“There is something I must ask you, Pip.”
She settled for a small nod. She was too deeply folded into her sanctuary to manage more.
“Is this likely to happen again?”
That brought her out like a badger from a set. “What do you mean?”
He used his thumb to gently wipe tears from her cheeks. “If someone asks you to put yourself at risk for, say, your country or your family or…well, me. Will you dive right in?”
Pip gave him the courtesy of thinking about it. She felt as if she had finally done something worthwhile. She also suspected that she would have nightmares featuring that moment when her knife had flown true. When that man, who hadn’t really been a bad man, had looked right into her eyes, his own shocked and despairing and hollow, and she saw his life blink out like a night star.
She had killed a man. She had killed Matron. Oh, she had needed to do it. But their souls would weigh on hers for the rest of her life. Just how easily would they rest?
They certainly weren’t now.
But would Beau be there to help her carry the load? Could she help carry his?
“Well,” she retorted, desperately trying to keep the tone light, “I might not save you. You can be quite an annoyance.”
Leaning over, he dropped a kiss on the shell of her ear, and her toes curled. “How about now? Am I an annoyance now?”
Pip held her breath against the chills that raced through her body. “Are you attempting to bribe a different answer out of me, sir?”
This time he kissed her eye. “I am.”
She chuckled. “Well, you’re not going to manage it here. We’re about five minutes away from any of those louts out there barging in for more answers.”
There was a rather long silence in response. “What if we continued this discussion back at home?”
That brought Pip straight up to stare at him. “Who’s home? And I warn you. My parents are light sleepers.”
Lifting his hand, he stroked the side of her face, her neck, her shoulder.
“Ourhome.”
Now her heart thundered, and she was trembling for an entirely different reason. “And after tonight, what? Do I fill my days with housework and charitable endeavors while you hibernate in your study? Will you ignore me until I can coerce you into bed, and then punish me with silence for my presumption?”
“Theo would never let me.”
“We are not speaking of Theo…..” She hiccuped, a hair’s breadth away from a sob. “Doesn’t he look wonderful? Oh, Beau, he’s alive!”
Finally, Beau sat her down alongside him. “And what does that mean, Pip?”
She shook her head, so out of patience with this thickheaded lump. “It means that my oldest friend and your beloved brother is safe. That we have been granted a miracle.” She glared at him. “It means he will be godfather to our children. What did you think it meant?!”
For the first time, he looked away. Completely out of patience and frantic for a sign that she wasn’t just wasting her time all over again, Pip took hold of his face and turned it to her.
“When in my life, Beauregard William Villiers Francis Drummond, have I expressed an undying wish to have Theo’s babies? Teach me how to swordfight, perhaps. Help me decode enemy messages. Even engage in a horse race across Delamere. But never…ever…have I —nor has he, come to mention it—expressed an undying devotion or pledged to live with him till old age.” She laughed. “By all that’s holy, we would have murdered each other long since.”
Beau tensed up again. “But he has expressed a desire to marry you. He said it to me.”
Pip thought she might cry for him, wishing he had spoken to her years ago. Blast strong, silent viscounts. “Let me guess. ‘If no one else marries good old Pip, I’ll have to do it myself. She would be an asset following the drum.”
Beau’s horrified expression said it all.
Pip sighed and reached up to kiss him. “My darling boy, he only said that to comfort me in case you failed to come up to scratch. And I imagine he said it to you to goad you into doing it.”
For the longest moments, there was nothing but absolute silence in the greenhouse. Even the rustle of autumn winds didn’t reach inside where Pip struggled to hold herself perfectly still before Beau’s ambivalence. She wouldnotbeg him again, even if it meant standing up from this bench and walking away from him forever. He had to know that the choice was his. That he hadn’t been coerced by her.
