“I went to Beckman House like I said I would.” She held his gaze. “I went to tell you that I wanted to make a life with you. That I loved—that I…that I love you. There was never any choice but you. I finally understood that. But you were gone. You left me again. Without saying goodbye.”
The brothel. Hawkins Place. His infernal wandering. A fresh wave of self-loathing crashed through him.
Enough!
Dash grasped her hands in his and, pushing himself off the ground, pulled her up to stand. When he was sure she was steady, he lowered himself again.
To one knee.
This was him.
Begging.
“Écoute-moi, princesse.” He swallowed hard. “I never stopped loving you. Not for a single moment. Loving you, it is like breathing. And I will not lose you again. Do you understand?”
She nodded.
“I did not leave London without saying goodbye,” he said fiercely. “Beatrice had gone ahead, along with my valet and the luggage coach. Lord Grimstead told me you were leaving with him, but I waited. Mon Dieu, I waited. I would never leave you again without saying goodbye—Hell, I’ll never leave you again, at all! I’ve learned that lesson well, princesse. I have only just checked into this inn. You arrived before me.”
She tilted her head.
“You. Arrived. Before. Me. Do you understand?”
At last she was listening—truly listening. Finally all the walls she’d built up since he’d left two years ago were coming down.
“I thought I’d waited too long,” she said. “I thought I’d lost you forever.” Her eyes met his, luminous, filled with all the love he’d ached for all along.
He could hardly believe his ears. “So you are not traveling with Lord Grimstead?” He needed to hear it again.
She reached down, her palm warm against his jaw. “I could not. From the moment I saw you in the park, I thought only of you. I should have told Lord Grimstead earlier, but I was afraid… Can you forgive me?”
“There is nothing to forgive.” And he meant it.
Her thumb traced the stubble along his jaw, her gaze steady. “You said you think you must have pushed that boy… at that horrible school. But I know your heart. I know you to be a man who rescues stray animals, who provides comfort to a dying young woman, who protects with everything in him. And I know, somehow, that you could not have hurt that boy deliberately. Not the man I love.”
Later, later he would tell her what Hawk said. For now, he simply needed to listen.
She drew in a trembling breath, her voice quiet, honest. “I think I must have known it from the start. I fell for you, so easily. And after you left, it never made sense. My heart told me who you were, even then… but I doubted it. I doubted myself. So I kept you at arm’s length these past months, because I was afraid—afraid that I might be wrong.
“But I’m not afraid anymore. The only thing I fear now is a life without you.”
She fell silent and a single tear slid down her lashes, curved along her cheek, and dropped onto the ground.
But then her eyes widened. “How did you know I was here?” she asked suddenly.
He hadn’t known. He hadn’t had the faintest idea. For weeks he had lived and breathed only her, yet he’d stumbled into this moment blind.
Still looking up, he gave a small, helpless shake of his head.
“Fate,” he said simply. “Luck, fortune—whatever it was that brought us together in the first place. When I left London, I was dead inside, certain I had lost your trust, your love, forever. I was on my way home to lick my wounds.”
Her lips parted, her eyes gone a little hazy. “Then it was… destiny.”
A smile tugged at his mouth. Dieu, he loved this about her—the way she could look at the world with that mix of innocence and conviction, as though even pain might hold some secret meaning. “I think it must have been.”
“She was right, then.” Ambrosia’s voice broke as Dash lifted both of his hands to cradle her face.
“Who was right, princesse?”
