“It’s only…,” he stumbled over the words, “it’s more that she…”
“Good Lord, you’re in love with her, aren’t you?” Larena gasped, looking more stricken than such news should have brought after so long. “Honestly, I never thought you’d…ever…”
Yes, he was, wasn’t he?
He was in love with Prim Eames.
Yet it wasn’t at all how he’d expected it to be. None of the knocking upside his head and bombardment of his heart he’d anticipated. None of delirium he’d seen in his brothers. Perhaps that’s why he hadn’t recognized it before. It had evolved inside him, growing and blossoming until it was there, without him knowing.
What he’d been so naively looking for in every woman he’d met. That constant comparison to his sisters-in-law he’d held every woman up to. Impossible standards, but he hadn’t done that with Prim. To begin with, she looked nothing like them, nothing like the fantasy woman he’d imagined. But her dark hair and wide-eyed allure made his heart race each time he looked at her. Her trim body neither tall and willow nor petite, was enough to bring him to his knees.
Nor was Prim like any of them in personality. No, she was all of them at the same time, he could tick them off the list. Intelligent like Eve, sassy and spirited as Moira but as sweet as Ilona and as mothering as Abby. Fiercely protective and passionate about the things she cared about, whether it be her children, her protests…or him.
All that passion she’d directed toward him. Not because he was a cause to be reformed, but because together they were transformed into something neither one of them had imagined being.
It wasn’t all flames and heat, fire and desire, but the perfect dance of it all. They complemented one another.
“Jamie?” Larena called him back from his musings. “She must be very beautiful, I suppose.”
She was, but not only in the way Larena meant. “She is. Everything about her.”
But she wasn’t perfect. Maggie had been right about that. Prim wasn’t perfect by any means, but she was perfect for him.
“I-I…” Larena’s voice broke. “Shall I wish you well, then?”
“I’d like that.”
She lifted herself up onto her toes and kissed his cheek. With a sad smile, she turned away and melted into the crowd.
James barely saw her leave, his thoughts back in New York already, considering what he’d left there.
His family’s ancestral estate, Glen Cairn, rose in front of him in its ancient glory. Generations of his family had been raised there. He’d lived there his whole life, but looking at it now, he had only one thought.
I want to go home.
Prim might not need him to thrive in life. She was beyond capable. Independence suited her well, but she was so giving of herself to those around her, she would always be inclined to sacrifice her own good for that of others. What she needed was someone to make sure she stood up for herself.
That, she hadn’t done on her own. He’d given her the push, helped her to realize how strong she truly was. What he needed to do was make her see it, see how together they were both stronger than they were alone.
And he wanted to make sure Prim’s generous nature wasn’t taken advantage of again. By her children and perhaps, especially, the others she loved. Her brothers were overprotective, wanting to coddle her. James couldn’t understand how they didn’t see her brilliance.
James’s mind slowed.
No, they’d have to know. They couldn’t miss it.
Then the truth hit him. They’d been far off the mark.
Son of a bitch.
He needed to get home.
CHAPTER 33
Why is a woman to be treated differently? Woman suffrage will succeed, despite this miserable guerilla opposition.
~ Victoria Claflin Woodhull
Early January 1896
