"I think I know the best about you, though," she said. "You have a strong sense of decency and honor. Otherwise you would not be protecting me more than I am protecting myself."
"Don't try to put reins on me," he said. "It can't be done, Diana. No one will ever own me. I am incapable of being committed to anyone."
"I think perhaps you have misunderstood after all," she said. "I had no thought of trapping you, Jack, or of putting reins on you, as you put it. I knew it would be for this night only. I never for a moment thought otherwise. I accepted that. I wanted this one night.'' She dropped her voice almost to a whisper. "And I am still sorry that it is not to be."
His head joined his shoulder against the doorframe. "God," he said very quietly, "I have never been so terrified in my life."
"What?" Diana frowned.
He turned to look at her, and his face looked pale in the reflection of the lantern light. His eyes strayed down to her hands, which were trembling quite noticeably in her lap. He watched them for a few moments before pushing himself away from the doorframe and crossing the space between them. He lifted her hands and held them in a tight clasp.
"I said I am terrified," he said. "I think I am in love with you, Diana. I have never felt such a thing before or ever expected to do so."
"You don't have to say this," she said. "I told you I expected nothing beyond tonight."
"I want a lifetime," he said. "I want eternity. Diana, send me away."
She shook her head almost imperceptibly.
"You will be sorry if you don't." he said.
"Why?"
"I told you about my father," he said. "I am my father all over again."
She shook her head. "No one is ever someone else all over again,'' she said. ''You are not your father. You are yourself. You do not even have to be like him unless you choose to be so."
"I will hurt you," he said. "I will break your heart."
"Not unless you choose to do so," she said.
"There is my past," he said. He closed his eyes briefly. "Not to mention my present."
"At the present," she said, "you are here holding my bands. Your past has nothing to do with me.Just as mine has nothing to do with you."
He stooped down onto his haunches suddenly so that he was looking up into her face. "Why would you have anything to do with someone like me, Diana?" he asked. "You could have almost anyone you want."
"I don't understand what is happening any more than you do," she said. "I don't know, Jack. I only know that I love you."
"And were prepared to pour out all that love in one single night with me?"
"Yes. And don't, please, ask me why. I don't know why. And I did not even know that I would be willing to do something so rash until it happened. And I did not know that I love you until tonight."
He released one of her hands and touched the backs of his fingers to her cheek. "Perhaps the countess is not such a madwoman after all," he said. "Perhaps she knew very well what she was doing, sending us out here like this.Though why she should choose me for you, I will never know.She loves you as dearly as if you were her daughter."
She held his hand to her cheek and turned her head to kiss his palm.
He got to his feet and crossed the room to close the door. The storm, they both realized, had passed into the distance, though the rain was still beating down heavily. When he turned back, he held out a hand for hers, and she rose to her feet and took it.
The old mocking smile was somewhere at the back of his eyes and twitching at the corners of his lips. "This is your last chance to send me away," he said.
She looked at him in inquiry.
''Very well, then,'' he said. ''You do not have the wisdom to do so, it seems. Will you take a chance on me, then, Diana? Will you marry me and give me a chance to shower your universe with stars? And to cram an eternity into what is left of a lifetime? Will you let those children you want beminetoo? I would strongly advise you to say no."
Diana could not stop herself from laughing, and she watched as the laughter took complete hold of his eyes and mouth and eventually emerged to mingle with hers.
"I have never made an offer of marriage before," he said. "I don't know how to go about it. I made the devil of a mess of that one, didn't I?"
