That would do quite splendidly.
Hazel looked downat the gold band she had been wearing upon her hand since Adam’s death. She stood by the window in her guest chamber at Strathmore’s townhome, the morning sunshine kissing her face. Earlier, with the aid of Bunton, she had dressed and her hair was styled artfully. Her reflection in the looking glass had revealed a woman with a bruised cheek, but a determined air.
The time had come to move on, in more ways than one.
With a deep breath, she tugged at the ring, twisting it from her finger. She raised the thin metal—warmed from her skin—to her lips for a kiss, then tucked it inside the small pouch where she kept all her jewelry.
“I will never forget you,” she whispered, putting the jewelry inside the valise where she had already seen the rest of her meager possessions packed.
In a few minutes, she would emerge from the chamber and face the rest of what she must do. Goodbyes were never easy, and this one would be the most difficult of all. She did not think her heart would ever recover. But she also knew it had to be done.
She had fallen asleep last night in Lucien’s arms, only to wake at dawn to find herself alone. She’d had ample time to lie in bed and contemplate her life and what she wanted from it. She loved Lucien enough to let him go. With Flannery and Mulroney dead, and their cohort arrested, her work in London was finished.
She had not stopped the bombings from occurring. Nor had she brought the perpetrators to justice. But she had found, all the same, a sense of peace. A realization as well, that perhaps the time had come for her to cease being a Pinkerton agent and living an unsettled life of danger.
Losing her heart to Lucien had led to an unexpected discovery: she did not want to spend the rest of her life alone. She wanted a husband. Children. She wanted the deep, abiding contentment she had seen in the Duchess of Strathmore’s eyes.
And she was going to return to America to find it, if she could.
A knock sounded at the chamber door. She knew without having to ask who it was.
“Enter,” she called to Lucien.
The door clicked open, and he crossed the threshold as if he belonged there, shutting the door at his back. She wondered for a moment what Lady Beaufort and the Duchess of Strathmore would say at his trespass in broad daylight, without the excuse of their near-deaths yesterday to bolster his actions. And then she told herself it mattered not, for she was leaving this gilded world she little understood far behind.
But how difficult it would be to leave.
Nigh impossible, she thought, as she watched him stride toward her in his confident way. He was dressed informally, wearing only shirtsleeves, waistcoat, and trousers in stark contrast to his immaculately groomed dark hair. He had shaved, she noted. Her heart gave a pang.
“Good morning,” he greeted tenderly.
“Good morning,” she forced herself to return, as if she was not breaking inside.
“I believe I found something of yours.”
Belatedly, she noticed he carried a small journal in his hands that she recognized as her own. “My journal! But where did you find it? It was in my satchel that was stolen from Lark House.”
Naturally, Flannery and Mulroney had not stolen the handsome journal Lucien had gifted her, for its pages had been blank. She reminded herself now that she needed to return to Lark House for the remainder of her belongings. She was keeping the journal, for it would be the only piece of Lucien she could carry with her.
“I found it in a strongbox liberated from the rubble of the warehouse,” he told her, offering the small leather-bound volume to her. “You may wish to have a second look at the list you made inside, however. I fear you were missing a few important things.”
Her cheeks went hot as she recalled the first list she had made within it.
“Oh, hell,” she grumbled, before she could stop her wayward tongue.
“I propose heaven, rather than hell,” he said with an enigmatic smile. “Take a look for yourself.”
Perplexed, she flipped it open to the first page. There was her infernal list, just as she had originally drafted it. However, there was a difference. Her small, precise scrawl had been joined by a slanting, masculine script. She read the last two lines of the list.
The man who wants to marry you.
The man who loves you.
She stared at the page, unseeing, as an intense burst of emotion hit her. Her gaze lifted to his, and he was still smiling, so fully, his rarefied dimples made a heart-melting appearance.
She struggled to string together words against a rush of hope so strong, it nearly toppled her over. “You love me?”
He nodded. “I love you, Hazel. When I thought I was going to lose you yesterday, I realized no pain or grief I had ever suffered in the past could be as strong as what I would feel if you were gone from my life forever. I cannot bear to lose you, and I cannot live my life without you in it, by my side, as my wife. Will you do me the incredible honor of marrying me?”
