Chapter Thirteen #3
"I have." No denial, no deflection. His honesty was startling, almost disorienting. "I find I cannot seem to stop."
"Is that a problem?"
"It is an inconvenience. I have spent the better part of six years trying not to observe you, and I have never been particularly successful. Tonight, I seem to have abandoned the effort altogether."
Six years. She had not imagined it, then. She had not been alone in her feelings, her awareness, her impossible wanting.
"Why?" she asked. "Why have you been trying not to observe me?"
"Because observing leads to wanting and wanting leads to acting…and acting…" He turned her again, drawing her fractionally closer. "Acting would have consequences that I was not prepared to face."
"And now?"
"Now I find that I no longer care about consequences." His grip on her waist tightened almost imperceptibly. "Now I find that observing is no longer sufficient."
The music swelled around them. The other couples blurred into insignificance. There was only Martin, his hand in hers, his body moving with hers, his eyes holding hers with an intensity that bordered on desperation.
"Thank you for the book," Vanessa said.
His rhythm faltered, almost imperceptibly. "I'm quite sure I don't know what you mean."
"The Keats. The chocolates from Monsieur Girard." She held his gaze, refusing to let him look away. "It wasn't Lord Deane."
"No." The word was quiet, an admission. "It wasn't."
"Why didn't you sign it?"
"Because I was a coward." He turned her again, his movements automatic, his attention entirely focused on her face. "Because I could not bear to have you reject even an anonymous gift. Because the thought of you knowing of you seeing how I feel…"
"How do you feel?"
The question hung between them, heavy with significance. Martin was silent for a long moment, the music carrying them through the figures of the dance.
A thought flickered through her mind, unbidden and unwelcome: How did he know?
The chocolates had been exactly right from a confectioner she had mentioned only once, years ago.
The Keats had been the precise volume missing from her collection.
She had written about both in her letters. The letters her aunt had sent.
She pushed the thought away. It was coincidence. It had to be coincidence.
"I feel," he said finally, "as though I have been holding my breath for all this time. And tonight, for the first time, I can almost breathe."
Vanessa's chest tightened. "Martin…"
"You always claim this dance," she said instead, pulling back from the precipice of that almost-declaration. "Every ball, every assembly. You always claim the supper waltz."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because it is the only time I am permitted to hold you." His voice was rough, strained. "Because for these few minutes, I can pretend that you are mine. That I have the right to touch you, to be near you, to have you in my arms."
"You could have other rights. If you wanted them."
"Could I?" Something flickered in his expression…hope, perhaps, or fear. "I have told myself for years that I could not. That you were beyond my reach. That I was not…"
"Not what?"
"Not good enough." The words seemed to cost him something. "My reputation, Vanessa. You know what they say about me. The women, the gambling, the reckless behaviour. I have not been a saint. I have not even been particularly virtuous."
"I don't care about your reputation."
"You should. Your family should. Edward…"
"Edward is not the one who decides with whom I…" She stopped herself, aware that they were in the middle of a crowded ballroom, surrounded by hundreds of watching eyes.
"Whom you what?" Martin's voice was barely a whisper.
"Whom I want."
The waltz was ending. The final notes of the music hung in the air, trembling. The other couples were beginning to separate, to move toward the supper room.
Martin and Vanessa stood frozen, still in waltz position, neither willing to let go.
"We should…" she started.
"The terrace." His voice was low, urgent. "Please. I need to say something. I cannot say it here."
She should refuse. She should go to supper like a proper lady, sit with the other guests and make polite conversation. She should not follow a gentleman onto a dark terrace during a ball.
She took his arm.
***
He steered her away from the supper room, through a set of French doors, onto the stone terrace beyond.
The night was cold, late autumn, the stars sharp and clear overhead.
The terrace was mostly empty at this hour; most guests had proceeded to supper.
A few couples lingered in the shadows, murmuring to each other, but Martin guided her past them to a secluded corner, hidden from view by a large potted evergreen.
He released her arm and began to pace.
