“What are you doing here?” she asked, wishing she could sound cold and uncaring. Instead her voice and hands shook with terror and love and anger all bundled up in one confusing package.
“I came to collect my wife,” he said, his voice rough as he look a long step toward her.
She narrowed her gaze as anger pushed to the top of her tangled emotions. “Why bother? It doesn’t seem as though you would have trouble warming your bed without me.”
He stopped moving and his lips thinned. “Let’s get right to it, then. You came into my study today while I was gone and you saw a letter from a woman.”
“Your mistress,” she said. God, her voice sounded…hollow. Shewashollow. Looking at him, everything she wanted and nothing she could have, she felt utterly empty. “How did you know that?”
“It doesn’t matter how. What matters is that Vanessa is not my mistress.”
She folded her arms. “She’s only not been your mistress for a few weeks, according to those in the know. So forgive me if I don’t make the distinction.”
He lifted both brows. “That is true. I ended things with Vanessa long before I met you at the Donville Masquerade. I was finished with the affair, as was she. We ended it amicably and I settled her well. But my former lover has a sister who was in some trouble. She reached out to me for help. And I gave it gladly.”
“I’m certain you did,” Hannah said, wishing tears didn’t fill her eyes. “How did she repay you?”
“Please do not lower yourself or Vanessa or me with that question,” he said, his jaw setting. “I went to her as a friend, and I left the same way. I won’t apologize for that. And I know you well enough to believe that once you get past your upset you’ll agree that I did the right thing. You wouldn’t want some innocent girl to suffer.”
That took some of the starch from Hannah’s body, and she drooped a little against the bed. “No,” she admitted. “If there was a young woman in trouble, I couldn’t be angry at you for helping.”
“Of course you wouldn’t. Because you are you,” he said, and a shadow of a smile crossed his face. “That is part of why I love you.”
Hannah stumbled back and hit the end table with her hip, rocking it back as she stared at him in shock. “What?”
“You and I have been dancing around this subject since almost the first night we met. When that connection between two strangers transcended everything we told each other we were there for. You felt it, Hannah, as I did. Or do you want to deny it?”
Her breath caught. “I can’t deny it.”
“Good, that’s a start,” he said. “I have fallen in love with you starting that night, and followed by every single night thereafter. The power of my feelings for you is actually slightly terrifying. And I know your feelings are hard for you too.”
She nodded but couldn’t find the words to respond.
He didn’t seem to need them as he continued, “My father loved my mother. She used that, sometimes cruelly. When she died, it stripped him of all his hopes, all his laughter, all his dreams. He became a shell of himself. Witnessing their dynamics frightened me as a young man. The idea that one person could mean so much and care so little turned my stomach. I avoided that feeling. When I sensed my connection to you, I feared it even more because I knew you couldn’t return it. You kept telling me that you would honor our agreement, never ask for more. I thought it meant you didn’t want more.”
She flung herself forward now with a little cry. “But Ididwant more, Duncan. I wanted so much more, but the very idea of asking for it…you know my father. You know what he withheld, what he used me for. If you are afraid of love, I have been petrified of it. I’ve also seen it as something that can be taken away, manipulated.” She struggled for a moment, fighting the very barriers they had both described. “I…I do love you, though. Despite all that.”
He closed the gap between them in one long step and cupped her cheek gently. She felt every one of his fingers against her flesh, felt his warmth and his presence, and knew in that moment that they would bend together, never breaking in the winds around them. Always moving to stay solid and whole and together.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he whispered.
“Because I was afraid you’d say no,” she said.
“Tell me again.”
She drew in a long, unsteady breath. “I love you, Duncan.”
“Yes. Yes, yes, yes,” he whispered before he took her mouth. She leaned up into him, clutching his lapels as he kissed her. It felt like the first time, all those nights ago. The first time when there was nothing between them. He pulled back. “I love you, Hannah. And now I want to take you home.”
She blinked. “Take me home? Could we not…er…” She motioned her head toward the bed behind them.
He grinned. “Oh, that’s exactly what I want to do, my love. Only I don’t think our friends will like all the noise I intend to make. Let me take you home, my most beloved wife, and show you and tell you I love you until dawn.”
She took his hand and lifted it to her lips. “Absolutely, dearest husband. I would like that very much.”
