“Would you have welcomed that?”
“Yes,” she said after a moment. “I think I would.”
“Then I have nothing to blame but my foolish honour.” He tipped her chin back so he could kiss her properly again. “Do you recall thefirst time I proposed?”
“How could I not? You swaggered in and told me that we dealt so excellently, we may as well marry and have done with it.”
He gave a little pained groan. “Those were the words I settled for?”
“Yes. You were a trifle tipsy.”
“I was in my cups,” he said ruefully. “But Evie, even then I was only half in jest. Had you agreed to marry me, I would have met you at the altar happily.”
So much of their life had passed them by, neither one aware of how the other felt. She had been content to love from a distance, and he had no doubt convinced himself that he did not love her at all. And yet here they were, a wedding ring engraved with their names sitting on her finger. The sensation of it there was unfamiliar, but she suspected she would grow accustomed to it soon enough.
That almost seemed a shame. She never wanted to forget what a privilege this was. To be his wife.
“Then let’s spend the rest of our life making up for it,” she said, looking back at him.
“That’s what I promised when I put the ring on your finger,” he said. “Every day in paradise.”
“Well,” she said. “Maybe not paradise. But together.”
He smiled. Her heart, fickle thing that it was, stopped as he leaned over to brush his mouth across hers. “To me,” he murmured, “that’s the same damn thing.”
Epilogue
Crisp snow crunched under Charles’s boots as Evelyn led him through a little-visited section of Hyde Park. The Serpentine, frozen over, had been adorned with white, and the bare trees seemed to him like bony fingers. The cold sneaked everywhere, slipping past his hat and scarf and smart gloves to find skin. His nose felt numb, and his boots, while eminently fashionable, had not been fashioned with ice in mind.
“Evie,” he said. “Do you think—”
“No, Charles, I do not think we should return to that teashop you saw.”
“But it looked decidedly warm.”
She glanced back at him, the tip of her nose red and her eyes dancing. An expression that captivated him enough that he gave up all attempts at protest then and there. “You may go and thaw there after we have done,” she said.
“And what is it you would have us do?”
“Just a little further.”
His memory sparked as she led him down a narrow path, frozen twigs scraping at his trousers. They had been along here once before, he thought, before he’d come to his senses and married her, when she had brought him out for a walk and his bad temper had almost prevented her from approaching him.
And there, as they turned the corner, was the archway itself. It rose, glistening with ice, the leaves and branches on either side coated in frost. It looked like something out of a fairytale—something that Charles would once have derided himself for thinking, but with his newfound bride, and the discovery that one could indeed marry for love, he found himself somewhat more liberal-minded.
This was a scene from a chilly fairytale, and Evelyn was its princess, turning to him with a satisfied smile. “There,” she said. “I found it.”
“What, precisely, is it?”
“An arch.”
“I see that.”
“Lady Durham told me about it,” she explained, her steps slowing as she approached. She wore a deep green dress today, the flared skirts catching against the undergrowth. With one hand, she removed her leather gloves, revealing slim fingers and chapped knuckles. This cold spell was worse than the ones he could remember as a boy, the world gripped in the relentless claws of winter.
“About the arch?” he asked, trying to understand andnotbe distracted by the way she ran a finger along the slick stone. There was something so effortlessly erotic about her, and it never failed to captivate him.
“Yes. Apparently, there’s a myth around it. The Lovers’ Arch, it’s called.”
