“Doesn’t involve us?” Hugh sputtered. “She is my sister and this is—”
“The man she loves,” Amelia interrupted with a quick, kind and supportive glance toward Lizzie. She took Hugh’s hand. “I know you’re protective. I love that you are. But in this, you are being heavy-handed.”
“I…am not,” Hugh muttered, but he no longer sounded so certain. Lizzie saw her opening.
She swallowed hard. “You are,” she whispered. “With Morgan I am…I am happy. I’m free. I’m not afraid. When he enters a room, there’s…sunshine for me. I would hope that is what you’d want for me. Nothing less than the feelings you’ve found for yourself.”
“Of course,” Hugh admitted. He glared at Morgan again. “But what does he think? He has not declared his feelings, despite you spilling out your own in this public manner.”
“Public because you made it so,” Morgan said softly.
Hugh’s jaw set, but he didn’t retort.
Lizzie turned toward Morgan. “Then pretend it is just you and me. Like it should be. I have told you I love you, Morgan. If you don’t love me in return, then please just tell me quickly. I can’t…” She dropped her chin. “I can suffer the truth, but not this uncertainty.”
Morgan slid a finger beneath her chin and lifted her gaze to his again. “I’ve spent a lifetime pretending so that I didn’t have to feel what was in my heart. Whether that was fear or sorrow or love, I didn’t want any of it. It was dangerous. But since I met you, Elizabeth, I can’t pretend anymore. You strip away my masks, you challenge me to be brave without them. You make me want to be better.”
Her breath caught as he stepped closer. He didn’t seem to care that they were surrounded, that her watchful brother still stood close enough that he might punch Morgan in the face for making the wrong move.
“I do love you, Elizabeth. And I still fear I don’t deserve the beautiful heart you have offered, but I can’t deny that it’s all I want. All I need. That I would sacrifice all I am and all I ever could be in order to never walk away from you again.”
Her knees shook at his admission, finally made. It felt like it was just the two of them. And she smiled up at him as the world felt like it got warmer and happier and easier because he was with her.
She lifted on her tiptoes and then she kissed him. And it was only when she heard Charlotte behind them say, “Brava, Lizzie” that she even recalled anyone else was there.
She blushed as she caught Morgan’s hand in both of hers and then turned back. They stood together, two against the world if need be, and she looked at Hugh. He was staring at them, his expression unreadable.
“Please don’t make me choose between my brother and my heart,” she whispered. “If you send him away, I will follow, no matter what happens next.”
Ewan signed a few things, and Charlotte smiled. “He says that if Hugh cannot abide your decision, he would hire Morgan for his own man of affairs and settle you both with a lovely home on our estate.”
Lizzie nodded in thanks at the kindness, but she didn’t want that. She wanted her brother to accept this. And when Hugh let out his breath in a long sigh, it was as if the world came to half time as she waited.
“You cannot steal my man of affairs, Donburrow,” he said at last. “So you should not try.”
She smiled as Hugh smiled, relief pulsing through her. He stepped forward and kissed her forehead. Then he shook Morgan’s hand.
“You’ll endeavor to deserve her,” Hugh said softly, a statement not a question.
Morgan nodded. “Every day if she’ll allow it. And I realize that everyone wants to hug us and congratulate us and celebrate this outrageous and wonderful day. But I have not yet gotten to ask the lady a question. And I thinkitmust be asked in private.” Lizzie lifted her face to his, tears filling her happy eyes. He smiled back at her. “May I take you to the garden?”
She nodded, not waiting for anyone else to answer. He took her hand and led her through the crowd of their friends, their family and down the long hallway to the stairs.
Lizzie heard Amelia say to Hugh, “Come, you’ll help me tell the servants to prepare a breakfast to celebrate that he didn’t die, and for their engagement. And you’ll stop frowning, because you know you’re happy if she is happy.”
She didn’t have to hear the rest, all that mattered was the man at her side as he took her through the house and out to the terrace. They followed the path they’d taken a hundred times since his arrival, weaving through this beautiful sanctuary they had created together, and at last they came to the corner where they’d first met to discuss the garden what felt like a lifetime ago.
Persephone stood in her place, her gaze knowing and flirtatious, and at last Lizzie understood it in a way she hadn’t ever before. Morgan led her to the bench there in front of the statue and took both her hands. She stared into his face, loving that it would be the face she looked into for the rest of her days. The face that would look upon their children, that would see her age, that would meet her eyes as they shared their twilight years.
“I’m sorry that situation deteriorated so terribly,” Morgan said as he swept a lock of hair from her cheek.
She smiled. “I don’t think it would be us if there weren’t some kind of chaos involved.”
“I suppose not,” he said, but his tone was troubled. “I brought that into your life, I fear. The chaos.”
“No, you didn’t,” she whispered. “I’ve felt uncertain and out of sorts and unclear about my life and my future for years.Thatwas chaos. You were…a north star. You always will be.”
He did chuckle then. “Funny, for I feel the same way about you. Elizabeth, today at the duel, all I could think about was how I might not see you again. And how I would regret that I told you I wanted you, that I showed you that. But that I was too cowardly to tell you that I love you.”
