She let out a low sound in her throat that was filled with pain. “And so you just didn’t try. I wasn’t worth trying for.”
He moved toward her in a few long steps and caught her arms, drawing her against him into an embrace. He tilted her face up, hating how tears sparkled in her eyes. Tears he’d put there.
“It wasn’t you who wasn’t worth trying for,” he insisted.
Then he ducked his head and kissed her. Kissed her because even though little had changed when it came to his worthiness over the years, little had also changed in how much he wanted her. Kissed her because he needed to show her what she meant to him since it was impossible to tell her. He kissed her because he loved her. And he had never stopped loving her for one moment in all the years they’d been apart. Even when he wanted to. Even when he tried.
She sank into his embrace, her hands fisting against his chest, her mouth opening and inviting him in to become a part of her. He kissed her and kissed her until there was nothing else in this world but that kiss.
And then the world intruded. There was the sound of a throat being cleared from behind them and both of them froze. She opened her eyes to stare up at him and he released her gently before they both turned.
John Dane stood on the garden path behind them. He was kindly looking at a tree beside the path, infinitely interested in its changing foliage rather than the incredibly inappropriate scene playing out before him.
Felicity’s cheeks darkened to bright red and she sent Asher one final, terrified look before she gasped out some incoherent sound and then rushed toward the house.
Proving, perhaps without meaning to, that every thought he had about not belonging was true. He sighed heavily before he turned and faced Dane, glad that it hadn’t been her brothers that had found him like that.
“Walk with me,” Dane said, his tone and expression unreadable. “It looks like you could use the exercise and so could I.”
Asher tried to think of a way to deny his new friend, but he couldn’t. So he bent his head, fell into step beside him and girded his strength for the very uncomfortable conversation he knew was about to follow.
A conversation that would only end the way all conversations on this topic ended. With disappointment.
Chapter Nine
Asher was shocked that he and Dane walked for fifteen minutes in silence. Through the gardens, away down the path, up the lane that took them away from the house and still Dane said nothing about what he’d seen.
Finally, Asher could take it no more. “I understand the situation, you know.”
John gave him a look from the corner of his eye. “The situation? Which one? We’re dealing with quite a few at present.”
“What you saw,” Asher said in frustration. “I know what you saw in the garden. You needn’t pretend that you didn’t.”
John shrugged. “It seems to me that Felicity is a grown woman who has been through enough to know her own desires. You have certainly proven yourself capable of making decisions for yourself. What I saw has nothing to do with me.”
“Her brothers would see it differently,” Asher muttered, trying to decide who would punch him first. Gray, probably. Stenfax would likely do it harder.
“Would they?” John asked.
Asher stopped walking and spun on him. “Of course they would. Damn it, man, I know I don’t deserve her.”
“Ah,” John said, nodding slowly. “I see. You don’t deserve her. A funny word,deserve.”
“Doesn’t seem very bloody funny to me,” Asher spat.
“Why don’t you deserve her?” John pressed. “Is there some horrible act you committed in your past that I’m not aware of?”
“No,” Asher said. “It’s how I was born.”
To his surprise, John tilted his head back and began to laugh. A full, hearty belly laugh, like he really found this situation funny when it was anything but. Suddenly, Asher was no longer thinking about who would punch him, but whether or not he could get away with punching Dane.
“Is that a joke to you?” he snapped.
“No.” John stopped laughing at last. “Not in the way you think, at least. You see, Asher,Iwas born a worthless nothing. I worked as a chimney sweep when I was barely old enough to walk. I stole to fill my belly for years before I was plucked off the street and placed into the service of the king. And then I lied to Celia for weeks about my identity. Yet somehow, despite it all, she determined Ideservedher.”
Asher blinked at the unexpected information. He’d known about John’s time as a spy, of course. And he’d heard some mention of him pretending to be another man. But he had never suspected anything about John’s birth. He’d assumed he’d been a merchant’s son or some lesser son of a lower noble family.
“You?” he said.
