Page 69 of The Subtle Craft of Courting Kate

“Yes.” It had the tenor of a promise, a vow made only to her. “I want to go riding with you, and swim in our pond, and waltz in the moonlight.”

“Even if I have got to step on your feet to do it?”

“Especially then.” A soft kiss landed high on her cheek. “I want a dog, and a home, and children. And for that, we have got to be married.” A hoarse little laugh stirred her hair. “Your pardon,” he said. “That was…not a very good proposal. In my defense, I have never tendered one before.”

“I don’t care. It’s perfect.” The only sort of proposal she wanted. Not particularly smooth or polished, and certainly lacking the practiced charm which had made him such a prize on the marriage mart. But it had been given in love, and that made it perfect. “Yes,” she said, and turned her face to his. “Yes.” Her fingers sank into the cool locks of his hair, eliciting a sigh that feathered across her lips. That first touch of his lips was electrical, like the sizzle of the air prior to a bolt of lightning. A great release of every bit of tension that had gathered within her these last fraught weeks, fear and anxiety surrendering themselves to a blissful peace, to a solid, unshakeable joy.

As if even the turbulent sky above had been somehow moved, the clouds opened up at last and softly, silently, it began to rain.

Chapter Twenty Seven

A warm summer rain. The air turned sweet and heady, redolent of the flowers blooming in lush profusion as the soft rain drew forth their scents, and Kate drew it into her lungs with every breath.

Elliot was already stripping off his coat to drape it over her shoulders. “You’ll catch your death,” he said as he wrapped the fine wool garment around her.

“I won’t. It’s really rather warm.” She could feel the rain saturating her hair, misting upon her skin. “But your coat will be ruined.”

There was the flash of that beloved dimple in his cheek. That smile he held in reserve only for her. His fingers ran down her arm, and he collected her hand in his. “It’s ruined already. I tore it climbing over the wall.”

A laugh fluttered out; joyful, delighted, drifting like a bird through the rain-drenched air. “Did you?” she asked, charmed, as she pulled at the fabric of the coat wrapped around her, searching for the offending tear—and there. Not even on a seam, where it might have been repaired, but a rough, jagged rend that would make the whole garment fit only for the rag heap. He’d caught it on something as he’d come over the wall. A wall he’d climbed only to reach her, to plead with her for just a few minutes of her time in the faint hope that she would grant it.

Now, there would be all the time in the world. She would no longer be counting down the days until the bulk of his time was reserved for some other woman, but the days left until he was only hers.

“It’s late,” he said, pressing his cheek to hers. “You should go in.”

Not yet. She’d had done with one of them going off somewhere the other couldn’t follow. Done with the stress and the strain they’d endured. Done with the words left unsaid—and not nearly enough time in his company as she would have liked.

That was the thing about London. One had to take one’s moments of privacy as they came. To enjoy them while they lasted. And to hold fast to them as long as possible.

Kate linked her fingers through Elliot’s, relishing the instinctive squeeze of his own around hers. “I want to show you something first,” she said, and danced backward upon the rain-slicked grass deeper into the garden, tugging upon his arm to urge him to follow. “It’s my favorite place in the garden.”

“I have got a suspicion,” he said, as he trailed along in her wake, inexorably pulled past the hedgerows and into the clinging darkness, “that I know the one already.”

Yes, she thought. He would. Because they were so alike in so many ways—with the same loves, the same passions. They found peace and comfort in the same things, and here in the garden, shielded from the volatility and madness of London, was one place she had found it.

The garden was not large, but the talents of the gardeners and the loving care with which they tended to it was evident in every step one traversed. Past the hedgerows with their perfectly-pruned branches and near the rear wall, there was a private bower with a stone bench and a lovely patch of perfect green grass, where blooming wisteria had been woven overhead.

At daybreak, when the sun was newly up and the birds had come to chirp out their morning songs, one could lay upon the grass, peer up past the borders of hedges and through the overhanging tangle of the wisteria vines, and see only sky. A slice of the countryside, captured right here in the heart of London. The looming townhouses blocked from view, the soft grass beneath one’s back, and the whistle of the breeze through the leaves. In the daylight, it was lovely. But now, at night, with the glow of the moon shining bright behind the cover of the clouds, it was magical.

The cover of wisteria blossoms blunted the rain to a drizzle. Kate shrugged out of Elliot’s coat—ruined anyway, he’d said—and spread it out upon the grass. Her nightgown clung to her skin, the thin linen soaked through.

Elliot sucked in a breath. “Kate,” he said, and there was a mournful sort of longing woven through his voice, and a wealth of suffering besides. “We can’t be out here much longer.”

“Who is going to know?” she teased lightly, recklessly. The meticulously-pruned foliage did more than hide the view of the city—they hid the view from outside looking in. A tiny world which felt at this moment to have been built only for the two of them, right here in the garden.

His shoulders were warm beneath her hands as she braced her palms upon them and pushed herself up to her toes to brush a string of kisses across his cheek, down his jaw. He made a sound deep in his throat; a muted groan, as if he wrestled with himself.

Almost as if it had happened against his will, his hands settled at her waist. A shiver chased across her skin as a brisk breeze slid over her. Elliot murmured, “I told you that you were going to catch your death.”

“I won’t if you keep me warm.”

Another groan, one he could not quite swallow down before it found freedom, rumbling in the scant space between them like the distant echo of thunder. She heard him swallow, felt a shudder tremble through him as he fought to retain some semblance of nobility, of propriety. “Kate,” he said, his voice lowered by an octave at least, “I am not going to violate the trust your mother has placed in me.”

Poor, dear man. Waging a valiant and ultimately futile war against his own desires. Kate toyed with the fabric of his cravat, delicately manipulated the sodden fabric from its intricate knot and pulled it free. Touched her lips to the side of his neck and relished the sudden strength of his hands at her waist, the tight, impulsive grip of them. She slid her hands down his chest, found the buttons of his waistcoat, nudged them open one by one, spreading the fabric wide over his shirt, the fine white linen of it rendered nearly translucent in the rain.

“Kate,” he said again, and his voice sounded so dry and crackling, despite the moisture hanging thick in the air. “Katie. Please.”

She slipped the top button of his shirt free of its loop. “How soon can we be married?”