She found him there, amongst the grey morning light and his long-ago Westham ancestors looking down from their frames with varying degrees of interest. He was at the far end of the gallery, his hands clasped behind his back, looking at a portrait of a fair-haired man in the dress of an earlier century with something familiar in the set of his jaw.
He heard her come in. She could tell by the slight change in his posture, but he didn't turn around.
"I have nothing else to say,” he said, quietly, to the portrait.
"Perfect," Cori said, starting toward him. "You can listen to me, then."
He turned, brow lifted.
Cori had rehearsed this as she'd searched the castle for him. She knew what she wanted to say and in what order, but all of her carefully planned words dissolved the moment she saw his face.
"I love you," she said simply. And they were the truest words she knew.
His lips parted in surprise.
"I think I have for some time," she continued before anything could stop her. "And I'm not going to pretend otherwise simply because you've decided to be noble about all of this."
She watched him compose himself. Then he said, "Cori, I would hardly?—"
"I'm not finished," she told him.
He closed his mouth.
"You told me this morning that you can't give me assurances, but I’m not asking you for them. Nothing in life is guaranteed, James.” She stopped before him, looking up at him and wishing she could erase all the doubt and angst she could see behind his grey eyes. “But we go through life anyway. We make each decision as though the sun will rise the next morning, anyway. Perhaps it won’t tomorrow. But we don’t know that, not for certain. And I’m not going to live my life by what might happen, not when what I want is standing directly in front of me.”
He looked at her for a long moment, something working behind his eyes. "I can't ask this of you," he finally said.
"You're not asking," she told him. "I'm deciding my future. There’s a difference."
His mouth moved. Not quite a smile, but something in that direction, and she felt the warmth of it from just a few feet away. "Cori," he said softly and reached his hand out toward her. "I don’t know what I can offer you."
“Your heart,” she said simply, squeezing his hand and reveling in the warmth that filled her. “That’s all I want for as long as we have.”
"We?" he said as though he still didn’t believe her.
"We," she confirmed with a nod.
He looked at her for a moment longer, and what crossed his face then was something she hadn't seen there before. Not the careful composure. Not the weight he usually carried. Something quieter and more open than either. It looked very much like hope. Then, quietly, he said, "I should’ve found you last night, Cori."
She couldn’t help but smile at that. "Yes, you should have."
"You are," he began, "the most clear-eyed woman I’ve ever met, do you know that?"
"I’ve heard something along those lines before.”
“Have you?” His grey eyes twinkled just so. “Then I shall have to try for something more original.” He lifted her fingers to his lips. “Corinna Beckett, I love you.”
Then he drew her into his arms and kissed her properly.
James wasn’t certain how it had all happened. How she’d found him. How she’d professed her love for him. Or how he’d dared do the same in return. But he wasn’t sorry for any of it, even if it made him a fool. He was, quite simply, done fighting it.
He held her against him as she kissed him back and everything else faded away.
He loved her. She made him smile. She made him happy. She made him live in the moment and revel in every second of it.
When he finally pulled back, Cori was looking at him with her clear blue eyes and her composure didn’t seem entirely intact. That was only fair, of course, as he wasn’t completely composed either.
"We," he said again, liking the sound of the word on his lips.
