She wondered if this brave man had needed to gather nerve to ask it.
And if he was, in fact, braced to hear her answer.
What was thetruesttruth? What happened to love left behind deliberately? Was it like the weather? Did it merely spend itself like a storm, and then make way for new weather?
She wasn’t anymore the person who had loved Paul Carson for so short a time. She could not even conjure his face clearly.
But one lingering impression remained.
“What is left of the feeling now... is gratitude. He was a refuge during a difficult time.”
If Magnus wanted to know more, she would tell him. If he wanted another apology, he would not get one. She had apologized the night she’d kissed Paul. She didn’t know what groveling would accomplish. And God help her, she didn’t think it was in her to grovel, anyway. Cursed pride.
She hoped this was the end of the questions for now. Her chest felt strangelysorefrom the effort of containing emotions too big, too complex, forher heart to hold. Her arms had suddenly gone cold from nerves.
She felt as though she was awaiting a verdict of some kind.
Magnus’s gaze was thoughtful. And while there was nothing censorious in it, there was nothing particularly forgiving in it, either.
Details intruded upon her awareness during this silence. How his lower lip was a little fuller than his upper lip, and the effect was almost intolerably erotic. How if she tipped her head forward now it would likely land where his heart was beating. She imagined the feel of it, thud, thud, thud, like a battle drum, against her cheek. Despite the tension, her body seemed to be pointing out these things to her as if they were critical to know.
The breeze was suddenly a caress on her skin. For all the world as though it was taking a liberty.
Magnus’s gaze flicked to her mouth and lingered for the span of about two heartbeats, before returning to her eyes. The result was precisely the same as if he’d dragged a finger along the short hairs at her nape again. That flash of heat between her legs.
That catch in her breath.
He was a dangerously compelling man. She was certain the ways in which he was subtle and the ways in which he was not were also strategic choices.
He noticed too much.
He had taken advantage once before by noticing too much, and look where that had gotten them.
He finally gave a nod. He extended his arm, and lifted an eyebrow.
Relieved, she regarded his arm a moment, then gently, tentatively laid her hand upon it.
In silence that was more pensive than fraught but was a little bit of both, they strolled out of the statue garden, and toward his waiting carriage.
“The weather certainly turned,” he said. “Would you like to wear my coat?”
She in fact, irrationally, very much wanted to wear his coat.
“Thank you for the kind offer, but no, thank you. I think I’ll be fine inside the carriage.”
And as they walked, absorbed in separate but likely similar thoughts, she realized there was a question she had never dared outright askhim.
She remembered so clearly his marriage proposal. There had seemed little of ardor in it. It had been grave and stately and earnest.
But she recalled how softly illuminated his face had been when she’d said “yes.”
Howsatisfiedhe’d been with it all. Because he’d known he’d be getting what he wanted. Or was it something else?
Her heart accelerated.
They arrived at the waiting carriage, and Magnus made a friendly gesture to the driver indicating he ought to stay put; Magnus helped her into the carriage, and stood back.
She held the door open. His eyebrows flicked in surprise.
