"What is it?"
"My mother's diary. Her last entry. I wanted you to read it."
"Alaric, that's private."
"Please. It's important."
She took the journal carefully, sitting by the fire to read. He watched her face as she read his mother's words about choosing love over fear, about broken things being worth mending, about Christmas being an act of defiance against despair.
When she finished, she looked up with tears in her eyes. "She would have loved you. The man you've become, not the duke you were supposed to be."
"She would have loved you more. You're everything she tried to teach me to value—joy despite sorrow, strength without hardness, love without conditions."
"I have conditions."
"Such as?"
"No more lies."
"Never."
"No running to London when things get difficult."
"I'm never leaving you."
"No hiding behind newspapers."
"That seems unfairly specific."
"Those are my terms."
"I accept them all."
She stood, moving to where he sat, and surprised him by settling into his lap, the journal falling forgotten to the floor.
"This is highly improper," he said, though his arms went around her immediately.
"We're alone in your library at two in the morning after publicly declaring love. I think we've passed improper and entered scandalous."
"Good point."
"I'm full of good points."
"Among other things."
"Such as?"
"Love. You're full of love. Even when you were angry, even when you were hurt, you were still full of love. It just needed the right key to unlock it."
"And you're the key?"
"I'm trying to be."
"No," she said, framing his face with her flour-dusted hands. "You are. You have been since you fell in that snowbank covered in mince pies. I just needed time to admit it."
"And now?"
"Now I'm admitting everything. I love you. I want to be with you. I want to wake up every morning knowing you're there. I want to teach you to bake and watch you fail and love you anyway. I want to be your duchess even though I'll be terrible at it."
