took to convince her to be his.
He would follow her wherever she chose—give her whatever she wished. He would live in her apartments above The Place if she liked—if Maggie O’Tiernen would suffer a duke as a tenant.
Whatever Adelaide wanted, it was hers. He’d make sure of it.
He opened his mouth to offer it. To ask her to be his, to spend her life by his side. But, what would he be asking? He disliked the termmistress, and the way it carried ownership and impermanence with it. There was nothing impermanent about what he wanted with this glorious woman.
And as for ownership. He did not fool himself into believing he would own her. Not when he was so thoroughly hers.
He knew how she thought of her life in Lambeth. Knew she considered it a mark against her. And he would never give Adelaide even a moment of believing she was notworthy of all of it. Marriage. The title. A collection of babies—preferably little girls with hair like fire and eyes like velvet and a wicked sense of justice.
With a deep, piercing ache, he knew that he wanted all of that with Adelaide. And he knew that he could not have it.
He couldn’t bear for there to be any misunderstanding between them aboutwhy, however.
So, it was time for her to open the box.
