“Tomorrow, then,” he said. “We face the ton together.”
“Tomorrow,” she agreed. “And every day after that.”
***
The rest of the day passed in a blur of preparations.
Lady Ashworth had not exaggerated when she said there were arrangements to be made. The modiste arrived within hours, armed with fabric samples and fashion plates; the hairdresser followed soon after, clucking over Fiona’s curls; and a parade of servants came and went, carrying messages and packages and the thousand small necessities of a society appearance.
Christian, for his part, was subjected to the attentions of his aunt’s valet—his own having remained at Thornwick—who pronounced his appearance “salvageable, but only just” and set about restoring him to something resembling respectability.
It was late afternoon before he and Fiona found a moment alone.
They had retreated to Lady Ashworth’s small garden, a patch of green behind the townhouse that offered a measure of privacy from the bustle within. Fiona sat on a stone bench beneath a flowering cherry tree, her face tilted upward to catch the last of the spring sunlight. Christian stood beside her, his hand resting on her shoulder, still unable to believe that he was truly here.
“I keep thinking I shall wake,” he admitted quietly. “That this is all a dream, and I will find myself back at Thornwick—alone.”
“If this is a dream, I should rather not wake either.” Fiona reached up and covered his hand with her own. “But I suspect it is real. Dreams seldom involve quite so many fittings.”
He laughed—a real laugh, warm and unguarded—and sat down beside her.
“I never thanked you,” he said.
“For what?”
“For waiting. For believing in me, even when I could not believe in myself. For refusing to give up, even when I was doing my utmost to drive you away.” He turned toward her, taking both her hands in his. “I know what it cost you, Fiona. The weeks of uncertainty, the parade of suitors, the constant whispers. You could have moved on—by any sensible measure, you should have done so—and yet you did not. You stayed.”
“I told you I would wait.” Her voice was soft. “I meant it.”
“I know. But meaning something and doing it are not always the same.” He lifted her hands to his lips, kissing each knuckle in turn. “You are the bravest person I have ever known. And I shall spend the rest of my life trying to be worthy of that bravery.”
“Christian—”
“Let me finish.” He held her gaze, his expression suddenly earnest. “I love you, Fiona Hart. I have loved you through fear and doubt and weeks of my own miserable cowardice. And I will love you until the day I die—and perhaps longer still, if such things are permitted.”
Fiona’s eyes shone with tears.
“That was almost romantic.”
“Almost?”
“You mentioned doubt and misery. It rather spoils the poetry.”
He laughed again, and she joined him, and for a moment the weight of tomorrow’s ordeal faded away. There was only this: the two of them together beneath a flowering cherry tree, with the rest of their lives stretching out before them.
“I love you too,” Fiona said when the laughter had faded. “In case that was not perfectly clear.”
“It was clear.” He drew her close, resting his chin lightly atop her head. “But I do not object to hearing it again.”
“I love you.”
“Again.”
“I love you, Christian Hale. I love you—I love you—I love you.”
He kissed her then, soft and sweet and full of promise.
Tomorrow they would face the ton. Tomorrow, they would announce their engagement to a society that had already decided he was a monster. Tomorrow, everything they had built might yet be tested.