Vanessa watched him, her heart pounding. He was agitated in a way she had never seen before, running his hands through his hair, destroying the careful arrangement his valet had laboured over. The urbane, controlled Duke of Montehood had vanished. In his place was someone raw, someone desperate.
Someone real.
"I have tried," he said finally, his voice rough. “I have stayed away from you. I have avoided your company. I have told myself a thousand times that you deserve better, someone without my reputation, someone without my history…"
"Martin…"
"I have watched you dance with Deane." He was still pacing, unable to remain still.
"I have watched you smile at him, listen to him, let him court you.
And I have said nothing. Because I thought…
I told myself…" He stopped, faced her. "I told myself that your happiness was more important than my own.
That if you chose him, I would accept it. I would find a way to bear it."
"And now?"
"Now he has spoken to your father. Now it is real." His voice cracked on the word. "And I find that I cannot bear it after all. I cannot stand by and say nothing while you pledge yourself to a man who will never…who could never…"
"Never what?"
“To be possessed with such an affection for you as I am, my heart can admit no other thought.”
The words fell into the silence like stones into still water. Vanessa could not breathe. Could not move. Could not do anything but stare at him as the meaning of what he had said washed over her.
“I have held you in great esteem for six years,” Martin said, the confession spilling out of him now like water through a broken dam.
"Since the day you threw a cushion at my head and called me an insufferable pedant.
I have cherished you through every argument, every dance, and every miserable moment of pretending I felt nothing.
And I am tired, Vanessa. I am so tired of pretending. "
Six years. The words echoed in her mind. She had written those same words, in those same letters. I have held him in high esteem him for six years. Had he read them? Was that why he was suddenly…
She opened her mouth to speak, but he continued, the words tumbling over each other in their urgency.
"I know I am not what you deserve. I know my reputation is tarnished, my history questionable.
I know your family would prefer Lord Deane, with his spotless character and his respectable fortune.
But I cannot…" He took a shuddering breath.
"I cannot watch you wed him. I cannot smile and offer congratulations while my heart is breaking.
I cannot spend the rest of my life wondering what might have been if I had only found the courage to speak. "
"Martin…"
"So I am speaking." He stepped closer, close enough that she could see the rapid pulse beating in his throat.
"I am telling you the truth, even though it terrifies me.
My heart is yours, it has always been yours .
I have always loved you. And if there is any chance…
any chance at all…that you might feel something for me in return, I am begging you to tell me.
Because I cannot go on like this. I cannot… "
"Yes."
He stopped. Stared at her. "What?"
"Yes." She was trembling…with cold, with emotion, with the enormity of what was happening. "I feel something for you. I have always felt something for you. Since the beginning, Martin. I thought…I thought you saw me only as Edward's sister. I thought you would never…"
"Never what? Never notice you? Never want you?
" He laughed…a broken sound, half sob, half joy.
"Vanessa, I have noticed nothing but you since the day we met.
I have wanted nothing but you. I have spent all this time trying to convince myself that I could live without you, and I have failed. Utterly. Completely. Catastrophically."
"Then why didn't you say something?"
"Because I was afraid." His hands came up to cup her face, his touch gentle despite the intensity in his eyes. "Because I convinced myself I wasn't worthy of you. Because Edward is my best friend, and I thought…"
"Edward wants me to be happy."
"Does he?"
"He told me so….” She had to stop, had to catch her breath. Martin's hands on her face, his eyes burning into hers as it was overwhelming. "He said that if you could make me happy, he would give his blessing."
Something shifted in Martin's expression. The desperation was still there, but beneath it now was hope…fragile, trembling hope.
"And could I?" he asked. "Make you happy?"
"I believe," She said slowly, "that you are the only one who could."
For a moment, neither of them moved. The cold night air wrapped around them, the stars glittered overhead, and the muffled sounds of the ball drifted through the French doors like music from another world.
They stood suspended in time, in possibility, in the breathless space between question and answer.
Then Martin kissed her.