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Chapter Eleven
Ezrawaited.
And waited.
She was going to respond, wasn’t she? Surely she at least considered him a friend.
His fingertips, warm beneath her muff, itched to stretch out and find Grace’s hand. To entwine his fingers with hers. To hold her hand against his own. Perhaps pull her hand to his mouth and kiss each of her fingertips.
“Do you consider me a friend?” Grace asked at length.
“Of a surety.” How could she even ask? Though she was—which meant he must be mucking things up between them something awful.
Grace didn’t move from where she sat so near him—a fact he found completely diverting—but her brow fell, and her lips pulled to one side.
“Even all things considering?” she asked.
A sticky, prickly fear worked its way up his back. “Considering what?” Did she know? How could she have found out?
Grace looked away, her fur-lined bonnet blocking his view of her expression. His back went stiff. Though, perhaps this was for the best. This was what he wanted, after all, for her to know it had been him writing her this entire time.
Grace’s voice was soft. “You will not think ill of me if I speak plainly?”
That could either be a good thing, or a very, very bad thing. “I wish you would.”
She turned to face him. Her gaze was intense, as though she were reading him. It wouldn’t surprise him if she could understand all he was thinking and feeling by simply looking in his eyes. After all, she’d read so many of his words, so many of his thoughts and beliefs, it only stood to reason she would also be able to read his face.
“I am sure,” she began, her words slow and deliberate, “you are not unaware that my father holds no title.”
What?
Ezra stared at her.
What the blazes did that have to do with anything?
He couldn’t find words, he was so dumbfounded.
Her eyes dropped away from him. “I realize there is a large chasm between your station and mine. Though I have enjoyed our time together, I would never dream—”
Ezra reached for her chin, cupping it softly and bringing her gaze back to him. Her eyes were wide and unsure.
“Do you honestly believe such a thing would matter to me?” But how could she not wonder? She didn’t know the very individual she’d come to know all these months through their letters was him.
She was right. There was a chasm between them. But not one of station, status, or situation. It was thatheknew her so well, of her dreams and hopes and thoughts. She knew such things of him too, only she didn’t know itwashim. Instead of bridging the chasm all these weeks by spending time together, in that moment, it felt as though Ezra had only made the separation more pronounced.
His thumb, almost of its own accord, slowly stroked her cheek. “I do not care what your family’s current situation is.” It was a pitiful beginning. He needed to keep going. Needed to tell her everything.
That it had been him all along. That he was the one who knew her so well, that he was the one she knew so well.
He needed to explain how it had all begun, that he’d only ever meant to send a bit of encouragement to a young woman he knew to struggle with large crowds, much as he did. He’d never intended to deceive her, for this thing between them to grow to consume his entire life.
And yet it had. She was all he’d ever wanted. She was the only one he cared to love.
Except, instead of speaking anything at all, his gaze dropped to her lips. They stood out pink against her milky skin. She breathed out in time with him. A cloud formed between them in the winter air, momentarily obscuring his sight of her. Yet, her eyes continued to stand out through the fog they’d created, piercing him straight to the heart.
He tipped her chin up, bringing his head closer to hers. She settled in, leaning against him in kind.
A man could wish for nothing more than to look into such eyes and hold such a woman every day.
