He should have warned her about the world. He should have done so many things.
Beside him, he felt Kit go completely still.
The sound Kit made was barely audible. He took one step forward and then stopped, as though he did not trust himself to move further, as though the sight of her was almost more than he could bear standing upright.
Then he went to his knees.
“Marta,” he said, and her name in his mouth sounded like a prayer, an apology, and five years of grief, all spoken at once.
She turned.
For a long moment, she simply looked at him, her mouth slightly open, her eyes moving over his face with the careful attention of someone not yet certain what they were seeing was real. The moonlight caught the tears that had begun to gather, and she made no move to hide them.
Cassian took a step forward instinctively.
“Let them be,” Juliana said softly, her hand finding his arm. He looked at her. Her eyes were steady and certain, and she was watching her brother with an expression that was still learning what it felt like to trust him again. “I will deal with Kit myself if he causes her any harm.”
He stayed where he was.
Marta crossed the room slowly, her steps hesitant but her chin held in that particular way she had—the way that reminded him, painfully, of their mother. She stopped before Kit, looking down at him on his knees, and reached out with a careful hand to touch his bruised cheek.
He closed his eyes at the contact.
“Why are you here?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
“Because I never stopped loving you,” he said. He opened his eyes and looked up at her. “Not for a single day. I was a coward for not marrying you when I had the chance. I let my fear and pride prevail. Believe me when I say I have paid for it all over the years we were apart.” His voice broke, and he did not try to steady it. “I thought you were dead. When I came back to look for you, I was told that you were gone… I thought you and our child were both gone, and I had nothing… no reason to try, because the only person who had ever made me want to be worthy of anything was gone.” He pressed his lips together. “Iknow that is not enough. I know there is nothing I can say that will fix what I have done. But I am here, and I am asking you, if there is any part of you that can bear it, to give me a second chance. I will spend the rest of my life trying to make up for all that I have done against you, hoping we can still make up for lost time.”
The silence that followed was the heaviest Cassian had ever heard in this room.
Even Cassian felt the sorrow in his brother-in-law’s voice. Make no mistake, he still thought the man was an idiot, but he could tell he loved his sister. Of course, if he hurt Marta again, nobody could stop him from strangling his wife’s brother.
Marta looked at him for a long time. Her hand had not left his cheek. Her tears had spilled over, moving silently down her face, and she made no move to wipe them.
“Please get up, Kit,” she said at last, her voice fragile.
He rose slowly, his eyes never leaving her face, as if looking away might break the spell of her being real and alive before him.
“I know I am five years late, but… Will you marry me?” he asked, hopefully, as he straightened himself and looked down at her face.
Marta looked at him for one more moment.
“Yes, Kit,” she said. “I will marry you.”
Cassian exhaled.
He had not realized he was holding his breath until that moment. He was still not certain Kit deserved it, and he suspected he would be watching the man for a very long time.
But Marta was smiling.
It was small and uncertain and still threaded through with everything she had lost, but it was the first time in five years that it had reached her eyes.
Epilogue
The Stonevale gardens bore witness to a spring wedding, a welcome change for the estate. The shadows seemed to have receded as everyone present watched another Cavendish and another Hawthorne marry.
Christopher Hawthorne and Marta Cavendish.
The bubbling tension from the last few months, no, years, had finally burst, allowing them all to laugh without sarcasm or bitterness. There was also time to smell the flowers.
