But none of the words made it past his lips. Instead, he blurted out the only words that truly mattered. “I came to tell you I love you, Prue.”
CHAPTER27
The eyes are the window to the soul.
A poet had said that once, hundreds of years ago, and lovers had been repeating it for centuries since. Prue had heard it dozens of times, but she’d never truly felt the truth of it until this moment, when she stood in the rain with cold water dripping down the back of her neck, gazing up into Jasper’s eyes.
He’d been shouting something as he ran up to her. She’d heard him say her name, but the wind had snatched the rest of his words and sent them whirling into the twilight surrounding them.
But she didn’t need to hear the words. Who needed words, when everything he felt for her was right there in his warm, dark eyes?
Oh, those eyes! They’d held her captive for weeks now. Even in her worst moments, when she’d been angry with him, unsure of him, she’d sought out his eyes every hour of every day they were together, and then dreamed of them at night.
How was it that she hadn’t been able to see what his eyes had been telling her all along, until just now?
“Prue, please, you must listen to me.” He was gripping her hands, rain dripping from the ends of his dark hair and trickling down his face, his thick eyelashes starry with raindrops. “I promised you I wouldn’t come here, but I couldn’t stay away. I never should have let you walk out the door yesterday. I won’t be separated from you. Not ever again, Prue.”
She gazed up at him, her throat working, thousands of words rushing to her lips, but it was too much to say all at once, so she said the only thing shecouldsay. “Thank God, Jasper, thank God.” Her voice caught on a sob. “Thank God you came.”
He let out a long, slow breath, and then he gathered her into his arms. “I missed you so much.”
She gripped the edges of his coat, holding on tight. “I—I made a mistake. I should never have—”
“No.” He pressed her closer, his arms warm around her, crooning against her hair. “No, sweetheart. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
They might have stood there forever with the rain pounding down on their heads if Loftus hadn’t alighted from the carriage just then. “Er, Your Grace? I do beg your pardon for interrupting you, but itisrather wet. Might I help you and Her Grace indoors?”
Jasper smiled, but his gaze never left her face. “Is it wet, Loftus?”
“Er, well, just a trifle so, Your Grace, but if you’d rather stay—”
Loftus didn’t get any further, because the front door swung open then, revealing Mrs. Bingham. “Oh, there you are, Your Grace! I was just about to send a footman out in search of—” Her gaze fell on Jasper then, and her eyes went wide. “Oh, Your Grace! That is, Your Graces! I didn’t realize... well, never mind. Please come in out of the wet, Your Graces!”
Jasper and Prue did as they were told, and patiently endured the usual chaos that ensued when the master of the house arrived unexpectedly, with Mrs. Bingham bustling about, sending servants scurrying to retrieve the baggage and see to the horses, all the while clucking like a mother hen.
Meanwhile, Jasper took her hand and led her upstairs to his apartments, where Loftus had already seen to it that the lamps were lit and a fire was roaring in the grate. “Alone, at last.” Jasper closed the door behind them and leaned back against it, his gaze on her.
Prue stood in the middle of his bedchamber, plucking nervously at the folds of her skirts. They were damp still, and she should have been freezing, but the heat in his eyes was setting every inch of her skin on fire.
“Come here, Prue.”
There was nothing in the world she wanted more, and she flew to him, straight into his arms. He caught her, tugging her tightly against him and sinking his hands into her hair, words tumbling from his lips. “I left Lady Archer’s bed months ago, Prue, and I haven’t returned to it since. I haven’t even been tempted. I don’t want her. I don’t know any more how Ieverwanted her. I only want you. I know you don’t trust me, and that’s my fault, because I’ve never given you any reason to, but—”
“Shhh.” She pressed her fingers to his lips. “I do trust you, Jasper. I do.”
He brushed her damp hair back from her face. “But how? How can you trust me? What’s happened since you left Berkeley Square to change your mind?”
What had changed? Nothing and everything, all at once. “I hardly know where to begin.”
“Begin at the beginning, sweetheart.”
Therewasno beginning, not really. Even now she couldn’t say when or why everything had changed, but as she’d sat on the bench this afternoon with the branches of the apple tree sheltering her from the wind, she’d justknown.
Or, perhaps it hadn’t happened then.
Perhaps she’d known all along, and had only needed a quiet moment to herself to realize it.
Jasper had never betrayed her. Not with Lady Archer, and not in any other way. She knew it, in the same way she knew that raindrops were wet, and sunshine was warm, and that she’d never before loved the scent of orange blossom so much as she did now, after she’d smelled the scent onhim. She knew it innately, instinctively, the truth of it tucked into the deepest depths of her heart.
