“Selfish reasons. We just… wanted to go home.” He’d wanted to confess, but… “If the truth came to light, that we’d stolen the brandy, that we’d snuck out of the dorms… That I’d killed...” Dash scrubbed a hand down his face. “All of us… we would have been trapped there for God knows how long.”
Ambrosia did not move, did not look away. She sat absorbing the confession, her hands white-knuckled in her lap.
And Dash…
His chest ached with the unbearable shame of it all, but also with a faint, impossible relief—because at last, the words had been spoken aloud.
“So you were on the way to your wedding? When we first met?”
It wasn’t the question he’d expected, but after taking a moment to reorient himself, Dash nodded. “If I did not wed her before my thirtieth birthday, Beresford was going to marry her off to Groby anyway. She was unwell, you see, so the earl was becoming rather impatient by the time we struck our agreement. Groby had come up with some documents… and…” Dash sighed. “There was no putting it off any longer.”
“I… see.” Ambrosia blinked and then went quiet, staring into the dark hearth, her eyes somewhat unfocussed. Dash realized this was a lot for her to take in. All the more tedious details aside, he’d murdered a man, for God’s sake.
She’d done her best to avoid him for two months… If she hadn’t hated him before, she certainly would now.
“I wish you would have told me all this before,” she said eventually, still not looking at him. “Perhaps not at the very beginning when you didn’t know me, but…” She shrugged, her eyes too distant. “Were you in love with her?”
His heart dropped into the soles of his feet.
Many, many days, he wished that he had been. “She was very young and she was very sweet, but there was never anything romantic between us, on either side, as far as I knew. She was also ill—painfully ill. I… loved her like a sister.”
“But…” Her throat moved as she struggled with the words. “Did you ever… make love to her?”
At the tremor in her voice, Dash could not stay away. In two strides he was before her. “No, my heart… never. I would never?—”
But then her gaze lifted at last, shattered, glistening—and it destroyed him.
He dropped to his knees with a rough sound, pressed his face into her lap, arms wound tight about her waist as if she might vanish. “I have touched no one since you. No one. Mon Dieu, Ambrosia… all I want is to make it right. To have you trust me again. For two years, every day, every hour, it has been you. Always you.”
His face pressed deeper into the folds of her gown, breathing her in. Sweet, soft, unbearably feminine. Holding her like this was everything—yet still not enough. Never enough.
“Tell me. About your marriage.”
Dash didn’t move.
Anything. He would do anything, answer anything she asked.
“Once the marriage was official, her father, her parents, they lost interest, and seemed to be happily rid of her. She… was not well, hadn’t been for a long time.” Dash spoke with his eyes closed. Simply absorbing her scent, the warmth of finally touching his princesse. “I brought Hannah and her companion back to Dasborough Park, where she was welcomed and… loved. I did not bed her. I never even imagined it.”
Ambrosia’s hands landed on his head. “So you… rescued her.”
Her fingers ran through his hair and the sensation was a balm to his soul. Dieu, he wanted this woman again. Every day for the rest of his life.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I just… I’ve missed you for so long. Tell me what to do, princesse. I beg of you to tell me and I’ll do it.” He’d never felt so utterly destroyed.
“I missed you so much.” A tremor ran through her. “I just wish…”
“Tell me.”
She was touching him willingly. She wanted him too, he was certain of it. The world darkened as she leaned forward, her arms coming up to cradle his back, her breath stirring the hair on top of his head. “Allow me to earn your trust again,” he entreated.
“I don’t want for you to leave,” she admitted, her voice choking on a sob.
He hated that he’d brought so much pain and misery into her life. If she only gave him a chance, though… If she only gave both of them a chance, he believed that it could all be worth it.
Dash tilted back onto his haunches so that he could cup her face in both hands, his thumbs brushing the dampness at her temples. “I will stay forever, princesse. All you must do is ask it of me.”
Her gaze held his—searching—and when she nodded, his heart nearly stopped. For the first time since his return, the walls she’d built seemed to lower. She was still his Ambrosia. His friend. His princesse.
