“Please.” He reached for her hands and gathered them in his—scarred and unscarred alike enclosing her fingers with reverence rather than possession. “Allow me to speak.”
She stilled.
“I have been considering what you deserve,” he continued. “Not what I am capable of offering—I know my limitations well enough. I am marked, and not merely in body. I am stubborn and often silent, and I carry ghosts I cannot entirely lay to rest. But that is not what concerns me now.”
“What, then?”
“You.” His gaze did not waver. There was no guardedness in it, no careful retreat. Only truth. “The life you ought to have known. The season you were denied. The suitors who should have perceived your worth and vied for the honour of your hand.”
Tears welled at once in her eyes.
“That lies in the past—”
“I cannot alter the past,” he said. “I cannot grant you the debut you were denied, nor the courtship that should have preceded your marriage. I cannot summon an assembly of admirers to prove what was always self-evident. But I can do this.”
His hold on her tightened.
“I can offer you the declaration that ought to have been made long ago. Not in haste. Not from fear of losing you. But with intention.”
“You have already declared yourself.”
“This is different,” he said, and faltered briefly, as though weighing the words before allowing them voice.
“You are not a convenience,” he continued. “You are not a consolation. You are not the woman I settled for in absence of better.”
She tried to interrupt, but he pressed on.
“When I approached you at Lady Rutledge’s gathering, I told myself I was acting sensibly. That I required a wife to satisfy a legal necessity. That you were capable and intelligent and unlikely to expect what I feared I could not give. The truth is, I was terrified.” His voice cracked on the word. “Terrified of wanting what I did not believe myself fit to keep. I constructed a fortress and called it prudence. In truth, it was cowardice.”
He lifted her hands and pressed his lips against her knuckles. The gesture was unhurried. Intent.
“And then you arrived,” he continued. “And you refused to remain ornamental. You brought flowers into rooms I had abandoned. You learned the servants’ names. You translated letters others could not be bothered to understand.”
“Those were small acts.”
“They were transformative.” His eyes flashed. “You dismantled my fortress without once declaring siege. And in its place, you built something I had not thought possible.”
Her tears fell unchecked.
“I found myself wanting,” he said. “Wanting your voice in the morning. Wanting your counsel. Wanting your presence beside me when the house grew quiet. Wanting—”
He exhaled.
“Wanting you.”
The simplicity of the word seemed to strip him bare.
“I love you,” he said. “Not as an arrangement. Not as gratitude. Not as necessity. I love you because you are you.”
He shifted slightly, still kneeling.
“I love that you chose Dante when the room expected sentiment,” he said. “You selected the Inferno over prettiness. Truth over comfort. I knew then you were not afraid of darkness.”
A startled laugh escaped her through tears.
“I love the way you observe what others overlook,” he continued. “The inefficiencies in the household. The overlooked tenants. The small injustices that would never have troubled anyone else. You see what matters.”
“I merely pay attention.”
