“I’ve lost so much.” Amelia got up and walked away, restless in her confusion and despair.
“I’m sure you have,” Diana said after a moment’s silence. “I have, too. I’ve been in the kind of pain where I was so afraid to move that I actually made it worse. I nearly lost everything. I would hate to see you do the same.”
Amelia turned and speared her with a gaze. “You think I should forgive him.”
Diana shrugged. “I think you shouldn’t shut him out while you try. Amelia, hedoeslove you. That much is plain.”
“What’s funny is that I’ve stopped questioning that,” Amelia said, her voice trembling. “I think of all he did, all he said, all the ways we’ve been connected. I know, in my heart, that he does love me. But I can’t trust…myself.”
“Why?”
“I thought Walters was a good man!” She shook her head. “I couldn’t have been more wrong. But I told myself I loved him. And now I tell myself the same about Hugh. What if I’m just a fool, like Walters said? What if I’m so desperate for any scrap of love that I’ll find it in any corner?”
Diana got up and rushed to her. “There is a marked difference between a man who manipulated you to get your fortune and one who has truly fallen in love with you. And I assume the feelings you have for each man were different, too.”
“Yes, of course. With Walters, I was always…slightly uncomfortable. Always reaching for something that I now understand he kept away from me in order to reel me in further. I was uncertain with him. With Hugh…even at the beginning when I tried to tell myself I hated him, there was something about him that drew me to him. He offered me kindness and gentleness. He offered me the truth about his past, even though I knew it was difficult, and he coaxed my own from me without judgment or lack of interest.”
“You connected. Truly,” Diana encouraged her.
“Yes,” Amelia admitted. “Diana, when I am with him…I’ve always wanted a home. A real home. I pictured it as a place, but…”
“It’s a person.” Diana blinked at tears. “That, my dear, is love. And it’s real, not some schoolgirl notion from a lonely mind. It is how every one of our duchess friends would describe her husband, and all of them are truly in love.”
Amelia lowered her gaze, but not because she was upset or sad or confused or filled with self-recrimination. It was because the happiness and acceptance that filled her was so powerful that she had to steady herself.
“Talk to him,” Diana said. “Give him that chance to be the home you’ve earned. And to be the same for him.”
Amelia smiled at her. “I will. I must.”
“Good,” Diana said, and squeezed her tightly into a hug.
Amelia clung to her, a raft in a stormy sea, and shook with the power of what she felt, what she knew and what she would do. She only hoped that when she reached for Hugh, he would be there to take the hand she offered and the future they both deserved.
Hugh sat in his study, staring at a pile of correspondence that had gathered in the past few days. There were invitations and inquiries, some likely important, but how could he focus on such mundane things when all he could think about was Amelia? All he could want was Amelia. All he had lost that had ever mattered was Amelia.
He glanced up and jolted, for there she was, standing in the entryway like his errant, troubled mind had conjured her there. She was pale, with circles under her eyes like she hadn’t slept, and she watched him closely.
“Amelia!” he cried, leaping to his feet and coming around the desk. He brought himself up short there, remembering her desire to be alone. She didn’t want him crowding her, forcing her.
She stepped inside and shut the door behind her, leaning back on it like it was the only thing holding her up.
“I spent my life knowing I could trust no one,” she said softly, without preamble, without hesitation. “My mother was uninvolved, my father unconnected. It made me who I am. That day when he tried to kill us, Aaron said I was so desperate for love that I was a good target. And he was right. I was desperate. And then there was you.”
Hugh bent his head, feeling the accusation in her words. The one he deserved. “I took away what you wanted. I caused you pain.”
“No.” He lifted his gaze to hers and found her staring at him intently. “At first I thought you did that. At first I wanted to despise you for it. But as we grew closer, I came to a realization that has changed me as much as my past did.”
He could hardly breathe, and forced himself to stay where he was rather than rush to her and take her into his arms. “What is that?”
She moved since he didn’t, pushing from the door and crossing two steps closer. He could almost touch her now. God, how he wanted to touch her.
“I realized everything I have ever wanted was in your house. Your company.” Her voice broke. “In your arms. I tried not to, because you are too intense and too strong and too…tooyou, but I fell in love with you.”
A strangled sound came from Hugh’s throat, and he couldn’t move as he stared at this beautiful, remarkable woman he had hurt, who was standing before him confessing her heart regardless. This strong, powerful woman who could bring light to everything dark in him. Who could carry him when he felt weak. This woman he loved more than anything else on the earth. In the stars.
“I had only just accepted how I felt,” she continued. “When I found out what you’d done. That you’d lied to me.”
He stiffened, now wondering if she was describing her love in past tense. It was so hard not to try to explain himself, to argue his case. But he managed to simply nod. “Yes.”
