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“Botched the whole thing,” said the woman with her hair gathered up in a tight knot on top of her head. “Yes, I’m aware. I’m Effie and this is Helen.”
“Did you really tell him you wouldn’t marry him because of us?” asked Helen, her head cocked to the side.
“Don’t answer that,” said Nicholas before she could figure out the best way to address that particular question. “If you two will give us some privacy.”
“We’re in the middle of a train station,” Helen pointed out.
“I’m aware of that.”
“Very little expectation of privacy in Victoria Station,” Mary said from next to Jane’s shoulder.
Nicholas looked as though he wanted to gag the lot of them.
“This wasn’t how I had planned this reunion,” he said as he shot Jane a look.
“Nor I,” she said.
His brows rose. “You were—”
“About to board a train to Madeley to find you.”
One side of his mouth crooked up. “And I was going to Belgrave Square to find you.”
They stared at each other a moment before Jane lifted her hand. He hesitated only a moment before lifting his fingers to hers and touching the tips as delicately as he might the first rose of spring.
He let out a rush of breath. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again. I wanted to stay away. I didn’t think I could go through walking away from you again, but I’m not strong enough.”
Her fingers tightened around his. He might be strong enough for the both of them when it mattered, and if he wasn’t, she wanted to be there with him to lift him up. “Nicholas, I should never have pushed you away.”
“You were right. I saw you and I wanted you. I was rash and foolish. I hadn’t thought about what marriage would mean for both of us.” His other hand covered both of theirs. “Here’s my confession, Jane. I don’t just want a wife. I want a partner—someone who will walk through life beside me. That means supporting one another when we have doubts. I should have told you all of the things that you needed to hear instead of leaving you at the first sign of a fight.”
Tears brimmed in her eyes. “I never thought that I’d meet anyone who wanted to marry me. All I could see were the obstacles.”
“And I’m here to take those obstacles away,” he said gently. “It’s also why we have our little audience right now.”
She sniffle-laughed. “By both our sides.”
He leaned in, his forehead touching hers in what was probably a shocking display of intimacy. Jane found that she didn’t care one bit that passersby might be staring. Let them look.
“I think my sisters want me off their hands,” he said with a smile. “Apparently I’ve been a monster since I returned to Madeley.”
“An absolute nightmare, moping about and snapping at every little thing,” said Effie. “And he meddles. Do you know what it’s like living with a man who meddles?”
“Absolutely,” said Mary and Elizabeth in unison.
“I resent the implications there,” muttered Eric.
“Miss Hollings, Miss Helen, your brother will have told you that I was a governess until recently,” Jane said. “We would be asking you to risk your chances of marrying well.”
Effie laughed. “Effie and Helen, please. And it isn’t as though our spendthrift father hasn’t already done that.”
“We’ve no dowries, and we live in deepest, darkest Kent,” said Helen. “Having a sister-in-law whom our brother loves with all his heart is our only concern.”
“Is that true?” she asked, looking up at Nicholas.
“Is what true?”
“That you love me with all your heart?” She was beginning to make out the glow of hope right around the edges of her vision of the future. For two weeks she hadn’t allowed herself to even entertain the picture of how it might be with Nicholas, having adventures, building a life for themselves. Now, however, she could almost see the gold-tinted image. She could hardly help it, because it was a future she wanted so much.
