“No, Max,” she finally managed. “We do not need to talk. I know you will not see me again. Your mother has explained—”
Her words were cut off by his blistering curse. And then he glared down at the dirty floor. “I blame my mother completely,” he said. “Not you, of course, but because of her, this shall be done here and not at all in the proper way of things.” Which made him chuckle a bit. “Which means, I suppose, that it is all the more appropriate.”
She did not know what he meant. There was too much misery this night, and she still had more to accomplish. She could not take any more.
“Max—”
He grabbed her hands, or he tried to. She would not release her hold on his coat, and so he could only capture one. He held it tight as he looked in her eyes. When he spoke, it felt like the words came through his hand, his eyes, indeed his whole body.
“I love you, Yihui.”
She blinked, tears spilling from her eyes. She knew this. She knew they loved one another, but the world was never kind to lovers.
“I wish to spend my life with you. I want my children to be our children. I want my home to be your home.”
What a beautiful picture he painted.
“And so, Yihui, my heart…” He began to sink in front of her.
“Max!” she exclaimed. At first she thought he was hurt, but then she realized he was going down on one knee.
“Yihui, will you do me the greatest honor and become my wife?”
He was kneeling before her in the stable muck. He was destroying his clothes. He would destroy his standing among the English. They would revile him for this. Not to mention…
“Your father will never allow it.”
“My father has no say in this. I want you, Yihui. I love you. Please say you’ll marry me. We can fight the dragons together because I cannot do it alone. I need you as much, I think, as you need me.”
She blinked. He couldn’t have said what she thought. And yet her heart had already answered.
Yes. Yesyesyesyesyes!
Her whole body sang the word, but she could not force it out between her lips. Instead, different words came out. Different fears.
“Will you take away my apothecary shop?”
“What? No! If you wish to work there, then you may. You should. But I shall demand that you come home to me every night. Indeed, I insist that I be the one to escort you because this…” He looked about them and shuddered. “This is not what I want for you.”
“I will be your wife?” she whispered. “And have my shop, too?”
“If you say yes.”
It was true. He was the best of men, and she was the most fortunate of women. She was so overwhelmed with the knowledge that she couldn’t speak.
“Yihui?”
“Yes! Yes, please!”
He straightened up out of the dirt and wrapped his arms around her. She was no less fast as she threw herself into his arms. And then they kissed as they so often did, with lips and tongues and their spirits fully intertwined.
Sometimes, she realized as she pressed her body to his, Heaven takes everything away just to give it back a thousandfold and in an entirely new way.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Champagne popped warmand sweet in Benedict’s blood. It was barely nine in the morning, and yet he was misty-eyed and maudlin at his friend’s wedding.
Everything had worked out for Max when it should have been a disaster of epic proportions. The wedding at St. Paul’s Cathedral had gone off exactly as Prinny had once decreed. Indeed, when the prince had learned of Max’s intention to wed Yihui, he proclaimed that he had known it all along. He also declared that he would honor the couple by serving as Max’s best man.
