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“That’s not the same!I didn’t love you then!”
The shout reverberated through the chapel, and relief burst in his chest, mixing with fury.
“You love me?” he repeated.
“Yes!” There was nothing soft in the reply.
Good. He wasn’t feeling soft, either. “Not enough.”
Her eyes went wide and she fairly vibrated with anger. “What did you say?”
“You clearly don’t love me enough if you’re willing to toss it away.”
“Toss it away?” Her words were loud. Furious. “Can’t you see what I am trying to do? To give you?”
“I don’t want it.” He closed the distance between them. “Do you hear me, Adelaide Frampton, Addie Trumbull, Matchbreaker, fucking chaos—I don’t want any of it if it ends with me loving you from afar. Me, wild with need for you, tearing Lambeth apart to get to you. To hold you. To keep you safe.” He rubbed a hand over his chest at the ache that came with the memory of waking to discover her gone.
“I am not a damsel in distress!”
“But I am?!” Henry fairly roared the question. “Christ, Adelaide, you really do think yourself one of your pretty shield-maidens, left alone to choose who lives and dies on the battlefield. You don’t get to choose this. You don’t get to stand in front of me like a shield. I am here, and I have the means to fight all on my own. And dammit, I intend to save the fucking day!”
Silence fell, and behind him, someone said softly, “My goodness! Did you hear that?” Lady Sesily, perhaps.
“I like him. With that scruffy beard, I’d consider marrying him myself.” Lady Imogen.
Henry didn’t much care who liked him at the moment, as he was busy coming unhinged. “You think I’ll leave you here? Marry me, or don’t. Love me, or don’t. Spend the rest of your life with me, or don’t. But don’t for one second think that I’m leaving you here. Alone.”
“Argh!” Adelaide shouted, her frustration palpable. Good. Let her be furious. He was, as well. “That is the problem! You’re too noble! You think love is enough. You can’t see that this won’t be a real marriage; it shall be a transaction. You think you can beat Alfie Trumbull at his own game. You think you want me. But you don’t. You want to save your brother and his wife—and you should! That is good and decent, and you should want to do everything you can to save them. But trust me when I tell you that marrying me is not the way. Marrying me makes it all worse. It brings you here. To Lambeth. To the crime and the muck and to myfather”—she spat the word—“who has never in his life been noble or good or decent.”
“Oy!” Alfie interjected.
Adelaide continued, “He’s a criminal. A thief. Just as—” Her voice cracked, and Henry reached for her, aching for her. Wanting to hold her. To make it right. She pulled away from him, denying him. Taking a step back and finishing. “Just as I am.” She shook her head. “You once told me you’d never marry for love, because you were afraid of what your secrets would do to your wife.”
“You freed me from that,” he said. “I want to marry. I intend to marry. I intend to marryyou, dammit.”
She shook her head. “Your secret... It is the best of us. It is honor and hope and love. It is what we all aspire to. But mine...” Adelaide spread her arms wide. “You think you won’t one day look up and see that marrying me is the worst of us? Greed and lies and crime. I shall ruin you, Henry. And I—”
She stopped herself.
“Say it.” Her beautiful eyes found his, velvet and full of tears, and he knew what she was going to say. Knew, too, that it was all he wanted. “Say it, Adelaide.”
“How will I survive the man I love... turning from me? How will I survive being the person who ruins you?” The words were a blow, threatening to knock him back.
“Ruin me? Christ, Adelaide, youmademe. Again and again, in every way that matters. Without you, I’m nothing. A man who learned too late what his father tried so hard to teach him—that love is all there is. All that matters. What do I have to do to show you that marrying you would be a gift! That I have spent the last two weeks—even the time I was unconscious, I might add—imagining what it would be like to follow you into battle with these madwomen who love you just as much as I do?”
“They’re not madwomen.”
“Oh, don’t worry about us, we don’t take offense to that at all,” Sesily said from a distance.
“To be fair, we are a bit mad,” Imogen said.
“Speak for yourself.” The Duchess.
“It’s a good thing they love you, too,” Henry doggedly continued, “because if they didn’t, I’d be terrified of them, as they know everything and seem to be in all places at once, inescapably.”
Adelaide gave a little laugh. “They’re definitely not going to take offense tothat.”
Henry tilted her chin up, marveling in her impossibly soft skin, the high bones of her cheeks, the velvet of her eyes behind her spectacles. The little furrow in her brow, which he intended to spend the rest of his life smoothing. “Adelaide. You want me.”
