Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
"Iapologize for drawing you from your business in London," Emily began, her voice steady despite the hollow ache in her chest. "I simply thought you needed to know what was happening in your own house."
She had rehearsed those words. She had been rehearsing them for the hours between sending Peggy and hearing him arrive.
But she looked at him then, and the rest of her prepared speech died in her throat.
Theodore was a sight she had never expected to see; his coat was caked with the dust of the road, his hair was disheveled by the wind, and he was panting, his chest heaving as if he had run half the distance from the city on foot.
Sweat beaded at his temples, and the raw, frantic energy radiating from him made her pulse jump.
For a fleeting second, a warmth she hadn't felt in weeks flickered in her heart.
He had come for her. He had ridden through the night because she sent word.
She caught herself almost immediately, pulling her shoulders back and lifting her chin.
She could not afford to be touched; she had to be practical.
"I sent for you because the situation became.
.. untenable. I thank you for coming so quickly.
I know I am asking for too much, and I know our arrangement didn't include —"
Her words were cut off abruptly as Theodore stepped forward and pulled her into his arms.
It was a fierce, crushing hug that seemed to pull the very air from her lungs.
One of his hands tangled in the hair at the nape of her neck, holding her to him as if he were trying to anchor them both to the floor.
Emily froze, her hands hovering in the air between them, her mind spinning at the sudden collapse of the distance he had maintained for so long.
"When was the last time you slept, Emily?" he murmured against her hair, his voice thick and roughened by exhaustion.
She opened her mouth to answer and discovered that she could not remember.
She collapsed into him, her hands clutching the damp wool of his coat as she leaned into his strength entirely. The tears she had been holding back since George Cluett first darkened her door finally broke free, and she sobbed into his shoulder, her body shaking.
“Your Grace, I don’t think —” she tried to say.
"Stop it, Emily," he murmured, his voice a low, vibrating command against her skin. "Let’s stop pretending, shall we? You do not have to do that anymore tonight. You are not made of stone. I am here now. Do you hear me? I am here, and I will take care of everything."
At his words, the last of her structural integrity gave way.
The quiet, ladylike weeping turned into a ragged, guttural grief.
She clung to him, her fingers digging into his shoulders as if she were drowning and he was the only solid thing in a rising tide.
She cried for Frederick, she cried for her sister, and she cried for the weeks she had spent wondering if she was entirely alone in the world after Theodore left.
Theodore did not move. He let her ruin his coat with her tears, his hand moving in slow, rhythmic circles across her back.
"Shh," he whispered, pressing a kiss to her temple, the first time he had allowed himself such.
"I am not leaving again, Emily. I promise you.
I was a fool to go, but I am here now, and I will not step a foot out of this house until Frederick is back in his bed and you are safe. "
He pulled back just enough to frame her face with his hands, his thumbs brushing away the salt trails on her cheeks. His eyes were burning with a terrifying, absolute devotion. "I will find him. I do not care what papers Cluett holds or what the law says."
Emily looked up at him through blurred vision. "You cannot promise that, Theo," she said.
"I can," he said. "And I am." He looked at her directly, with the certainty she had always found both infuriating and entirely convincing.
"Why?" Emily whispered, her voice cracking. “Tell me the real reason you left. I know you lied to me.”
Theodore’s hands moved from her face to her shoulders, his grip grounding them both. The exhaustion was etched into every line of his features, but his eyes had never been clearer.
"Because I was a fool, Emily," he said, the admission coming without the usual armor of his pride. "I was a coward. I know what I said before I left. I know you heard what I said to Alistair about children. I know it hurt you."
She had been waiting for this, in the part of herself she had not been looking at, since the night she had walked away from that drawing room with the sound of his voice still sitting in her chest like something lodged.
She had heard him tell Alistair he did not want children.
She had heard it, she had walked away, and she had told herself it did not matter, that she had not come into this marriage with expectations of that kind, that she was grateful for what she had, and she was not going to be the kind of woman who wanted more than she had been offered.
"Yes," she said. "I heard you."
"I know you want children," Theodore continued, his thumbs tracing the line of her jaw.
"And I could feel us... changing. We were becoming more intimate, and I grew terrified that you would eventually want them from me.
I panicked, Emily. I ran because I didn't think I had it in me to be what a child needs. "
"But it makes no sense, Theo," Emily argued, her voice thick with confusion as she looked back up at him. "You are wonderful with Frederick. You are patient, you are kind, and he looks at you as if you hung the moon. Why would you ever think you couldn't be a father?"
Theodore let out a short, weary sigh. "Frederick is easy to love because he is already wonderful.
He was brought up well, with principles and a kind heart.
I merely stepped into a story that was already written.
A child from the beginning is different.
From the very beginning, with nothing yet formed, needing everything from you, needing you to know things nobody ever taught you and to give things you were never given…
But the idea of being the one to install those principles?
To be responsible for a soul from its very first breath?
" He shook his head. "I was not confident I could do it.
I looked at my own father, and I saw a man who failed at the one thing that mattered, and I feared I was made of the same broken parts. "
He paused. "However," he said, his lips quirking into a faint, teasing shadow of a smile.
"I have had a great deal of time to think on the road, and I have come to realize that I am, after all, Theodore Merrick.
I have managed to navigate the House of Lords, run the most complex estates in England, and survive your formidable temper.
