“Yes. Seven times, if anyone was counting. I was,” he scoffed dryly, but his eyes were tender. “I had begun to consider whether the eighth attempt might involve a ladder.”
The laugh came properly this time, startled and bright, and she watched his expression soften at the sound of it. That undid something in her, quietly and without her permission.
“Penelope.” He said her name with such deliberate care that she couldn’t help but go completely still. “I know that I have given you every reason not to trust me. I know that I have been careless with things I should have handled gently, and I know that I hurt you. I will not ask you to forget that. I only ask –”
He paused, and in that second of silence, she saw something she had never expected to find on his face. Something close tovulnerability that further broke down her walls as he continued gently,
“I only ask that you allow me to stay. By your side. For the rest of my days, if you will have me. I intend to spend every one of those days making good on every transgression I have committed against you, and I will not stop until there is nothing left to atone for.”
The tears came before she could prevent them, slipping silently down her cheeks, and she despised them thoroughly even as she felt the last remaining wall inside her give way with a quiet, inevitable sigh.
She had guarded her heart so carefully. She had built the walls high and reinforced them well and told herself that no man was worth the trouble of dismantling them. She had believed it, too.
She had simply not anticipated Cecil Wightman.
“You are insufferable,” she whispered, pressing the back of her hand briefly to her cheek.
“Indisputably,” he agreed gently.
“You are arrogant and high-handed and you sought for a wife with a list of requirements as though you were ordering furniture.”
“I did. A failing I intend to remedy.”
“And you blackmailed me.” She lifted her chin.
“The single greatest mistake of my life,” he said, without hesitation. “Closely followed by every moment I wasted pretending I did not love you.”
The word landed softly, reverently, as though he had placed it down rather than spoken it. And Penelope felt it settle somewhere deep in her chest, warm and certain and wholly unlike anything she had ever felt before.
She looked at him – truly looked, the way she had not allowed herself to in days they spent in close proximity – and saw a man who was terrified and hopeful and entirely, breathtakingly sincere.
Her breath came out in something between a sigh and a sob, and before she had made any conscious decision to move, she had closed the distance between them.
“Yes,” she said quietly, tearfully, with absolute certainty. “Yes, Cecil. I will marry you.”
The smile that broke across his face was unlike any expression she had seen from him before. It was unguarded and brilliant and made him look younger somehow, stripped of every layer of careful composure he wore so habitually. And then he swept her into his arms with such sudden eagerness that she laughed against his shoulder, clinging to him as he lifted her briefly from the floor.
“Cecil –” she gasped between laughter and tears.
“Forgive me,” he said, not sounding even slightly apologetic, his arms firm and warm around her. “I have been trying to contain myself for the better part of our conversation.”
He drew back just enough to find her face, cupping her jaw in both hands, and kissed her deeply, his touch tender as his lips moved against hers with a thoroughness that left her quite unable to remember why she had ever tried to talk herself out of loving him.
She was so pleasantly lost in it that neither of them heard the door.
“Cecil Wightman, I leave you alone for thirty minutes –”
They sprang apart, and Penelope's hand flew to her mouth. Cecil turned with admirable composure to face his sister, who stood in the doorway of the drawing room wearing an expression that managed to be simultaneously scandalized and entirely unsurprised.
“Nora,” Cecil said pleasantly.
“Don't you call my name in that tone,” she said, folding her arms and fixing him with a look that Penelope had seen on Godric's face more than once – the particular expression of a person exercising heroic restraint. “I sent you in here for a conversation, not –”
She gestured vaguely at the pair of them, looking equally frustrated and excited to hear if the conversation had yielded good results.
“I could not help myself,” Cecil said, glancing at Penelope in a way that made her cheeks warm.
“Clearly.” Nora's gaze swept between them, and her arms dropped. “Did you – did it work? Did you actually do what we hoped?”
