Page 103 of Give Him a Chance

He was here. Bernard. He was actually here.

A very small part of her had hoped that when she saw him,ifshe saw him again, that all the affection would fade away and Lucy would realize she had in fact fallen in love with the idea of love, but this was not the case.

Quite the opposite, in fact.

“Bernard,” Lucy whispered.

She loved him. He had been right; she had known the him of the present, so what did it matter where he had come from or what he had done in the past? Criminal, spy, viscount, it was all the same—though she probably would not verbalize that in front of her uncle the Viscount Pernrith.

Bernard Dixon, or whatever his name was, he was the man that she loved. The man with whom she needed to be.

And that was going to start right now.

“Take this,” Lucy said distantly, thrusting her placard in her mother’s direction.

“Ouch!”

She did not wait to see what injury she had inflicted and instead stepped forward in a daze, hardly able to believe it was him. Perhaps if her mother had not spoken his name, she would have believed he were naught but her imagination, proof of her desperate need to see him.

“End transportation! End transportation!”

Lucy pushed past a pair of protestors who had linked arms and found herself mere feet from the man she loved. He had stopped shouting with the chant and was looking at her with an expression of…well, of nerves, from what she could tell.

Her mouth went dry. He was here. Did he want to see her, or was he merely here because of the protest?

That couldn’t have been it—could it?

Bernard’s jaw tightened, then he handed his placard to a lady near him and stepped toward Lucy. Every step that he took heightened the tension in her shoulder blades, and she brought her hands together before her in an attempt to prevent herself from launching into his arms.

He’s here.

But is he here for me?

Finally, he had reached her, and excitement welled within Lucy as he cleared his throat, not doubt about to say something truly important.

This was it. This was the moment that decided the rest of her life. What he said to her now was going to dramatically affect the—

“Good afternoon,” Bernard said politely.

“And I love—I beg your pardon?” Lucy said quickly, embarrassment burning through her.

How had she been so foolish as to think that the man had been about to declare his undying love to her! Had she not been the one to tell him to go, had she not been the one to disbelieve and distrust?

What on earth would have changed, Lucy thought frantically,that he would wish to be with me now?

“I said,good afternoon,” repeated Bernard quietly.

A littletooquietly. The chant was growing in volume, making it difficult to hear the man.

Ignoring all social niceties, knowing her mother would be keeping a keen eye on her but would hopefully not be able to hear her, Lucy grabbed Bernard’s arm and pulled him along the street away from the protest.

“End transportation! End transportation! End…”

“There,” she said firmly, “we can actually hear each other now.”

“I don’t think we’ve been introduced,” said the man before her lightly.

Lucy blinked. Surely… Surely, this man was Bernard Dixon? There couldn’t have been that many men in the world who were that tall and had that particular flicker of green in their brown eyes?