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“Yes,” he said, quietly. “I was being a coward.”

She stood. She rose from the chair, and he was right there, and she looked at him.

The dark eyes that had been armored for so long and were no longer thus, the split knuckles he hadn’t mentioned since they left Bloomsbury, the rigid way he held himself even now, waiting for her verdict.

“I thought I had done something wrong,” she said. “For days. I went over everything, trying to find the thing I had done that made you decide I was not worth the trouble.”

“No.” He said it without hesitation. “There was nothing⁠—”

“I know that now.” She held his gaze. “I know it because it is the same fear I have been carrying. That I would say what I actually feel, and you would be civil about it, and nothing between us would change.” She paused. “I love you. I have loved you for long enough that I cannot trace it back to a single moment. And I was afraid, every single day, that you would never need that from me.”

Adam’s hands came up. He took her face between both palms, and when he looked at her, the expression on his face was one she had never seen on him before: undisguised, entirely unguarded love.

“You are not interchangeable,” he said. “Or convenient, or any of the things I told you or myself. You are not a suitable wife for a duke who needed a mother for his daughter.” His thumbs moved once across her cheeks. “You are the heart of this house. You became mine, and I knew it, and I was afraid of it, and I was a fool.” He held her face. “I love you, Juliet. I should have said it weeks ago, and I will spend considerable time making up for the fact that I didn’t.”

Juliet smiled then, her lips trembling. “I knew I loved you in Hampshire,” she said. “At the lake. You had Eloise on your shoulders for the acrobats; she had your hair in both fists. You let her have what she needed.” She pressed her palm flat to his chest, over his heart. “That was the moment. I knew it then. That I loved you. That I…love you, Adam.”

Adam exhaled, his whole body shuddering, then turned his face and pressed his mouth to her palm. Then he reached for her gown, and they undressed each other without ceremony.

Her hooks, his buttons, his coat, her sleeves; neither of them bothered with order or elegance. When the gown came free and fell, she stepped out of it. He reached for the hem of her shift, she raised her arms, and he drew it over her head in one motion.

He stepped back.

She stood in the firelight, bare, her hair loose, and he looked at her. He did not rush the looking. His gaze moved over her, simply taking her in, his hands unmoving, his breathing audible, his face entirely unguarded.

“You are extraordinary,” he breathed. He said it the way he stated things he had reached a conclusion about and saw no reason to dress up. “You have been standing in my house for months, and I have had to—” He exhaled through his nose. “I was a fool, and I wasted an unconscionable amount of time.”

She closed the distance and put her hands to his shirt, his open devotion emboldening her. “Off,” she said. “Now.”

He stripped it over his head, and she pressed both palms flat to his chest, his skin warm against her hands, and she felt his breath catch. She moved her hands across his shoulders, down his arms.

“Heavens… you’re exquisite, Adam. Every hard line of you, all heat and muscle… I can barely catch my breath,” she murmured.

He made a hoarse sound, and he kissed her.

This time, there was no pause. He walked her back to the bed, and she sat, and he came down over her. She drew him in with both arms, and when his mouth found her throat, she turned her head to give him more of it.

He drew back far enough to breathe. “Your cheek⁠—”

“Does not hurt,” she said, and pulled him back. “Come here.” She commanded in a silky whisper, and he had no choice but to follow.

His palms were soon relearning the shape of her waist before she’d fully lowered herself against the bed. But she was not discouraged; instead, she moved her hands up to his collarbone, across his shoulders, and down his arms, and when she reached the scar at his ribs, she pressed there gently.

He caught her wrist, but not to stop her. No, he just wanted to hold her.

“I should have come to you,” he said, his voice low. “That night in the corridor, when I turned and walked away. I should have come back.”

She looked up at him. “You are here now.”

He pressed her back into the bed and lay over her, and she drew him in with her arms around his shoulders, and when his mouth found her throat she turned her head and let him have it.

He moved lower. The freckles across her collarbone that he had paid close attention to months ago; he set his mouth to them again, unhurried, following the line of them from her shoulder inward. She gripped the back of his neck.

When his mouth closed over her breast, she arched off the sheets, and she screamed out loud, with reckless abandon. Adam didn’t mind. He stayed with her, his tongue finding the peak, his free hand cupping the other.

Her fingers dug into his flesh. “Adam,” she moaned low, his name as a direction.

“Hm, I hear you,” he hummed against her skin, and began working his way down her stomach.