Chapter 29 #3
“I want more gardens and ridiculous arguments. I want to hear every opinion you have, whether I ask for it or not. I want to lose at battledore because you become irrationally competitive whenever Lady Sophronia looks in my direction.”
Rosalind’s mouth fell open.
William could not help smiling. “I knew it.”
“You most certainly did not.”
“I suspected.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “You were supposed to be declaring yourself.”
“And here I thought I was doing rather well.”
“You became distracted by your own cleverness.”
That was difficult to deny. William ran his thumb across her fingers, his amusement softening as he returned to what he had been trying to tell her.
“Then allow me to do better.”
She pressed her lips together, but he caught the smile she was trying to hide. God, he wanted that too. He wanted years of making her look at him exactly that way.
His smile faded as he ran his thumb slowly across her fingers.
“I spent years telling myself I would only marry for love. But that was only because I never truly believed I would find it. I thought marriage meant surrendering the life I wanted. I thought it would make my world smaller. That choosing one person meant closing every other door.”
He looked toward the peach-colored light spilling through the windows and thought of the road from his dream, stretching endlessly beneath that impossible sky.
“You have done precisely the opposite.”
When he looked back, Rosalind’s expression had softened.
“You make everything feel larger somehow. Brighter. Even when you are being impossible.”
“I am rarely impossible.”
“Constantly.”
“William.”
He smiled, but only for a moment. “You are my solstice, Rosalind.”
The words ought to have sounded ridiculous. A month ago, he would have mocked himself mercilessly for saying them.
Instead, they felt true.
“With you, everything feels brighter. After everything that has happened, everything I have learned about my family and about myself, you are the one thing I am absolutely certain I want.”
A tear slipped down Rosalind’s cheek, and William reached up to catch it with his thumb.
She gave a shaky laugh. “I shall have to make a note for the manual.”
“Will you?”
“Yes. Somewhere between selecting appropriate garden paths and avoiding conversations beside ponds.”
“An excellent section.”
“I might add something about allowing a gentleman to become delirious from blood loss before accepting any declaration he makes.”
“I am not delirious.”
“That remains to be seen.”
William smiled, but he did not rescue her from the moment this time. He waited.
Rosalind lowered her gaze to their joined hands, and when she spoke again, all traces of teasing had disappeared from her voice.
“I love you.”
For several seconds, William forgot entirely about his ribs, his brother, and every uncertainty waiting for them beyond this room.
Rosalind lifted her eyes to his. “I think I have for some time. I simply did not know what to call it.”
Something tightened painfully in his chest, entirely separate from the wound beneath his bandages.
His vision blurred before he could stop it.
William blinked, but the tears gathered anyway, and for once he could not summon enough pride to care. Not when Rosalind was looking at him that way. Not when she had just given him the one answer he had scarcely allowed himself to hope for.
She saw the tears and her own expression crumpled.
“Oh, William.”
Rosalind started to rise, but he caught her hand before she could pull away.
“Stay.”
“I was only going to give you a moment.”
“I do not want a moment.”
Something in his voice made her pause. William lifted her hand and drew it toward him, and Rosalind understood. She leaned closer until he could feel the warmth of her breath against his face.
“William,” she murmured, glancing toward his bandaged ribs.
“I have already been shot. I refuse to be intimidated by my own ribs.”
A watery laugh escaped her. “That may be the stupidest thing you have ever said.”
“Quite possibly.” His hand rose to her cheek. “But come here anyway.”
Rosalind did.
William kissed her.
It was not the kiss he might once have imagined giving her.
There was no sweeping her into his arms, no clever remark beforehand, no grand display worthy of one of the romances his mother pretended not to read.
He could barely move without pain, Rosalind looked as though she had not slept properly in days, and both of them were crying.
It was perfect.
She kissed him carefully, one hand resting against his cheek while the other remained tangled with his beneath the blankets. William closed his eyes and let himself have this one thing without questioning what came afterward.
Years ago, he had made himself a promise that he would only marry for love, hoping love would find him. He would never surrender his freedom to expectations, duty, or a life someone else had chosen for him.
But love had found him, and now he understood now how badly he had misunderstood what freedom could be.
Freedom was not walking an endless road alone simply because no one could tell him where to go.
It was choosing who walked beside him.
And William had made his choice.