He nodded. Then he shrugged one arm out of his coat.
“What are you doing?” Her pulse spiked.
“Proving it. Now keep in mind, sweetheart, that women with power don’t panic when a man strips down before her.”
And strip he did. The coat fell to a puddle around his feet, then the waistcoat and shirt joined it. Each article of clothing sparked her pulse higher than before, and when she pulled her dressing gown closed more tightly at her neck it was mostly to keep him from seeing how each of his movements beat her heart fast, faster, fastest.
When he stood before her in nothing but bare feet and trousers, he reached into his pocket. His messy red hair hung before his eyes as he stretched out a fist toward her, opened it palm up. A lump of a rock and two rings lay in his palms—delicate silver strands twined like vines. One bigger than the other.
“Take them,” he told her.
She did, showing more confidence than confusion. She hoped.
“The rock is my token. Raw silver. I’ve had it since I was a child. I draw strength from it. Power. It never leaves my pocket. Until now. You have it now. You decide when you give it back. The rings, well…” He bent his face toward the floor between them for a moment before lifting it slowly. When his gaze met hers once more, that grin of his had reached his eyes. “Tell me what you want of me, sweetheart. And just as I put those items into your hand, I’ll give you everything you ask for. Everything in my power to give.”
She licked her lips. The token felt like fire in her palm. It felt, oddly, like Nico—a whirlwind of energy and strength, of elegance and naughtiness. She knew exactly what she wanted from him. “I need you not to die on Christmas Eve.”
“Working on it. I’m making friends with the guards. A mutiny is in the works, you see. They’ll let me in on Christmas Eve. If they do not, I’ll go back to Bowen Hall, choose another night to make magical after the guards leave.”
What a concession. He had such strong memories associated with Christmas, and she knew they drove him. He’d give them up if she asked. A bit of winter-sharp fear in her heart melted. It was easier to breathe.
Difficult to say what she said next, though. “And… I need a husband.” That only half of it. She closed her eyes and said the rest. “I want it to be you.” The words sounded so small and quiet. When she’d cornered him in her garden, she’d been brazen enough. And when she’d hunted him down in his workshop, she’d spoken her mind quite easily. Courage then had been easy, somehow. Easier, at least than now.
Now she felt like an open wound because…
Because she loved him.
In the garden she’d risked rejection but not heartbreak.
In the workshop she’d risked failure but not pain.
Now she risked it all. But she put the words into the world again.
“I want to marry you.”
He stepped closer, that small movement rolling through his muscles, a beautiful show of masculine grace and power. “We come to the rings, then.”
They still lay on her palm next to the silver token. He took the smaller one and dropped to one knee. “Will you marry me, Jane Dean?”
The damned tears were back, but she swallowed them down. “Your living?—”
“I’ve fixed it. I’m opening a toy shop in London. Sure to be a riotous success.”
She laughed, and it came out sort of as a snort, which made her laugh more. Something was bubbling inside her, leaving her giddy and light. Her winter fear burned entirely away. “I think that’s a marvelous idea.”
“I’ll be able to take on a few apprentices from the hospital foundlings. And we’ll find homes for the others.”
She nodded, incapable of speech.
He slipped the smaller ring on her finger up to her first knuckle. “Well, Jane? What’s it to be?”
“Do you truly need an answer?”
“Yes. This is an alchemist’s ring. Two of them made of the same silver on the same night. It binds the wearers. Once I slip this on you, your mine. And once you slip the other on me?—”
“You’re mine?”
“I already am.”
