Chapter Thirty-Two
Miss Scarlett Perkins was riding away from Parkhorne Hall, and yes, she was sobbing.
She had managed to keep her tears at bay until she got into the carriage.
And then she had been unable to contain the emotion flooding her.
The Perkins coachman was taking her to the nearest stagecoach stop. From there, she would leave for London, and she would never again return to Parkhorne Hall.
Yes, even when Tilly was settled there.
She didn’t quite know how she would manage that.
But she could never go back. Not when he lived there. Not when she would have to see him with his young, pretty wife.
She heaved another sob at the thought.
She hoped the coachman couldn’t hear her.
But the thought that he most probably could was not enough to stop her.
They were passing now through a stretch of road that ran alongside a meadow. With the day shining overhead, it should have been a beautiful sight.
Scarlett did not know how she would ever again enjoy such a thing. She supposed, with time, she would come to appreciate such pleasures. But at present, it was impossible to imagine.
She then heard the approach of a horse and a voice rang out.
Something about the voice made her shiver. Something of its timbre was familiar—it sent a flicker of warmth, of the radiant summer outside the carriage, through the cool darkness of her melancholy.
The carriage began to slow.
God, she thought, it must be someone from Parkhorne.
Tilly must have found her note. Perhaps she had sent George or Severn to track her down and stop her from returning to London.
Well, she could not be convinced. She was returning to London.
She could not bear the humiliation of staying in Somerset under the circumstances.
And the truth was that Tilly did not need her. Scarlett had made her life about her sister for too long, deferring her questions about her own future by paying attention instead to the neater uncertainties of Tilly’s.
She wasn’t sure what her future held; but she knew she needed to start living for herself.
Now, she just had to dispatch back to Parkhorne whatever gentleman emissary her sister had sent and proceed about figuring out what that life would look like.
She opened the door to the carriage, which had come to a complete stop. She dismounted from the vehicle, resolving to confront the situation head-on. And found herself standing in front of Mr. Malcolm Brown.
He appeared windswept—and flushed.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded, crossing her arms across her chest.
“Christ, Scarlett, what am I doing here? Coming to get you, of course. To stop you from running back to London, since that’s what I hear you are bent on doing.”
“I am not returning to Parkhorne. Certainly not under the circumstances.”
He arched his brows and smiled. “And what are those circumstances?”
She frowned. “You know very well.”
He was being very cruel, she thought. He seemed to almost be taunting her. And the bone-melting smile he was giving her did not seem like the type he should tender a woman not about to become his fiancée.
“That I want to marry you?” he said. “That I planned to beg you for your hand this very morning, before you took off in such a frenzy?”
“No,” she said, refusing to believe it. “That’s not true.”
“Of course it’s true, Scarlett. Do you think after last night I could do anything else? How could you expect it of me? Consent to be my wife. I’ll beg if you want me to. I am happy to do it.”
“Malcolm,” she protested, although she wasn’t sure why.
It was what she wanted, of course. More than anything. But a small part of her still couldn’t believe that she could be chosen. That he would choose her. That anyone would.
“Scarlett,” he returned. “I could never marry another. You must know it.”
She was aware that, yes, she had started crying. Because she realized that this scene was truly unfolding. It was really happening to her.
“I want you. No one else,” he said, taking her in his arms. “And I would give anything to have you, Scarlett.”
She was aware, of course, that they had none of the details worked out.
She had no idea where they would live or how they would manage their lives.
She would be giving up all she ever knew—her comfortable home, her life in London, all that had until a few weeks ago been familiar and dear.
It was not, strictly speaking, a practical match, and she had never been one to be impractical.
But when she looked at him, she could not think of practicalities.
She could not even think of herself as a plain, plump, hopelessly on-the-shelf lady of eight-and-twenty.
No, instead, all she could see when she saw him was the man whom she desperately loved. And who just might love her in return.
“Yes,” she said simply. “I’ll marry you.”
That was all he needed. He kissed her in the middle of the road. In the middle of a Somerset summer. In the middle of the giant muddle they had made in finding their way to one another.
And what else could she do?
She had no choice—or, rather, she had only one she could live with making.
He had chosen her, after all, but she saw now that wasn’t enough.
It wasn’t enough to be chosen.
She had wasted too much of her life waiting for that.
No, she had to choose too. She had to choose for herself.
She had to walk toward the life, the man, the love that she wanted and seize it.
So she did it.
She kissed him back.