Good Lord. Of all the places he might have started—apologies, and pleas for forgiveness—that was the best he could do? He’d hardly opened his mouth, and already he was making a mess of this.
“No. I slept very ill, indeed, but you didn’t come all the way here so early in the morning to ask me that, did you, Cass?”
Cass. Briefly, he closed his eyes. He didn’t deserve her forgiveness, but as soon as she spoke his Christian name, he knew she’d already given it to him.
“No. I, ah…” He cast about for the right words to say, but in the end what emerged was a broken, “I’m so sorry, Hattie. Can you ever forgive me?”
She went still, the crunch of the graveled path under her feet going quiet.
“Forgive you? Cass, yousavedme last night. There’s no reason in the world for you to ask for my forgiveness. It’s me who should be begging your pardon.”
“No. I shouldn’t have left you alone with Egerton. I know who and what he is. I should have been there, I should have?—”
“I brushed off your warnings about him.” Her fingers tightened on his arm. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Cass.”
He had. He’d done everything wrong, starting with ending their correspondence, and with it a friendship that meant more to him than anything else. He’d hurt them both.
“Your letters, Hattie. I know Egerton told you I showed them to him, but that’s not?—”
“Not true. Yes, I know. I never believed him for an instant. I know you would never show my letters to anyone, Cass.”
Just like that, the weight that had been pressing down on him since last night fell away, and he could draw a deep, clean breath for the first time since last night.
Thank God, she hadn’t listened to Egerton. ThankGod.
“I would never do anything intentionally to hurt you, Hattie, but I was foolish enough to befriend Egerton, to trust him. I kept your letters in a locked drawer of my desk. But one night after an evening of debauchery he found the key and read some of them before I awoke and stopped him. I ended the friendship there and then, but the damage had already been done. After that, Irealized how selfish I was. Your friendship with me was putting your reputation at risk?—”
“Wait, Cass. That’s why you stopped writing to me? Because Egerton found my letters?”
“Yes. If I hadn’t been so thoughtless, he never would have known about them. I was afraid my friendship would end up hurting you.”
“You never stopped caring for me, then. All this time I thought you found me dull, my life tedious, but those long months of silence were never about anything but your need to protect me.”
He gave her a pleading look. “I never stopped caring about you, Hattie?—”
“Hush.” She pressed her fingers to his lips. “No more recriminations, Cass.”
If she hadn’t touched him it might have ended differently, but the moment she brushed her soft fingertips against his lips the dozen years they’d spent apart fell away as if they’d never been.
She’d been his first friend, the only one all those years ago who’d truly mattered to him. For those brief months in Kent, he’d had everything he ever wanted.
Nothing had changed since then. Now, twelve years later, nothing mattered to him as much as she did. There was nothing in the world he wanted more than he wanted her.
When he looked at Hattie Parrish, he saw the future.
Everything else faded away in the face of that truth.
There was only one question left to ask, then.
What did Hattie see when she looked at him? Did she see her childhood friend, the boy she’d once crowned with daisy chains? Or did she see the man she’d grown to love?
It was as simple as that, in the end.
So, he took a deep breath, opened his mouth, and the words were already there, waiting for the chance to burst from his lips. “I’m in love with you, Hattie Parrish.”
She went still. “Cass,” she whispered, her blue eyes bright with tears.
“I’ve been in love with you for years.” He took her hand and brought it to his lips. “There has never been anyone for me but you.”
