Absent her hand, he kissed the crown of her head instead. The top of her cheekbone. “I said them because they’re the truth. I love you. I fell in love with you the way everyone who meets you does. I consider myself in good company.”
She felt as though the dam that usually held her emotions back—carefully constructed over a lifetime of pretending not to feel them—had somehow come apart under the force of his declaration. She felt everything at once: terror and love and—worst of all—hope.
“They don’t,” she said, almost desperately. “People don’t…”
He gave a half-exasperated laugh and dragged her closer, his hand clamping down over her thigh as if to hold her in place. “Yes, you stubborn impossible woman, they do. Mrs. Upholland was ready to take a pound of my flesh for speaking churlishly to you evenbeforeshe found out I was your purported husband. Her son raved about you for a quarter hour, and I’mstillafraid of that bloody rector of yours.”
She could not stop crying. Her tears were as unruly as the rest of her emotions, her brain struggling to make sense of her own lonely past.
Perhaps… perhaps she had not been so alone as she’d thought.
And perhaps she had been wrong too about Spencer. About what Spencer wanted.
She felt brittle—fragile with the terrible force of her hope.
“Margo,” Spencer went on, “has already sent two notes demanding to know how I’ve cocked up the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
“You… haven’t,” Winnie choked out. “It’s been me. All me. I’ve been so terrified, Spencer. To admit—to say—”
She broke off. His hand was on her face, his thumb coasting over her lashes, her cheek, her lower lip.
“Tell me,” he murmured. “Tell me what you want, Winnie. Don’t be afraid.”
Shewasafraid. It was foolish—she was foolish and rigid and impotent, her armor held so tightly to herself that she did not know how to peel it away and let him see into her heart.
But he was here. Loving and calm and steady and true. And she could try to be brave—for him.
“I want you,” she scraped out, “forever.”
His face lit, a slow sunrise behind his eyes. “You have me,” he said. And then, slowly, so carefully and slowly, he took her face in his hands and kissed her.
She kissed him back. His heart was pounding so hard she felt it under her hands. His pulse raced almost as fast as her own. But then—
“Wait,” she said. She pulled back to look at him.
He regarded her with a wealth of patience.I would wait for you forever.
“I love you,” she said. “I love you, Spencer George Halifax of Number Twelve Mayfair. I would not spend another day parted from you if I had my choice.”
“God, Win,” he said and dove for her.
Her mind resurfaced some minutes later. Her hands were in his hair, and his mouth was pressed to the bare skin of her neck. Somewhere along the way she’d yanked off his cravat, and she whimpered as his lips coasted along her skin, and—
“Wait,” she said again.
He pulled back. His dimple asserted itself beside his mouth. “Yes?”
She was breathless. Her skin felt hot and sensitive. “The annulment,” she said. “The letter I sent to my solicitor. I asked Fairhope to post it before I left for the ball. It might be too late.”
He laughed, a rich laugh that shimmered through her like sunlight. “We’ll go over in the morning and see if we can stop it. And if we can’t—” He paused to kiss her.
“If we can’t?” she asked, when his mouth came away from hers.
“Then I’ll marry you again tomorrow.”
They kissed until she ran out of breath, kissed until the windows of the carriage grew a thin layer of fog. They kissed until the carriage stopped in front of Number Twelve Mayfair and the groom rapped tentatively on the door.
“You’ll come with me?” he asked. “You’ll stay?”
