The moment her words left her mouth, Caleb pressed his lips against hers. It was a gentle kiss, a mingling of warmth and vulnerability, telling her everything she needed to know. He loved her. And she loved him. He completed her in a way that she couldn’t explain; she didn’t want to explain. Because it just made sense for them to love each other as much as they did.
In that stolen breath of time, the outside world seemed to fade away, leaving only the echo of their shared affection- a whisper of promises.
Caleb broke the kiss but remained close. “You must promise me that you will always kiss me like that, always.”
“I promise.”
“Good, because it was perfect,” Caleb said. “You are perfect.”
She let out a slight laugh. “Now I know you are exaggerating.”
A clearing of a throat came from next to them, startling them both. Simone turned her head and saw General Merrell standing a short distance away.
Caleb dropped his arms and took a step back. “General,” he said with a slight bow.
The general’s eyes held amusement. “I see that spies handle the completion of their assignments very differently on English soil.”
“My apologies, but Miss Delacourt is my fiancée—” Caleb started.
He put his hand up, stilling Caleb’s words. “You do not need to explain yourself to me,” he said. “I came to thank you. I assume the earlier explosion in the gardens was your doing.”
Caleb exchanged a glance with Simone before admitting, “My friends had something to do with that. We were handling another threat that arose.”
“Well, be sure to pass along my thanks to them,” the general said. “Is it safe to assume that the threat on my life is over now?”
“It is,” Simone confirmed.
The general nodded approvingly. “It is time that I return to the ballroom and I suggest that you do the same,” he said. “I do trust that my guards gave you enough time to resolve everything.”
Unsure of his meaning, Simone asked, “Sir?”
A knowing smile came to his lips. “Fredrick explained to me that you two hadn’t come to terms with the depths of your feelings and suggested you could use some privacy on the veranda.”
Simone felt a blush come to her cheeks. Had her affections been so obvious that others had seen right through her?
As the general stepped back into the ballroom, Caleb asked, “You aren’t having any regrets, are you?”
“None,” Simone replied.
Caleb stepped forward and reached for her hand. “Good, because I intend to dance with you twice this evening.”
“I do hope that one of those dances is the waltz,” Simone said.
He brought her hand up to his lips. “It most assuredly will be.”
Fredrick and Roswell stepped out onto the veranda, feigning disappointment. “It wasn’t enough that we saved the day, but now we have to watch our friend turn sappy.”
“I have not turned sappy, and you onlyhelpedsave the day,” Caleb remarked.
With a smirk on his lips, Fredrick said, “No, I’m pretty sure we saved the day while you were having a very long and tedious conversation with Lord Hungerton and Juliette.”
“We do need to give credit where credit is due,” Simone acknowledged. “Thank you.”
“When we saw you two leave the ballroom, we followed you and we were able to intercept Victor as he left to dispatch the grenade,” Roswell explained.
“I had been hoping that was the case,” Caleb said.
“Regardless, Anette will be sad that she missed this,” Roswell stated. “We were placing bets on when you two would declare your love.”
