Yes, he kissed her and decided they would not suit and did not have the nerve to tell her directly.
“I just wish…I wish you would have just told me that upon reflection we could only be friends. I would have understood.”
Percy frowned as his blonde eyebrows drew together. “Is that what you wanted?”
She certainly wasn’t going to confess that she had fallen in love with him. “It does not matter. You are the one who left so I owe you nothing.”
He winced because he knew that she was correct.
“I was going to wait at least another day and ask Kenley for permission to court you.”
A small bit of hope sprung from within but she quickly doused it. “Yet, you left instead,” she reminded him.
“I was forced to,” Percy answered. “Peter did not like that the two of us had grown close. When he sent you inside, he informed me that I was to leave right away. He even had a carriage brought around to deposit me in town and ordered a maid to pack my trunk while I was forced to cool my heels outside.”
None of it had made sense to her. Percy had been Peter’s friend.
“I did return two days later, to call on Kenley, the only person who could grant me the permission I sought, only to be turned away.”
Was Percy simply making an excuse to spare her feelings? “Why would Peter have any objection, or Benjamin for that matter? They know you.”
She looked into his sapphire eyes and knew him well enough to know that he spoke the truth. “I do not understand.”
He shrugged as if he did not either. “As I could not get the audience that I had hoped for, I returned to London and thought to bide my time until the following Season.”
The one where he had not asked her to dance and was warned away by Danby, who was formidable, she had to admit.
“Three people decided that I was not good enough for you and I tried to accept their decision, but I cannot. It had been my intention to approach you in the coming spring and beg for a waltz despite Danby and your mother; instead, I found you here and I have been hoping to explain.”
“Why did you wait two days?”
“If you recall that first day you walked away from me three times. When I did catch up to you in the conservatory, by your stance and irritation, I determined that was likely not the best time to explain but wait for a better opportunity. The second day we gathered mistletoe and we were never alone.” He glanced back at the door to make certain that they were still alone. “This was not a conversation that I wanted to have in front of others.”
She stared up at him, a frown on her lips and doubt in her jade eyes.
“I know that it has been a year and a half since I kissed you, Deborah, but I never stopped wanting you,” he confessed. “It is more than want. It is love. It has always been love from that first Season that I did not ask you to dance until now. I simply had not recognized what it was at the time. Not until that summer when we were trying to determine what we would be.”
She gasped and placed a hand on her heart. Percy wasn’t certain if she was happy or appalled by his confession.
“I am sorry for any pain that I may have caused you by my abrupt departure.”
She tilted her head and studied him “You love me?” she asked as if she didn’t quite believe him.
“Yes. I know I said nothing that summer because…well…I did not have permission to court you and I had never…well…been in love and it was all rather frightening.”
She chuckled and covered her mouth with her delicate hand. “Yes, it is,” she agreed.
“Does that mean…” Did he dare hope that she had fallen in love with him too?
“I hoped that you would want to court me, then felt the fool for allowing your advances after you disappeared. I was afraid that I was simply another conquest.”
“Conquest?” he asked as he reached out and took her hand. “Never that.”
“Yet you do not deny that it had been a pattern with you and Peter, to see who secured the most kisses during balls in any one Season.”
He blew out a sigh as his face heated. “I will admit that we were young and foolish at one time, but I never saw you in that manner,” Percy insisted.
She offered a small smile with a nod.
