"Clarissa." He reached for her then, his hands on her arms, holding her close. "I realize this is an extraordinary request, but I need to say something, and I need you to stop talking for just a few seconds."
Her mouth snapped shut. Her eyes were enormous with the effort it took.
"I love you," he said. "I love everything about you. I think I may have started falling in love with you that very first day we met. Before I knew your name and you were just that woman from the coaching inn who talked so fast the innkeeper couldn't get a word in." He was talking fast now too. Almost as fast as she did. "In that moment, I knew I'd never met anyone so pure and kind and passionate and lovely and… Clarissa, I love you. That's what I'm trying to say. I've loved you from the start and I've fallen deeper in love with every word and every silence and every touch and every breath. And?—"
He cut himself off when he realized her hands were pressed over her mouth, and her eyes were painfully wide and brimming with tears.
"You can talk now," he said.
She dropped her hands and opened her mouth. But nothing came out. He supposed he didn't need words though, because her eyes said it all.
The love he saw there made it hard to breathe. And he couldn't look away if his life depended on it. A soft, breathless laugh escaped her. "I don't know what to say."
He cupped her face in his hands, a smile stretching across his face. And then he kissed her.
He pressed his lips to hers, gently at first. But when she kissed him back, he couldn't hold back any longer. He tilted his head and fitted his lips over hers, deepening the kiss with all the hunger and urgency he'd been trying to dampen since that very first day.
Her hands fisted in his coat. She tasted like champagne and salt, because she'd been crying, but she was also laughing, and trying to say something against his mouth that he absolutely was not going to let her finish because he was kissing her and he was never going to stop.
When they finally broke apart, she was breathless and bright-eyed and smiling.
He brushed a lock of hair back from her face. "What are you thinking? Tell me."
"I was thinking that maybe sometimes the princess really does get a happy ending," she said. "And maybe the prince isn't so useless after all, and?—"
He cut her off with a kiss because he couldn't help himself. But he was laughing as he pulled her tight, pressing the length of her body to his, and even that wasn't enough.
He couldn't get close enough. He couldn't get enough of her. Deep down he knew that when it came to this woman, he never would.
"A lifetime isn't nearly enough," he found himself whispering against her temple.
And while it came out of nowhere, and likely made no sense at all, he felt her nod against his chest as her hand came to rest against his heart. "I couldn't have said it better myself."
25
Eventually, after several lingering kisses, endless little touches, and countless whispers of endearment—they returned to reality.
Clarissa needed Kit's help to fix the mess he'd made of her hair, but once they were fit to be seen, they reentered the fray. And this time, Clarissa actually enjoyed herself.
She and Kit wove through the crowd side by side. And now, his hand on the small of her back warmed her all the way through.
"How are you holding up?" he asked once when they had a moment to themselves.
"I'm exhausted, but happy," she said. "Although, I'm fairly sure I've used up my entire supply of polite conversation for the evening."
"Nonsense," he said. "You used it up on Lord Hartley weeks ago."
Her laughter was just a little too loud, and they had to turn away from his aunt's exasperated stare when he started to snicker along with her.
And that was how they passed the next few hours. With smothered giggles and whispered asides.
Clarissa wasn't certain her parents noticed the change in her or her relationship with her intended. But the duchess did. And she made more than a few pointed comments about how long they'd gone missing from their own engagement party, and how some propriety had to be maintained even with a couple that was set to marry.
Of course, she said all this with a wicked smile and a twinkle in her eye that spoke far more of happy approval than real censure. And so Clarissa just smiled up at Kit as he promised like a schoolboy to be on his best behavior.
And he was. For the most part. At least, until the last of the guests had departed. At that point, he absconded with her.
Well, he snuck her out into the back garden, along with several blankets and a picnic basket full of food they hadn't had the chance to eat while conversing with the guests.
