Lady Lavinia was gorgeous, just as she always had been, and Seth lost his breath at the sight of her.
She was dressed in a gown that was entirely wrong for her—rose-colored, rather than any of the colors he had advised her to wear. The fit wasn’t right either. It looked as if they had tried, but if Seth had guessed, he would have imagined that this was something her father had seen in a shop and purchased.
It looked like the sort of gown that might be lovely on a dressmaker’s dummy. It just wasn’t that well suited to Lady Lavinia. Not as well as the gowns he had chosen for her when they had been to town together.
Even so, she was lovely. It was remarkable how she managed to look so beautiful in almost anything. It was remarkable, too, how fortunate he was that no one else seemed to have noticed that fact. There were plenty of ladies who garnered attention fromevery gentleman who crossed their path, but Lady Lavinia wasn’t one of them, and that was Seth’s good luck.
He wanted to run to her and fold her into an embrace, but he couldn’t, of course. Even if her father hadn’t been standing right there beside her, he couldn’t have done that. It would have been a mistake, after the way things had ended between them the last time they had seen one another. Seth didn’t even know whether or not she would be glad he was here. All he could do was hope.
“Lady Lavinia,” he said. “It’s so good to see you.”
“What are you doing here?” she asked him.
“I came because…” He hesitated. Lord Hennington had intended to propose to her. What if that had already happened? What if she was already engaged to be married?
I told myself I would do this. No matter what. I’m going to tell her how I feel.
He drew a breath. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you, Lady Lavinia,” he said. “Ever since—ever since the last time we spoke, in the garden.” He glanced at her brother. He wouldn’t reveal the kiss—he didn’t want to get her into any trouble with her father—but he had to wonder whether her brother would mention it.
But her brother said nothing, and his face gave nothing away. Seth had no idea if he was still angry, or if he had foreseen whatSeth was about to do and approved of it. Either way, Seth knew he had no choice but to go ahead.
“I’ve thought about you too,” Lady Lavinia admitted in a low voice. “But you said it was important that we not try to see one another again. You said—and I promised—that it would be the last time we’d spend time together.”
“I know what I said,” Seth told her.
“So why are you here now?”
“Because I was wrong. I was wrong about all of it. I don’t know if I can live without you, and I do know that I don’t want to, Lady Lavinia. I want you to forget everything I’ve ever told you. I want you to marry me, if I’m not too late.”
Lady Lavinia stared at him as if she had never seen him before.
“You don’t want to marry me,” she whispered. “It’s the worst thing you can imagine. That’s what you said.”
“That was crazy. I should never have said that. It wasn’t the truth,” he told her. “The truth is that you’re exactly right for me, and I saw it from the start. It scared me. I knew that if I let you into my heart and anything went wrong, I would be destroyed, and I was too cowardly to face that. But even though I’m afraid of losing you, I’m even more afraid of the idea of never having you at all because I couldn’t tell you what you mean to me.
I had to come here. I know you’re expecting another proposal. Maybe you’ve even already received it, and I’m too late. If that’s the case, I’ll have to live with it. But I had to come here, because if there was even a chance that you’d be willing to have me, I had to try.”
He looked around the room to see what kind of reaction his words were provoking.
No one seemed to know what to say.
Lord Feverton was staring at Seth as if he was speaking a language he couldn’t understand. Lavinia’s elder brother had a faint smile on his face, but Seth didn’t know whether that was because he was happy to see what was happening or if he was simply laughing at Seth. Lavinia herself was wide-eyed and silent.
The only person giving anything away was Lady Edwina. She was smiling from ear to ear, and it was impossible to mistake the joy on her face for anything else. Seth couldn’t say for sure what anybody else was thinking or feeling, but she, at least, was glad to see him here.
He wondered why. How much did she know?
He cleared his throat. “If Lord Hennington has already proposed…”
“He has,” Lady Lavinia said, and for a moment Seth felt as if he was drowning. “But…that isn’t going to happen.”
“You turned him down?”
“I told him I didn’t love him,” Lady Lavinia explained. “He’s like me. He wanted to marry for love.”
“Like me as well, then.”
“You didn’t want to marry at all.”
