Her heart sank. She hadn’t expected him to be so direct about it. “I understand.”
He shook his head. “No, you don’t. I intended to tell you I loved you the very next time I saw you, Adelaide, long before I saw the fire and realized you were trapped. I intended to tell you, just as I’m telling you now, that you possess my heart in every way.”
Her lips parted and disbelief shook her. “No,” she said, and moved as much as she could.
He caught her arm gently. “Don’t you dare run from me now. Neither of us has felt much love in our lives. Don’t think for a moment that this feeling doesn’t terrify me as much as it terrifies you. Or that I don’t fear that I’ll somehow destroy whatever we could possibly build. Idofear that. But I fear walking away from you more. I love you, Adelaide. You and only you. And the future can be far better than the past. That is what you’ve shown me from the first moment I saw you walk out on stage weeks ago.”
She felt the heat of her tears on her cheeks once more, but this time they weren’t tears of pain or devastation. They were tears of joy. Tears of acceptance that everything he said was real and true and right. That they would love each other and teach each other how to love. That they would have the rest of their lives to explore what it was to be fully accepted and fully adored.
Because she did adore him. And looking into his bright eyes, she could see all her feelings were returned.
She didn’t speak. She leaned up, drawing him down into her, lifting her mouth to his and kissing him with all her passion and her love, and the hopes and dreams she had long ago put away. With him, she had more than ever.
When he pulled away, he grinned, and it brightened the very room with happiness and light and hope. “Oh, there is one more thing. My carriage did retrieve Melinda and Toby, and they are on the way to my estate without incident. I thought that would please you.”
She struggled to sit up, her head spinning. Once that feeling had passed, she looked at him evenly. “Actually, I think there is a way for us to save them without hideouts and solicitors and every other wonderful thing you’ve planned in that brilliant mind of yours.”
His brow wrinkled. “Thwarting my plans again, are you? Tell me.”
She drew in a long breath. “My assumption is that when I marry you, Lydia Ford will be no more.”
“I-I hadn’t considered that. Would you be unhappy turning away from the stage?”
She blinked at the question. At the idea that he would have no issue with her continuing. And all her love swelled higher.
“You know I performed as a way to escape my real life, but I never thought it could truly last,” she reminded him. “Even if it could, I don’t want to escape you. Ever. So my thought is that Lydia must play one grand final part.”
He nodded. “I’m listening.”
“Everyone saw what happened between Sir Archibald and you the night he attacked me. But they also know thatLydiasuffered at his hands. Does it not follow that she could have lured him back to the theatre and exacted her revenge?”
He leaned back and considered it a moment, then he grinned. “That is…brilliant, actually.”
“Thank you.” She said with her own smile. “So Lydia will write a letter explaining what she did and then expressing how the guilt wracks her and she cannot go on. She will drown in the Thames as penance for her crime.”
“Very dramatic,” he said, voice solemn though his eyes were bright with teasing. “But what about Melinda and Toby? Your friend adores you, she would be brokenhearted.”
She worried her lip. “Yes, there is that. I would hate to have her suffer thinking I was dead. But what if we…told them the truth?”
“Could you trust them?” he asked.
She nodded without hesitation. “Yes.”
“Well, I need a new manager of the very estate I’ve sent them to,” he said. “I could offer Toby a job if he’d like it. He has experience in the theatre. And then you’ll still get to see Melinda.”
She couldn’t help but grin with enthusiasm and then winced as the pain in her head returned. He frowned and wrapped his arms around her, lowering her back on the pillows as he looked over her face with concern.
“I assume Emma has been waiting to see me,” she said. “Worried sick. I have so much to tell her.”
“You do,” he said with a soft smile. “But it can wait. Have I mentioned in the past five minutes that I love you, Adelaide?”
She laughed despite all the pain that had been caused in the last forty-eight hours. Pain that she knew would fade with time and with the happiness she would find for the rest of her life with this glorious man.
“It’s been six or seven,” she said.
“Then I would be remiss if I didn’t say that I do love you, Adelaide.”
She tugged him down to kiss her once more. And before their lips met, she whispered, “I love you, Graham. With all my heart.”
