Nando steppedup into the carriage less than five minutes after he had left it to peruse the wares at Bellingham and Co. In his arm was a porcelain doll. He fretted over the impromptu gift, hoping Eleanora would like it.
She wasn’t the seven-year-old girl whose doll had been sold, after all.
She was all woman now.
But his gift was for the woman she’d become and for the girl she had once been.
He settled on the squab at her side, offering her the doll. “Here you are, my dear. Not the one you lost, but an acceptable enough replacement, I hope.”
She reached for the doll he had spied in the window of the shop along with toy soldiers and other games—a clever ruse by the shop owner. Every child passing on the street would beg his or her parents to go inside.
“A doll,” Eleanora said, her voice strained.
He couldn’t tell if she was pleased with him or outraged.
“One you’ll not have to sell. I know it is foolish, buying a toy for a woman grown, but I couldn’t resist?—”
She halted the nervous flow of his words with her lips, her turn now to silence his protests instead. Openmouthed and heady, her kiss told him more than words could. He slid an arm around her waist, drawing her tightly to his side.
Eleanora broke away from the kiss first, cradling his cheek with one hand, her eyes sparkling. “Thank you.”
As he watched, a tear gathered on her lashes and then spilled down her cheek. He caught it with his lips.
“I cannot change the past, nor can I undo the wrongs which have been done. But I can damned well do my best to give you everything you deserve from now on.”
What she deserved was so much more than objects. It was more than mere money could afford. It was love. He could give her that in full measure, but he wasn’t ready to say the words yet. The depth of emotion he felt for this woman terrified and humbled him all at once.
“You are too good to me, Nando.”
“No,” he said firmly, turning his head to press a kiss to her palm. “I am not good enough for you.”
She frowned. “Why do you say that?”
“Because it’s true. I’m a rake. You were an innocent. I’ve always taken what I wanted, and everything you wanted was taken from you. I don’t deserve you, Eleanora, but I’m a selfish and greedy man, and I intend to keep you anyway.”
Before he could offer any further maudlin sentiment, he rapped on the roof of the carriage, signaling for the coachman to continue to their intended destination. Emotion was welling up inside him, rising like a tide, but he felt woefully clumsy and incapable of articulating. Being with a woman had never been about feelings for Nando. It had always been about raw, animalistic need. With Eleanora, it was so much more, a vast and uncharted landscape.
He knew how to fuck, but he had never needed to know how to love. He could only hope that, in time, he could learn. That he could become the man and husband who was worthy of her.
“You are a prince,” she reminded him as the carriage rocked into motion, “and I am far from noble.”
“The circumstances of our birth don’t define us,” he countered.
“But we live in a world that decrees it does.”
“Then perhaps we can change that world.”
“How optimistic you are. What if the world refuses to be changed?”
“Then we will tell the world to go to the devil and do whatever pleases us anyway.” He grinned. “That is what I’ve been doing my whole life. I highly recommend it.”
His lightheartedness won a laugh from her. “You truly are incorrigible, do you know that?”
“I pride myself upon it.”
They stared at each other, grinning like fools, as if they were the only two people in all existence, sitting in the charmed haven of their carriage, the sun shining in the window, the day crackling with possibility. How he loved her. He had never imagined such depth of feeling possible.
Before he could say anything more, the carriage came to a halt outside the bookseller he had directed his coachman to visit.
