“He was protecting you,” Edward said, too kindly. Too decent. “I was not a safe wager for something so precious as his daughter. A sailor with nothing to show for it.”
“What nonsense,” Hetty said, letting the anger come. “There was no one else. Not then, or since. There was only—”
You.
His hand moved closer, the smallest of his fingers pressed against the smallest of hers, and he whispered fervently, “I thought it best. Had I known, Hetty… I would have moved heaven and earth to get back to you. To be with you. To keep my promise.”
They stood like that, barely touching, staring into the darkness, for what felt like forever, stealing the quiet of company against the roar of the party inside and all the things they wished to say.
“You are a baron now,” she said finally. “A far cry from the boy who left to find his fortune.”
He scoffed. “I’m still that boy. No one is more surprised than I am about the title—a distant cousin of a distant cousin of a distant cousin died, and I was the last of a very long line.”
“Lord Courtenay.”
“Don’t call me that,” he said harshly. “Let me be Edward to you, still.” A beat, as he looked to the sky and said, “Cor! The way my heart pounded when I heard young Frank was to marry, and to whom.The Bateses, Captain Weston wrote to me.Perhaps you remember the old vicar.”
He turned toward her, his face half shadow, half light. A tiny smile. “I’ve never in my life replied to a letter so quickly. A full page of nonsensical felicitations before allowing myself to inquire after the old vicar’s daughter. Do you realize the strength it took not to ask all I wanted to know? Had you ever returned toHighbury? Had you married? Were you well? Happy? As happy as I might have made you?”
“I returned,” she answered, her heart pounding in her chest. “I did not marry. I was well, but not very happy. How could I be?” His hand settled on hers, the warm weight shock and comfort, and such temptation. The only way he could touch her, in full view of God and Emma Knightley’s assembly. Hetty lowered her voice to a whisper and lifted her gaze to his. “I was not with you.”
“Hetty,” her name came on a ragged whisper. “I should have found you. I wanted to. For years, I lay under the stars on ships around the world and imagined what would have been if I’d come for you and stolen you away from the man you married. I hated that man you married. I still do.”
She smiled. “He does not exist.”
“It doesn’t matter. I hate him anyway. The number of times I marched into your estate house and laid him flat out, tossed you over my shoulder, and absconded with you.”
“To the high seas? Like a pirate?”
“Finally putting all those years on the water to good use.”
A little giggle bubbled up from deep within her, a sound she hadn’t made in ages, since she was young and full of something like hope.
He lifted his hand in the wake of it, like he might be able to catch the sound. Keep it. He met her eyes. “You look just the same. Just as I dreamed.”
It wasn’t true, but she didn’t correct him.
“And I was right. You do look beautiful in blue.”
A blush bloomed high on her cheeks. “I am too old to look beautiful.”
“No,” he said, leaning toward her, the words infinitely soft, so close to her ear she shivered with the warmth of them. “You werebeautiful then, you are beautiful now, and you shall be beautiful forever. And if you’ll let me, I’d very much like to tell you that every day from now on—to make up for all the days I’ve missed.”
She couldn’t have stopped herself from turning toward him in that moment if everyone inside the ballroom had tumbled onto the balcony. When she did, he was there, so close, so warm, wrapping her in the scent of cedar and spice, casting her back to their youth, to when Hetty Jane Bates did wild, wonderful things.
Like kissing the man she loved.
Their lips touched and she sighed, and a deep rumble sounded in his chest, familiar and perfect, and Hetty set her hand to the new, wide expanse of him as though she could settle the beast within.
She woke it, instead. His hand came to her hair, holding her still as he took over the caress, deep and delicious until it felt like plunder, like the pirate he’d promised to be.
And it was magnificent.
After long moments, they broke the kiss, both of them gasping for air there, in the darkness, smiles on their faces, full of delight and discovery.
“I should warn you,” he said finally, his thumb running along the edge of her jaw. “This time, I am not leaving. Not unless you are with me.”
She came up on her toes at that, propelled by joy and hope and the undeniable promise of happy ever after he’d just made, and kissed him again, not caring that all of Highbury was mere feet away, no doubt aware of the scandal taking place on the Hartfield balcony.
