Chapter 26
Phoebe never thought she would be so happy to see someone frowning at her, but Aaron’s frown was accompanied by his gentle hands rubbing up and down her arms, pressing heat into her through the heavy wool of his coat.
“What are you doing here?” she breathed, half wondering if she hadn’t conjured him with her thoughts.
He took this question seriously—of course, he did, she thought, almost laughing again—and frowned at her.
“Your sister already told me that she revealed my… interference with her betrothal,” he said, a slight tension in his words as though he expected to face censure for this. “I would have preferred to tell you myself, but I suppose it was unfair of me to ask her to keep a secret from you.”
It was too late for Phoebe; when she heard the words I would have preferred to tell you myself, she lit up with hope. Maybe it would crush her later—probably it would crush her later—but maybe it was better to hope and lose than never hope at all.
“But Hannah said that the contract is already signed,” she said, shaking her head doubtfully. “The matter is done.”
Aaron shrugged a shoulder, and in a less self-possessed man, Phoebe would have called the gesture bashful. It reminded her, however, that his hands were still on her arms, and this emboldened her to step just a little bit closer to him.
“Well, I wanted to make sure that she was still happy with how things were progressing,” he said, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Lady Loyd is… a strong character. I wanted to make certain that she wasn’t giving Hannah any trouble.”
Hannah, he called her. Not Miss Turner. Hannah, like she was his sister, too. And Hannah had called him Aaron.
The light inside Phoebe grew.
“Really?” she asked.
Aaron shifted his feet like she had caught him in a lie.
“I might have also hoped that I would see you here,” he confessed. “When I arrived, your sister told me that you were out here. I should have known you wouldn’t have dressed yourself warmly enough,” he added in a dark mutter.
Phoebe’s heart felt like it was going to thump out of her chest. She clutched his jacket more tightly around her, and perhaps Aaron didn’t know what to make of her silence in the same way that she didn’t know what to make of his presence here because he drew in a deep breath like he was preparing himself for something.
“Phoebe,” he said—and if they were not already married, his tone would make her wonder if he wasn’t about to propose to her. He dropped his hands from her arms and regarded her formally.
“I owe you an apology,” he said, tensed as though he expected this all to be thrown back in his face. “I have never been good with emotions, and while I have a good reason for it, it isn’t an excuse. Yet, I feel I must lay myself bare before you.”
He sounded wretched enough that Phoebe’s fingers practically itched with the desire to reach for him, but she knew neither of them would thank her if she stopped him from saying what he needed to say.
“I have long considered myself a man who got away from the war without scars,” he said. There was a stiffness to his words, but Phoebe didn’t take this to suggest that Aaron was lying. Instead, she thought he was telling the truth—a truth that was simply very hard to tell.
“But recently,” he said, clenching and unclenching his hands as he spoke, “I have come to believe that perhaps I have just been marked in other ways. And perhaps these marks have led me to… see danger when there is none.”
Phoebe was trembling with tension. They were on the cusp of something. She could sense that much. But she did not yet know which way the dice would fall. This would change them—but would it be enough?
“You were right to call me cold,” he went on, and even if he was commending the description, she cringed to think of her unkindness toward him.
“I came by it honestly. Being cold meant safety in my household when I was a child, and it meant survival in the war.” He shook his head.
“But safety and survival aren’t everything. ”
Phoebe couldn’t hold back any longer. “What is?” she asked, her voice very small.
Aaron’s gaze had been darting around as he spoke, as though he couldn’t quite manage to look her in the eye and tell her his secrets at the same time.
But now, hearing the anxiety in her tone, his eyes shot to hers, and he reached up and cupped her face.
His fingers were freezing, but she leaned into the touch all the same.
“Christ, Phoebe,” he said. He huffed a little laugh, and it bloomed in a white puff between them. “It’s you. I’ve adapted to so many things. To my parents’ neglect. To Eton—which, frankly, was harder than adapting to the goddamn navy. I survived a war.”
He let out one more small puff of laughter. “And then you came along, and you filled my home with light and laughter and happiness. You took my ice and built a warm nest inside anyway. And I bloody panicked.”
Aaron looked more and more unburdened with each word, but Phoebe still felt wound tight as a gentleman’s pocket watch in her uncertainty.
“And now?” she asked. “Are you still panicking?”
“Honestly? Yes,” he said, and her heart sank—and then he kept speaking. “I am frantic with the thought that I have caused you so much unhappiness. I am terrified that I have pushed you away irrevocably.”
He moved his hand on her cheek and used it to smooth back a strand of her hair, which he touched with the same reverence as he would use when caressing the finest silk.
“I am so sorry, Phoebe,” he said. “I merely wish for you to be happy. All you must do is tell me what that entails. I do not dare to hope for your forgiveness or your approval. If you want me to return to the countryside and leave you the house here, I shall. If you wish for something else, you need but name it. I know I have ruined any chance of being worthy of you, but I do most desperately hope that I can still do the right thing by you.”
