My love for you has never and shall never change. With all I am or shall ever be, C
He caught his breath at that simple sentiment that burned to the very core of him. He slowly lifted his gaze and found she wasn’t looking at him, but worrying a loose thread on her coverlet. He touched her chin and she looked up at last.
“You didn’t want me to see this,” he signed, his throat thick as he did so. “Have your sentiments changed?”
He couldn’t blame her if they had. After all she’d been through thanks to him? Not just today, but for a very long time. Her reaching for him while he withdrew…he could imagine that it had hurt her very deeply, even if she understood his reticence.
And maybe he’d gone too far.
She caught her breath. “Of course not,” she whispered. “Ewan, that is exactly how I feel. I only…I didn’t want to show it to you tonight.”
“Why?” he asked.
She sighed deeply. “Because I am not in a good place to hear you explain to me why what I feel is wrong. I’m not equipped to fight for you as I should fight for you.”
He frowned. Fight for him? Oh yes, she had done that over the years. Never harder than in those short, magical days when they had been alone together. She fought for him, nearly died for him.
And now she feared he would disregard all of that. Because he had proven that he would.
He ducked his head, ashamed of his reticence. She drew a breath, and the sound made him look at her again. She had lifted her chin, all the bravery back on her face.
“But perhaps I have it in me yet,” she murmured, he thought more to herself. “I know you fear the risks in our being together, Ewan. I recognize the valid worries you have. But in the end, isn’t all life a risk? Right now Emma and James are waiting to meet their first child. It will very likely go right, but it could go wrong, and in far worse ways than however you judge your own birth.”
He moved to sign, but she caught his hands.
“Let me finish,” she asked. “Today we faced something I never thought we would. I saw a glimpse of a future where we would be parted with the kind of permanence that makes my heart break. If nearly losing each other shows you anything, I hope it is that we must take what we can in the moment we can. Regret is a terrible bedfellow.”
He pushed her hands away from his gently, freeing him to sign, “Are you ready for me to talk now?”
She laughed, though the sound was nervous. “I suppose so.”
“I know I’ve never proven to you that I could take the risk you describe. I’ve shown you the opposite, too many times. But I knew a fundamental fact long before I stumbled into the lodge and found my brother with a gun at your temple.”
Her eyes were almost impossibly wide and the green had darkened considerably as she whispered, “And what fact is that?”
“That I love you, Charlotte Maria Penelope Undercross.” As he spelled out every letter of her name, he watched her face crumple, but the tears that filled her eyes were ones of joy, for her smile broadened. “I have loved you for so long, I don’t recall what it was like not to love you. I think this isn’t a surprise to you.”
“I hoped,” she whispered, her voice trembling as she wiped tears from her cheeks.
“I let you go all those years ago,” he signed, “in the hopes that I could save you from what and who I am.” She flinched, and he rushed to continue, “But what I have swiftly realized is that you have savedme, with all that you are.”
She shook her head. “What are you saying, Ewan? Because your love means everything to me, but not if it comes with a but.”
“No buts,” he signed before he threaded a lock of hair away from her face. “Not this time. I know I’ve made a muck of things by holding back with you. By denying myself in some twisted thought that I could make it easier for you. I will never do that again. I want to spend my life with you. And I knew that even before you left the house this morning. I intended to tell you these things long before my family tried to destroy us.”
The tears were streaming down her face now and her voice trembled. “You want to spend your life with me?” she repeated.
“If you want me,” he signed. “If you’ll marry me.”
She launched herself at him, her arms coming around his neck, her lips finding his even as she said, “Yes, yes!” The words were muffled, then silenced as he drew her over him and deepened that kiss.
His tears slid down his face, merging and mingling with hers as he now knew they would do for the rest of their lives. The happy ones and the sad ones.
Because she was his, and he was forever hers. And as he claimed her body, the joy that filled him changed him. He had never been so happy to think of his future and leave his past behind.
Epilogue
Two weeks later, London
