Cordelia couldn’t help herself and laughed. He had wanted to kiss her then.
“I think I started to fall in love when I found out that you had climbed a tree.”
Her face burned again. She would never forget and if they did marry, it was likely Damon would remind her so that she didn’t.
“I was intrigued by you, Cordelia, and I didn’t know why. That is the reason I had my mother invite you to tea. She had her own unpleasant reasons, and I do apologize for her behavior that day, but I wanted to see you again.”
“You could have called on me,” she reminded him.
“Ah, that is true, but you are a miss and if I called, one might wonder, and I still wasn’t certain….and I believed that I had to marry a witch. Also, I didn’t plan to marry for another ten years.”
Cordelia shook her head. Ianthe was right. Boys were foolish and so were gentlemen.
“You wore blue that day. The dress complimented your hair and eyes and yes, I noted that it also hugged your bodice in the most delicious manner.”
Her face burned again. “Would you quit saying that!”
“It’s the truth,” he defended.
“I was quite taken with you,” she finally admitted, quietly. “Other than being handsome, there was something about you that I had not experienced before.” She couldn’t explain and perhaps she’d never be able to. “Then to find out that you come from a line of wicked rogues…it was quite disconcerting.”
“Most women would find that intriguing.” Damon dropped her hands and pulled her close. “I wanted to kiss you in my mother’s garden, and I wanted to kiss you when I walked you back to Hollybrook Park. I wanted to kiss you when we walked to Bocka Morrow and I certainly wanted to kiss you after we waltzed.” He grinned down at her. “If I were being honest, I wanted to do far more than kiss.”
“See, you are a wicked rogue,” she teased as her heart melted. He truly did want her, just as she had wanted him.
“It was on my walk home that I realized that I was falling in love with you. It was hard to fathom, having known you for so short a time, but I was. Then that attempt by Miss Perkins reminded me that I was required to marry a witch, but I couldn’t put my mind to that without kissing you just one time. It was a hunger. A need that had been plaguing me for days and I knew that it would plague me in the future.”
“I’m glad you did because I had been falling in love with you and kept telling myself how foolish I was being and that I was much too sensible to behave as those silly misses during their first Season.”
“It was fate,” he said quietly.
It was fate, she had to agree. Nothing else could explain that need to draw to him she had experienced upon first spying him after he stepped from the carriage.
“Do you know why I was in Brighid’s shop that day?”
“Why?” he asked
“I suffered from an obsession. A need to be at Nightshade Manor. To know the people within. I thought it was because so much mystery had surrounded your home, but it wasn’t. Even after I’d visited, the pull remained.”
“What did Brighid say?”
“I didn’t tell her it was Nightshade, I simply said I was plagued by an obsession, but I think she knew. She gave me a tea to help me sleep but warned that it would do no good if I was meant to seek out what called to me.”
“Fate,” he said.
“Fate,” Cordelia echoed, and with those words, something let loose inside, as if a bubble burst and all insecurities and self-doubt and questioning who she was fled when she looked into his brown eyes. She was exactly where she was meant to be.
Damon bent down and kissed her gently.
Cordelia wrapped her arms about his shoulders and returned his kiss and then he delved, and she joined in deepening the kiss. Her body heated and the most delicious sensations swirled in her belly and then she felt something wrap around her ankle.
Cordelia pulled away and looked down. Vines had grown again and were twining about both of their legs, but thankfully only at their ankles instead of most of their bodies.
“Will this happen each time we kiss?”
“Only until you agree to be my wife.”
Cordelia glanced down at the vine. There were no flowers like last time, only buds. Then she recalled how the berries plumped before her eyes.
