“Do you?” she said, her voice still little more than a whisper.
“Indeed.” He turned her to face him in the middle of the room. His focus roamed over her face. “You have always looked so enchanting by candlelight.”
Miranda’s heart was pounding. “I didn’t think you’d noticed me all those years ago.”
“I’ve always noticed you.” His smile grew. “That precocious girl who dared to take a risk, who wrote to a poor, aggrieved soldier on the battlefield, to the woman who brought a man back from the depths of hell.”
“But…” She swallowed hard. “You act as though you’ve never left.”
“I didn’t think I had either, until I read your letters again.” He reached into his jacket and withdrew a packet of sad looking papers in a bundle of faded ribbon. He set them on a nearby table. “When I actually looked past my own grief, I started to comprehend yours. You didn’t just write to me to try to make me feel better, you did it so you could deal with your own sadness. I’m just sorry it took me all this time to finally push aside my upset to help comfort you when you need me.”
“Is that why you’re here now?” she whispered. “To comfort me?”
“Yes.” He nodded. “But so much more than that. To start, I want a dance with you. The one I should have guided you in on the day of your come out ball.”
She tilted her head to the side. “But there’s no music.”
“Then we shall have to make our own.” He took her into his arms and, using his smooth baritone to hum a familiar tune, he guided her about the middle of the parlor. He never took his gaze from her face, and Miranda wondered if she was dreaming, for surely this couldn’t be real. It was as if every fantasy she’d ever entertained was coming to fruition. After such a devastating departure, she was convinced she would never see him again, and especially not in London looking as he did.
As they danced, she asked, “What made you decide to visit in such formal attire?”
He lifted a brow in the coy way she had long remembered. The sort of action that had first caused her heart to melt around him. “How else might I court you properly?”
She stilled mid-stride. “Court me?” Again, her pulse picked up pace. “Do you mean to say that you’re going to stay in London?”
“It would be deucedly inconvenient to court you otherwise, don’t you agree?” he teased.
She blinked. “Does that mean you intend to return to society?”
He laughed. “I would be sorely disappointing my mother if I went back on my word now, not to mention the exorbitant amount of funds I used to procure all of the items I’m wearing at present.” He learned forward, as if to impart a secret. “I even employed a valet.”
She found all of this quite unbelievable. “Where are you staying?”
“With my parents for the time being, but I intend to secure my own lodgings very soon.”
“This is impossible…” she breathed. She put a hand to her forehead wondering if she was dreaming, or if she’d suddenly gone mad.
He reached out and gently lifted her chin. “Not when it comes to proving how much I love you, Miranda. You were there with me during my darkest days. It’s only fair that you should be a part of it during the light, because that’s what you are to me. I stayed away, thinking that I would drag you down, but the truth is, I drag myself down. You are the one who lifts me up. I don’t want to try to survive without you. Please tell me I’m not too late to win your regard. I won’t ask for your hand again, not until you’re ready. If you never are, then I’ll be content to just be near you, to be your friend, but just don’t let me go.”
The fresh sting of tears assaulted Miranda’s eyes, but this time, it was joy and happiness, not melancholy. “Oh, Anthony…” She reached up on her tiptoes and pressed her mouth to his for a chaste kiss. “I loved you then, and I love you still. I always have, and I always will.”
Epilogue
Christmas 1818
“Are you sure we have everything?”
Miranda glanced about the bedchamber she shared with her husband of two months and had to smile when he reached behind her and enveloped her in his arms and nuzzled her neck.
“If we don’t, then we’ll just purchase it on the way to Cumbria.”
She turned in his arms and wrapped her arms around his neck. With a pensive look, she said, “Are you sure you don’t mind going back there? It won’t cause any bad memories for you?”
“Why would it?” he asked. “It’s where I reconnected with you.”
“It is,” she agreed. “But you always spoke of such fondness of the mountains and the lake and—”
He kissed the tip of her nose. “It all pales in comparison to you, my lovely wife.” His smile grew. “Besides, the last book you wrote about the night before Christmas was so well received that you said you wanted to try to duplicate its success.”