I believe that if I set my mind to it, I can manage to raise a decent human being or two. "
The tease was a small bridge, a way to pull her back from the edge of her grief. Emily felt a tiny, watery laugh escape her throat; the absurdity of his confidence clashing with the vulnerability he had just shown.
"You are impossible," she whispered, leaning her forehead against his chest.
"I am reliably excellent," he said. "At most things. It is a burden. The excellence. I carry it quietly."
"You carry it..." she said. "...extremely loudly."
He laughed. The real one. Short and genuine, she felt it in the place below her ribs where, apparently, Theodore Merrick had taken up permanent residence without asking permission.
Then the laugh faded, and he looked at her, and it was the real look, the one she had been collecting for months, the one that had no performance in it at all.
"I have been an idiot," he said.
"Yes," she said.
"A spectacular one."
"Quite."
"Emily." He said her name. "I love you."
The silence that followed his confession was not empty; it was heavy and shimmering, like the air right before a summer storm breaks.
Theodore’s hands moved from her shoulders to cradle her face again, his palms warm against her skin.
He looked at her as if he were seeing her for the very first time, stripped of the armor they had both worn like lead.
"I love you," he repeated, the words sounding more certain, more grounded. "I love your temper, I love your sharp wit, and I love the way you’ve turned my life into something I actually want to live in."
Emily felt the last of her defenses dissolve. The heartache of the past weeks, the terror of the night, and the long, cold months of uncertainty melted away in the heat of his gaze. A soft, breathless laugh escaped her lips, her eyes shining with a mixture of relief and a burgeoning, beautiful joy.
"I..." she whispered, her hands sliding up to tangle in the hair at the nape of his neck, pulling him closer until their breaths mingled. "It seems I am also in love."
Theodore’s brow arched. "Are you, now?"
"Yes," she teased. "I am in love with a very... foolish man."
"That I am," he murmured, his eyes dropping to her lips.
"But he is my foolish man," she added softly. "I don't think I could ever love anyone else this much."
Theodore didn't wait for her to say another word.
He surged forward, his large hands sliding from her face to bury themselves deep in her hair, his fingers tangling in the loose curls at the nape of her neck to tilt her head back.
When his mouth finally crashed against hers, it wasn't the polite, careful kiss she expected; it was a desperate, starving reclamation.
Emily’s breath left her in a sharp, muffled gasp as the heat of him consumed her.
The scent of rain, expensive tobacco, and pure adrenaline flooded her senses, making her head spin.
His lips were soft but demanding, moving over hers with a rhythmic, intense pressure that seemed to ask for everything she had been holding back.
She felt a frantic tingle ignite in the center of her chest, racing like wildfire down her spine and pooling in her fingertips.
Her hands, acting on a frantic instinct of their own, gripped the lapels of his heavy coat, pulling him closer until there wasn't a whisper of air between them.
She could feel the rapid, thundering drum of his heart against her breasts, a frantic tempo that matched the rush of blood in her ears.
As his tongue traced the seam of her lips, a jolt of pure electricity shot through her, leaving her knees weak.
She leaned into him heavily, her body molding against the hard planes of his chest and thighs.
The world around them simply ceased to exist. There was only the friction of his stubble against her skin, the damp silk of his cravat beneath her knuckles, and the intoxicating, dizzying weight of being wanted.
She felt small in his arms. Every time his lips pulled away for a fraction of a second only to return more hungrily, a soft, helpless whimper caught in her throat.
Her lungs burned for air she didn't want to take, her entire being focused on the way he was breathing her in, as if he were trying to pull her very soul into his own.
When he finally broke the kiss, his lips stayed hovering just a hair’s breadth from hers, both of them panting, their breaths mingling in the air. Emily could only cling to him, her eyes closed, her skin humming with terrifying certainty, would never truly fade.
Then, his touch shifted. Instead of pulling away, Theodore began to trace the bridge of her nose and her cheeks with the lightest, most reverent kisses, his lips lingering on every tiny sunspot, every freckle.
It was as if he were memorizing a map of her face with his lips, his thumb grazing her cheekbone tenderly.
Theodore kept his forehead resting against hers when he finally stopped, his eyes closed as he fought to steady his ragged breathing. A small, boyish grin tugged at the corner of his mouth, one she had never seen before.
"That was..." He paused and slowly opened his eyes. "That was truly remarkable, Emily."
Emily didn’t answer immediately. Her gaze dropped to his lips, which were still slightly parted and flushed from the heat of their kiss. The proximity was intoxicating, the air between them still vibrating with the ghost of their touch.
"Do you want to do it again?" she whispered, leaning a bit forward.
A low, rich chuckle vibrated in Theodore’s chest, the sound warm and grounding against her own heart. He squeezed her waist gently, his eyes fluttering open to meet hers with a look of pure, unadulterated affection.
"In a moment, my love," he murmured, his thumb tracing the curve of her lower lip. "I just need to catch my breath first.”
Emily smiled, a deep sense of peace finally settling over her.
As she watched him straighten his coat, the frantic terror that had consumed her since Frederick’s leaving began to recede, replaced by a steel-cold confidence.
For the first time in weeks, she didn't feel like a woman holding back the tide with her bare hands; she felt protected, cherished, and certain that as long as he stood beside her, everything would be well.