“It took you just the right amount of time,” she corrected. “Because if you hadn’t changed your mind and come to the Children’s Foundling Hospital when you did, we might never have made it out of the flames alive.”
He swallowed hard against the soul-shattering thought of losing her, losing his sister, the innocent children. He couldn’t have lived with himself if they had all perished.
“I’m hardly a hero.”
“Oh, but you are.” She raised a hand to his cheek. “You aremyhero.”
“I’m flawed and imperfect.”
“You are perfectly flawed. As am I, my love. We can be so together.”
By God. This woman. He loved her, he loved her, helovedher. He wanted to tear open the windows and shout it to the streets below. But he would settle for telling only her instead.
It was infinitely less mad.
Everett kissed her palm. “You are an angel among inferior mortals, and I love you more than I can possibly convey.”
“Hardly that.” Her voice was fond. “But I also love you the same.”
“Promise me you’ll never leave me.” He caught her forearm in a gentle grasp and held her there, nuzzling the tender skin of her wrist beneath her sleeve. She had dabbed some of her scent there, and he inhaled deeply.
“I will never leave you. But you must promise me the same.”
“I’ll never leave you,” he vowed with ease. “I promise.”
After so many years as a bachelor, deriding love, embittered by a past betrayal, believing he was incapable of falling beneath another woman’s spell, everything felt astonishingly right to Everett in this moment.
Sybil hooked her arms around his neck and rose on her toes to press her lips to his as she kissed him. He went instantly hard despite being weary to the bone. But tonight, he wanted their lovemaking to be different. He wanted it to be clear that neither duty nor obligation was driving them tonight, but love. A mutual need to be together, as close as two souls could be.
He tore his mouth from hers, his breathing already ragged. “Will you spend the night with me here, in my room, in my bed?”
She smiled, her lips like ripe summer berries, darkened from his kiss. “There is nothing I would like more.”
Now he understood how his friends had fallen so swiftly. Love happened to a man damned quickly, without warning. Everett had lost his heart to Sybil before he’d even realized he had one to give. But it was hers now, just like the rest of him.
How to put all that he felt just now into words? He couldn’t begin to string together the complex emotions in a coherent enough fashion. There was so much he still needed to say, confessions lodged in his chest that would have to wait for another day. For now, he would settle for what he could convey, what he could do.
“I don’t give a damn if you bear me an heir,” he added. “Not that I wouldn’t dearly love a child of our own one day, because I would. A whole nursery filled with children who have your mischievous gray eyes would be beyond lovely. But the bargain we made can go to the devil as far as I’m concerned, because I’m not letting you go. Not now, not ever.”
Her eyes glinted with wicked intent. “That’s the only bargain I’m holding you to, husband, that you never let me go.”
“Would it be acceptable to let you go long enough to get you out of this dress?” he teased, caressing her waist.
There were far too many layers between them for his liking.
Her lips curved into a smile that made him want to kiss her again. “I suppose I could allow it.”
His lips found hers, and he found a better use for them than words, which failed him. With his mouth, he showed her the depth of his emotions—the gratitude, the love, the desire. How thoroughly and completely he was hers.
He kissed her as his fingers found the fastenings of her gown. Feeling as eager as a callous youth, one by one, he opened buttons, hooks, and tapes with trembling hands. Layers of fabric fell to the Axminster in a silken swish.
By the time he had her down to nothing more than her chemise, he was desperate, his heart pounding, all the blood in his body seemingly having rushed to his cock. He was dizzied with desire, with love.
“My turn,” she murmured against his lips as her hands moved over his body, divesting him of his garments as well.
He stopped her progress more than once to place a kiss on her palm or the top of her hand, her wrist, needing to worship her in every way he could, this woman he did not deserve. This beautiful, kindhearted, clever woman who somehow loved him despite everything.
“I should have been a better husband to you,” he said as they lay down on the bed together, naked at last, no barriers between them, not the truth, not a lie, neither silk nor wool.
