Chapter Twenty-Six #2
She couldn’t breathe under the scrutiny of that gaze. “No one is supposed to know who I am,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “It’s too dangerous. For Deena, too. And I’m responsible for the boy.”
“The Marquess of Stonefield?” His posture shifted, rigid. His hands dropped. He jerked back. “Your responsibility. Your stepson?” He swallowed hard.
Maisie stared, baffled by his recoil. A question she hadn’t anticipated shadowed his face.
“Faivish—” she reached for him, but he caught her wrist.
His lips brushed her hand as he breathed and pressed her fingers to his cheek, “Say my name again. I’ve lived in silence long enough.”
She did. Soft, pleading. “Faivish.”
It broke something open in him. He pushed himself upright, the lantern light catching on soaked wool clinging to the strength of his chest and arms.
Maisie’s gaze clung to him. She’d waited five years for this moment and dreamed of it. Imagined it.
He kissed her hand again, lingering—like a man drawing the last drop of water before crossing the burning desert.
“I’ve been searching for you for so long,” she whispered. She didn’t even know in what language—Yiddish, German, English—it didn’t matter. It came from her heart.
His eyes closed. “And I for you. Every day. In every face.”
For a breath, the past dissolved. It was just them.
Then—a knock.
The door opened. Rain and light rushed in, and there stood Deena, cloak drawn tight. Her eyes flicked between them, widening with dawning understanding.
She studied him—the student she once knew, transformed into this man. The West-End cut broad across his shoulders. Hair swept back, darker. A shadow of beard. Hands bearing both fine nicks and the steadiness of a surgeon.
“Faivish Blattner,” she said at last, wonder breaking into a smile. “You’ve changed!”
“And you’ve grown,” he answered softly, his eyes catching hers before flicking back to Maisie.
Behind Deena, Maisie saw the open doorway: Rachel, Raphi, Fave, even James the butler—standing in the rain. Watching. Waiting.
“Go with him,” Deena said, her voice low and sure. “I’ll stay here with Rachel. You have much to talk about.”
Maisie glanced past her. Rachel nodded—slow, warm—the kind of gesture that gave all permission.
And just like that, the door closed again.
The hush returned. Then the wheels moved. The carriage rocked gently forward.
They were alone. Wet and wounded. But together. And at last, nothing stood between their words.
*
Everything else fell away—the rain, the carriage, the years of silence.
Maisie could scarcely breathe. His coat dripped onto the velvet floor, but he didn’t seem to notice. He held her gaze as if she might dissolve if he blinked.
“Faivish,” she whispered, trembling. Saying his name felt like daring herself to exist again. His eyes burned with the same intensity she remembered—but deeper now, layered with hope and pain. “I thought I’d imagined you,” she said in a rush. “I thought I’d gone mad. But you’re here. You’re real.”
“Of course I am.” His voice was raw, scraped across stone. “You vanished. I searched everywhere—Vienna, Graz. And everywhere from there to here. There wasn’t a trace. Not of Maisie Morgenschein. Not of your father. Not even Deena.”
Her mouth trembled. “Because I couldn’t be her anymore. I had to disappear. I became someone else.”
His next question cut her like a blade. “When did you get married?” The word sounded strangled, bitter.
Maisie’s disbelief cracked high, almost childish.
“No—never.” Her hands rose to his face, sure and instinctive, her touch the homecoming she’d starved for.
“The Marquess gave us false papers. We lived in his late sister’s name to keep John, his heir, safe.
It was survival. Only that. Never betrayal. ”
“All these years…” His voice broke. “I thought maybe you didn’t want me to find you.”
She shook her head fiercely. “You. Always you. But the children, the inheritance, the danger—it was bigger than us. If anyone had known…” Her voice faltered. “I built a life without you only so I wouldn’t shatter, missing your kiss. But I never married. I never stopped being yours.”
Something in him seemed to shift. He leaned in, closing the last fragile distance.
The first kiss came clumsily, too fast—noses bumping, hands fumbling. But she smiled into it, and it steadied, deepened, became true.
And as Maisie melted against him, the storm inside her went still. Her fists curled into his coat, not to cling, but because letting go had never been so easy. She breathed him in—wet wool, cloves, the scent that had always meant safety.
His arms wrapped around her, firm and steady. For the first time in five years, she stopped guarding her heart. She wasn’t Lady Spencer or the bearer of burdens. She was simply Maisie. And she was home.
“I’ve always loved only you,” she whispered against his lips. “I promised myself I would never give that vow to anyone else.”
His eyes widened. “We were never—”
“We were,” she cut in, steady now. “We never stopped honoring that night, did we?”
His throat worked. “Never.”
