Page 60

“But you tell me now that this is what you want,” he said. “You would have chosen it anyway.”

Frustration simmered within her. “I might have chosen it,” she said. “But it would have been different. I wouldn’t have just married you because you decided that was what was best. I wouldn’t be standing here right now wondering if you were feeling pity for me.” She swallowed hard. “I don’t think you realize how unbearable I find that idea. I’ve spent my entire life surrounded by people who thought I couldn’t fend for myself. My father was the worst of all, selecting husbands for me because he thought he had to do that, never allowing me a chance to prove that I might be able to make my own way in the world. And finally I escape his house, get out from under his thumb, and I find myself back with a man who thinks he must decide everything for me, because he doesn’t trust me enough to voice my own opinions. You didn’t tell me what had happened with George right from the start because you just assumed you knew what was best for me—what I would want and need. It never even occurred to you to include me in that conversation.”

“Yes,” Sampson said quietly. “Yes, that’s right. That’s the way it was. I assumed I knew best, and I didn’t think of asking you for your thoughts on the matter. And I’m sorry, Amanda. Truly.”

She looked into his eyes and believed that he meant it.

“That’s what I would change if I had this to do over again,” he told her. “I would tell you everything right from the start. I would tell you how guilty I feel over what happened to George, and that I’m desperate to do something to make it right. Then I would ask you what I could do for you, and I would accept whatever you told me. I’d offer you marriage, and I would hope you would say yes, but I would let you decide. And if you told me no…I would have to find some other way to heal my conscience.”

“I wouldn’t have said no,” she murmured.

“You wouldn’t? Truly?”

“No. You were right. Everything you said was right. What I needed, the way you could help me, that was all true. I did need to leave my father’s house, and I needed a home where I could raise Rose without fear.”

“If it hadn’t been for George’s sacrifice, you’d have had all those things,” Sampson said, his eyes downcast. “Don’t you see now why I felt the need to give them to you?”

“I do understand,” she said. “But truly, Sampson, I don’t hold you responsible for what happened, and I hope that someday you’ll stop holding yourself responsible too. I hope you’ll find a way to move beyond this guilt you’re carrying. You told me the whole story, and I don’t feel as if any of it is your fault. I’m grateful for the things you have done for me, to help me find my footing and move on with my life, but I never would have said that you owed me any of those things. I would have managed on my own.”

“I know you would have,” Sampson said firmly, and now he did meet her eyes. “You’re very strong, Amanda. I want you to know that I do see it. I recognize your strength, and I value it. You would have thrived if you and I had never met. But things would have been more difficult for you, and if I can make them easier instead of more difficult…”

“Yes,” Amanda said softly. “I would have said yes to you if you had told me all that.”

He reached up and rested a hand against her cheek.

Amanda’s breath caught.

This wasn’t pity. Whatever he was feeling for her, it wasn’t pity. No one looked at someone they pitied with such fire in their eyes. And then, too, there was the fact that he had told her she was very strong. She didn’t need to be told that; she’d known it—but to be told that he knew it was something she hadn’t expected.

Suddenly, it was as if all her defenses had gone up in smoke.

She forgot the fact that she had been angry. She forgot how helpless she had felt at the knowledge that he had brought her here under false pretenses, and the way she’d worried he might be another man just like her father, wanting nothing more than to make all her choices for her.

None of that seemed very important anymore.

All that mattered was the way his dark eyes seemed to hold onto hers, the way she felt as though she might slip off the edge of the world and drown. He was the only thing holding her in place, the only thing that truly felt real.

“I am sorry,” he murmured. “I didn’t mean to upset you. Really I didn’t.”

She nodded, because, of course, he hadn’t, and because holding onto her anger seemed ridiculous all of a sudden. The only thing that mattered was him.

He was so close to her. She could feel his breath on her cheek.

His eyes fluttered closed, but hers remained wide open. She couldn’t have looked away for all the money in the world.

This couldn’t be going where she thought it was going.

It couldn’t be.

Could it?

It was.

His lips met hers with a warm, slow press that somehow felt both sudden and inevitable, and Amanda felt as if her bones had turned molten within her. She became soft in his arms, leaning up against him, curving her body to meet his, and he sucked in a breath and kissed her with increased passion and fervor.

I can’t believe it. I can’t believe this is finally happening. It seems like a dream—like something I would never have believed could be real. But it is real.

She felt the cool stone of the wall against her back, in contrast to the warmth of his body. For a moment it seemed as if she might disappear into the space between them, lost in the passion of his kiss and the strange wonder that was his hand making its way up the side of her body. She found herself recalling once more the way he had helped her out of her dress on that night not so long ago, yearning, now, for him to do the same thing once more.