And it was in that perfect moment that she let out a shaky sigh and said, “I’m a mess.”
Ripley lifted his head when she said those words. “No, you are beautiful and perfect and lovely.”
She smiled at how easily he said it. “No, I don’t mean how I look. I mean…I’m a mess, Cam.”
His brow wrinkled, but she could see he understood. Of course he would. They were the same in so many ways. They’d walked through fire and they both knew that it was a fairytale that someone could do that and not be burned. Permanently scarred. She didn’t want to scar him even more.
“Love, everyone is a mess,” he said with an almost indulgent smile.
She shifted from beneath him and scooted up to the pillows. She bent her knees and held them as she stared at him. He moved to lay on his side, watching her without trying to touch or distract her.
It seemed the time had come to say all the things they’d been waiting on.
“I’ve hurt the people I care about,” she explained further.
“Of course you have,” he said, and she flinched. He rushed to continue, “Because everyone does. It’s a side effect of loving people, letting them in. It means we’re vulnerable to being hurt and occasionally hurting them.”
“But the last person I want to hurt is you, Cam. Because…” She drew a shaky breath. She couldn’t avoid this anymore. Part of her didn’t want to. “Because I do love you. And you scare me more than anyone I’ve ever known.”
She could see him fighting his joy at her admission of her heart. See him trying to focus on her fears. “Why do I scare you?”
“Not because you’re a fighter.” She hesitated. “Well, perhaps because you’re a fighter. Not just physically, but in other ways. You’ll fight even when it hurts you.” She reached up and touched the scar that slashed his eyebrow. “You are the kind of man who could fill up all those painful spots in me. It’s so bewitching to think you could. And it’s terrifying to think that I’d hurt you as a reward for that. That I’d take away from your life rather than add to it.”
He nodded slowly. “But what if we healed each other?” he suggested, his tone gentle. “Because, my love, we’ve already done that for each other more than we’ve ever hurt each other.”
She blinked. There was no denying he had helped her heal in these past few weeks. And before that, too. He had become the center for her, a place that was always soft when she fell there. A place that could bring light when it was dark.
“How have I healed you?” she asked.
“Do you think I would have gone to my father without you at my side?”
“Is that healing or tearing open a wound?”
He smiled. “Sometimes you need to do the second to get the first. I’ve hated him for so long, I’ve made him up to be this villain. But he was just a man. He’s flawed, deeply flawed, and I’ll never be close to him. But he doesn’t loom as large in mind, and I doubt he ever will again. And my brother? Hugo? I think he was worth meeting. I’ll meet the others, too. I’ll come to know that part of myself because you gave me the strength to risk it.”
She bent her head and moved on to her second mark against being together. “People will know what I was. Your father found out, others will do the same. Or untitled gentlemen will come into your club and recognize me as a lady who they passed time with in a hell. Will it bother you?”
“No. Not unless they bother you. And then they’ll be very sorry they came into my club,” he said. “Because my wife will not be bothered, not by anyone.”
“Your wife,” she repeated slowly, letting that word roll around in her mind. The most beautiful word she’d ever heard said by the voice she adored more than any other.
He nodded. “I never want to be without you, Jane. My Janie. I never want to wake up and not see you tucked into my side. I want to tangle up our lives so they’ll never be separated. I want to share my name with you. I want to give you children—if you want them—that mix all the best parts of us. Children who will give us a chance to do better and give more than we were given. That’s what I want. You and only you for the rest of my life.”
Jane had known happiness in her life, very often at the side of the very man who said those words to her now. But until that moment, she’d never fully experienced joy. It was louder than anything else she’d ever experienced, it overwhelmed all else, all fear, all worst-case possibilities. It overtook everything but him. He shone at the center of it.
“Do you know why I learned to read?” she asked softly.
He seemed a little flummoxed that this was her response to what could only be called a proposal of marriage. But he, game as always, shook his head. “No. Why?”
“Because you wrote me letters and notes. Esme read them to me at first, but I…I wanted them to be mine. I wanted a part of you to be mine, Campbell Ripley. And now you’re offering all of you. I couldn’t refuse that. I won’t. If you want to marry me, all I can say is yes. Forever yes to you, no matter what comes.”
He did move on her then, almost with relief, like he’d wanted to touch her all this time and finally he could. His arms came around her, he drew her into his chest and their mouths met in what felt like the sweetest kiss of her life.
“Joy will come, Jane. Happiness will come. Good things will come. And we’ll face the rest together.”
“That sounds perfect,” she said before she moved to cover him and celebrate this union, this surrender, the way she wanted to most.
EPILOGUE