Phoebe’s breath left her in a shudder that was practically a sob.
“Aaron,” she said sadly, “don’t you see that your offer—you’re still pushing me away?”
His hand fell away, and he blinked at her like he didn’t understand.
She shook her head, and it was like she had to dispel the ghost of his touch.
“The thing is,” she said, her eyes squeezed shut, “I understand you, Aaron. I really do. Maybe you covered your hurts with a layer of ice—I covered mine with joviality, with a constant search for adventure and novelty. I do understand. But…”
“But?” He grasped the word like a desperate man.
“But,” she went on, “if you’re still trying to send me away, then how can I trust that the ice won’t come back? How can I trust that you mean it when you say that you care about my happiness?”
The words were difficult to get out. Phoebe was almost certain that they were the words that would break her heart for good. She could see it all playing out—could see Aaron responding to the rejection, could see him leaving her here in the cold.
But he didn’t, and that one thoughtful pause meant more than she could put into words.
“You’re right,” he said.
“I am?” she asked, startled.
He nodded, the first time as though he was thinking the matter through, the second time with more certainty.
“Yes,” he said. “You’re right. I was wrong to offer to leave.”
He took both her hands in his, clasping her fingers between his, and even though his hands were still icy from the chill in the air, the way he cupped her fingers against his chest made them start to warm immediately.
“I amend my previous offer,” he said, gazing down at her with intensity in his hazel eyes. “I will not leave you here in London. I will not go where you tell me to go. I will stay by your side.”
He squeezed her hands, and it was as though he had reached directly into her chest and squeezed her heart.
“I will stay with you always. I will stay, and I will let you in, and I will keep doing it until you learn to trust me. I will keep doing it however long it takes for you to trust me because there is nothing that I regret more in this life than hurting you. And then, when I have earned it—when I have earned your trust back—I will tell you that I have done it all because I love yo—”
He did not make it all the way through his declaration because Phoebe had ripped her hands from between his, thrown her arms around his neck, and kissed him with all the passion she could no longer contain.
His coat fell off her shoulders and onto the damp ground, but she didn’t care. She kissed him and kissed him and kissed him, and the heat between them was enough to warm the city, let alone the gazebo.
She felt Aaron’s mouth go from surprised to smiling, and then he kissed her back with every ounce of anguish and passion that fueled the plea he’d lain at her feet.
“Wait,” he said, pulling back from her.
“No waiting,” Phoebe insisted, grabbing at his lapels and bringing him back toward her mouth. He didn’t do much in the way of resistance, but after another few deep, probing kisses, he pulled back again. She was really getting sick of that.
“No, wait,” he said more firmly. He held her back at the shoulders this time, as if he thought she might attack him—which, she supposed, was a fair enough thought.
“What?” she demanded when, for a moment, he just… held her there.
A look crossed his face that was far more vulnerable than it should have been, given all the kissing.
“Does this… Do you mean that you love me, too?” he asked shyly.
She laughed, bold and full of joy, then had to hastily retreat when he looked absolutely shattered. She clung even more tightly to his lapels as he tried to draw back.
“No, don’t—Aaron, I’m not laughing at you,” she reassured him. “I’m laughing at the absurdity—because yes, yes. Of course, I love you.”
He froze.
“You do?” he asked as though he scarcely dared to hope.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, yes, yes, ye—”
This time, she was the one who didn’t get to finish her words as he hauled her in for a kiss.
They really were the perfect pair. The thought was as giddy as the bubbles in champagne.
They kissed for a perfect age, but eventually, not even their newly-declared love could distract them from the permeating chill. Phoebe began to shiver in Aaron’s arms.
He pulled back. Again. When would he quit this irritating behavior?
“You’re cold,” he accused.
“Absolutely not,” she said, pulling on him some more. He resisted this time, which really emphasized how much he hadn’t resisted before.
“You’re shivering,” he argued.
“It’s passion,” she insisted.
His eyes narrowed, and she could see the moment he decided that good sense triumphed over the sensual promise in those words.
“No,” he said firmly—in that admiral’s voice that Phoebe loved so well when he used it appropriately. “We’re going inside. I won’t have you freeze to death on me. I plan for us to have a long, long future together, my darling wife.”
Well. Phoebe had no arguments with that.
Aaron picked his greatcoat off the ground and shook it out before deciding that it was still clean enough to wrap around Phoebe’s shoulders. Then, he added his arm around her for good measure.
Their steps fell into an easy rhythm as they headed back toward the house. When they neared the back door, it opened to reveal Hannah, a shawl wrapped around her shoulders as she beamed at them.
“Are the two of you finished out here?” She didn’t wait for a response. “Finally! Come inside, would you? It’s Christmas!”
Aaron smiled down at his wife. Phoebe grinned up at her husband.
“Happy Christmas, my love,” he told her.
And Phoebe wondered if her heart might leap out of her chest, as this was the most wonderful, happiest Christmas that she had ever known.