Tears blurred her vision. “I wrote to you but couldn’t send them,” she admitted, voice cracking. “I didn’t know where. I didn’t even know if you were alive. So I told myself it would hurt less without goodbye. But it didn’t.”
He brushed a damp curl from her temple. His hand lingered. “No,” he whispered. “It didn’t.”
They stayed like that, foreheads nearly touching, the world hushed but for the creak of wheels and the tap of rain.
The second kiss was different. The first had been desperation. This one was reverent. Careful. A memory made real again.
His lips touched hers like a question.
She answered with a sigh, tilting her head, her hand sliding to the back of his neck. His damp curls clung to her fingers. She leaned closer.
The kiss deepened. Breath tangled. Heat bloomed. He tasted like rain and longing.
And peace.
When at last they broke apart, Maisie rested her forehead against his. “I thought I’d forgotten what it felt like,” she whispered. “But I never did.”
His gaze was steady, searching her face. “Neither did I.”
The carriage rocked gently.
“You’ve changed,” he said, wonder in his voice.
“So have you.” She brushed his cheek. “Older. Stronger. Still mine.”
Maisie looked down at their hands, now twined together. Her glove was damp from his touch, her fingers still trembling.
“I was so afraid,” she said, loathing the admission, “that if I let myself dream of you, it would break me.”
He kissed her knuckles. “Then let’s stop dreaming.”
Finally, Maisie believed she could wake—and still be whole.
*
Felix was breathless and unsteady, yet unshakably certain.
He held her when she leaned into him, her touch never faltering.
Her hands—slender, steady, familiar—rested against his cheeks like they had always belonged there.
Felix couldn’t move. Didn’t dare. He watched her lashes flutter, the damp curve of her mouth, the rise and fall of her chest with every ragged breath. She was real, here, and still his.
The years had been too long, the loss too sharp. But now, in this gently swaying carriage, she sat before him—alive, fierce, more heartbreakingly beautiful than memory had ever allowed.
“I thought I would never see you again,” he said, quieter than he meant, voice hoarse.
Maisie’s eyes lifted to his. “I used to whisper your name into my pillow at night.”
He closed his eyes. The image—her, far away, whispering his name into darkness—nearly broke him. “Maisie, I feared you were dead.”
“I could have been if the Marquess hadn’t saved us from the Burschenschaft mob,” she said. “But Deena and I got out. Papa… he didn’t.”
Felix reached for her hand. She let him take it. “I wish I had been there for you,” he murmured.
“You were doing as he asked, weren’t you? You went to India for your profession, for the skills you promised to build. And I—” her voice caught and steadied again. “I did what I had to do. For Deena. For the boy.”
“And I came back for you, but you weren’t anywhere to be found.” He searched her face. “What about the little Marquess now?”
She nodded, slowly. “He has no one else. No mother, no real relatives. If anyone cast doubt on my guardianship of his estate… he could lose everything. His fortune. His future.”
Felix’s jaw tightened. “You carried all that alone?”
“I had no choice. If anyone discovered the truth about me—about who I really am—it would be dangerous for all of us. A Jewish, unmarried woman raising a marquess? They’d call me a deceiver. They’d say I’d stolen an inheritance. They could take him away in a heartbeat.”
He was quiet for a beat, then said, “But you’re not alone anymore.”
Maisie blinked against fresh tears. “I’ve tried to be strong, but I’m so tired, Faivish. There’s always the fear someone will come and take it all away.”
“Then let them come,” he said. His voice steadied, like an oath. “I’ll be standing beside you when they do.”
She laughed—low, incredulous—and then kissed him.
No hesitation.
She leaned into him with all the trust and need she’d hoarded for years, and her mouth found his like it had always known the way. He kissed her back, steady and sure, his hands rising to cradle her face.
When she pulled away, her voice was barely a whisper. “Tell me we’re not dreaming.”
He rested his forehead against hers. “If we are, I don’t want to wake.”
She smiled—and it was the most fragile, radiant thing he had ever seen.
“Will you come with me?” he asked suddenly.
Her brow creased. “Where?”
“Anywhere. Back to the practice. To the coast. To the end of the world if need be.”
Her breath tangled somewhere between heart and mouth. “I can’t leave Deena and the boy.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
She held his gaze. “You’d take us all?”
“I’ve never wanted less than everything with you. If that means everyone,” he shrugged, “why not?”
The carriage slowed. The world waited outside. But neither of them moved.
And when he kissed her again, it wasn’t desperation.
It was certain.
The wheels groaned, the carriage moved forward, and to her astonishment, Maisie wasn’t running. She was exactly where she belonged—in Faivish’s arms, with the entire world waiting outside.