“I, ah… I’ve never seen eyes as blue as yours, Juliet. Such a deep, pure blue, like oceans and skies, and your smile is a flower bursting into bloom, or… or like the sun cresting the horizon, warming everything it touches, and… and that tiny dimple in your chin drives me mad.”
His cheeks grew warm, but he cleared his throat and went on, because the words were all there, right on his lips, and there was no holding onto them any longer, no holding them back.
They were hers. They’d always been hers.
“You’re clever, and so brave, Juliet, and… and your voice is like silver bells on Christmas morning, and even when I did everything in my power to forget you, I never could.”
She’d gone still, her silhouette framed in the window above.
“I’m in love with you, Juliet. I have been from the start, I just… I didn’t know it, because I’ve never had love before. I didn’t believe I evercouldhave it, but you made me wish for something more, and… perhaps you’re right aboutRomeo and Juliet, after all. Perhaps itisa romance, in a way, although it’s… well, I’m willing to discuss it, at least.”
He swallowed, waited, his face tipped up to the window. It wasn’t Shakespeare, or even poetry, only the incoherent ramblings of a besotted fool.
But it was everything about her that made her who she was to him.
There was a flutter at the window, the evening breeze sighing through the draperies, perhaps, but an instant later the window closed, and the lamp was extinguished. The bedchamber went dark, and the silhouette vanished.
He stood there, staring up at the window where she’d been just minutes before, his heart lost somewhere between soaring in anticipation, and sinking in despair.
What had happened? Had she grown tired of his babbling, and gone to bed, a pillow over her head to drown him out? Has she sent her sister down to scold him about the geraniums? Or were a half dozen large footman about to drag him out of the garden and send him back to Steeple Cross, his heart shattered into—
“It’s white upturnedwonderingeyes.”
He turned, caught his breath.
She was wearing a white nightdress, a shawl draped around her shoulders, her hair loose, falling in a dark waterfall down her back. “Wondering eyes?”
“Yes.
‘Asglorioustothisnight,beingo'ermyhead,
Asisawingèdmessengerofheaven
Untothewhiteupturnèdwond'ringeyes.’
That sounds better, doesn’t it?”
“It does.” He swallowed, gazing at her, and whatever she saw in his eyes brought a shy smile to her lips.
She held out her hand to him. “Come with me.”
The bedchamber Helenahad given her was far too grand for the governess’s sister, but Mrs. Norris had invited Juliet to choose whichever room she fancied, as the castle was nearly empty.
It was a bedchamber fit for an earl, but Miles didn’t look much like the immaculate Earl of Cross tonight. Underneath the scarlet waistcoat, he wore a plain white linen shirt, open at the neck. His thick, dark hair was disheveled, and his cheeks and jaw shadowed with the first traces of an emerging beard.
No flawlessly tied cravat, and no coat.
He looked softer tonight, tousled, the firelight limning his golden skin, catching the shadows at the hollow of his throat and the fine, dark hair on his forearms.
For a moment they stared at each other, then he took a step toward her. “I’ve never seen your eyes as big as they are right now. You must have known I would come for you, Juliet.”
“I didn’t know, but I… I hoped you would.”
His face softened, and his dark eyes warmed, but he didn’t touch her. Instead, he reached into his waistcoat pocket, and drew out a piece of paper.
It was the sketch she’d done of him. He’d found it.
He stared down at the paper before meeting her gaze. “Is this how you see me?”
