Chapter 11 #2
Of course. She could see it. Her life would be her own, and his life would be his own, intertwining only in the ways that would be necessary to keep up the fiction of a marriage in which both parties loved each other.
Perhaps she and her sister and Peter would all live together—in a house carefully scrubbed for eavesdropping devices.
And in return, he would send her to college.
It felt as much like a bribe as when Garrett had offered it as a sweetener to his own marriage proposal. Garrett, of course, had thought he loved her. Peter’s intent was entirely different. He was giving her another deep desire of her heart and asking for that to be enough.
“I …” The word came out as a gasp. It didn’t matter that this was verifiably not the worst thing that had happened to her—it felt in this moment as if it was, and she couldn’t take it anymore. She pushed away from the table. “I need to go home.”
He jumped to his feet and put an arm around her, afraid she was on the verge of fainting. “What’s wrong?”
“I can’t—” She swallowed and seemed to pull herself together. The shaking stopped. She looked away. “I can’t have this conversation. Not now. Not until Sunday.”
He stared at her, aghast. She wasn’t unwell—she was miserably unhappy. Sunday was the end of the two weeks, when he could finally create a secure place to talk. What could she want to say to him that she was afraid the magiocracy might overhear, if not that she would never marry him?
The door opened and the waiter came in with their meals—in time to see them jump apart.
“Oh, it’s all right,” the man said with a kindly smile. “The gossip columnists won’t hear it from me. What kind of a world is it when a man can’t give his sweetheart a kiss without it making the papers?”
He’d already put the plates on the table before either of them could think of something to say.
Beatrix got in first—“wait!”—but Peter was more assertive: “Thank you very much, and we’ll be fine, no need to check on us—we’ll come out if we need anything.”
The waiter grinned. “You got it, Omnimancer.”
The instant the door clicked shut, he leaned in and whispered, “I’m going to lay down demarcation stones in this conveniently windowless room, turn off the lights and count.
On three, I will cast the shielding spell.
Then I will count again, and on three, I will cast the spell-detector. With the lights off.”
Her eyes widened.
“You understand what I’m saying?” he said, still in a whisper.
“Yes.”
He strode to each corner to drop a stone, taking her with him, clutching her hand because he was half-afraid she would run if he didn’t hold on tight. When he flicked the switch, her face—pale, pinched—was the last thing he saw before the room was thrown into darkness.
He reached into a pocket and drew out three leaves. The pulse in his wrist leapt at the sensation—his body aching to spellcast, yes, finally—but he put them in Beatrix’s hand instead.
“One,” he said. “Two. Three.”
He called out “scield!” as loudly as he could to drown out her voice saying the same thing. He felt her spell catch—her arm vibrated with it—and they stood together in the dark, both of them breathing raggedly.
“All right,” he said. “All right.” He passed her two additional leaves. “One. Two. Three. Lang rēad lēoht!”
The room lit up an uninterrupted red around them—no white remnants of spellcasting except where they stood.
He let out a relieved breath. Beatrix slipped her hand into his side pocket, pulled out extra leaves and cast two spells in quick succession, first to soundproof the room and then to undo the eerie spell-detector.
They were still standing very close in the dark. He reached out, carefully, and trailed his fingers down her jaw, hearing her breath catch.
“Peter,” she said, “do you understand what you’re doing to me?”
“Making you want to marry me despite it all, I hope?”
Her laugh was one notch off frantic. “Tell me what this atypical marriage would look like. Be specific.”
“Well,” he said, hope rising, warming him, “I won’t try to control your life. I absolutely promise not to override your wishes regarding your finances, property and all the rest.”
“And?” Her voice wavered. She sounded as if she thought there was fine print involved—something bad he was holding back.
A part of him rebelled against that. She knew him as no one else did or could. How was it that she had so little trust in him?
He thought then of the first Vow. How, indeed.
“Is there something else you want?” he asked tentatively.
“Love!” Her answer was fierce. “I want you to love me as foolishly as I love you, and I refuse to marry you under any other circumstances.”
He stared open mouthed into the darkness where she was, shocked speechless.
“Right,” she said, more sob than word. “I think I should go—”
He kissed her. It was a ferocious kiss, an I’ll-show-you kiss, a kiss powered by all the times he had wanted to touch her and could not.
She sagged into his arms for a moment, boneless, before pressing as close to him as it was possible to get.
When he pulled away, she said, “Oh oh oh,” with so much emotion it made his heart ache.
“What in God’s name,” he said, pressing his forehead to hers, “could have possibly given you the idea”—he took one of her hands and pressed it to his hammering heart—“that I might not love you?”
“Well … first off, you never said you did.”
“I frequently—”
“After the Vows were broken.”
He paused, thrown by this. “I didn’t?”
“No. And when I said I loved you, coming out of the hospital, you didn’t say anything back.”
He thought about that, trying to remember. Why wouldn’t he have … oh. “I was too choked up to speak. But surely that alone—”
“And you all but stopped touching me.”
“Because Miss Dane ordered us to behave!”
“And today, you didn’t say a word about Rydell’s column.”
“What? What did he write?”
“That you’re in love with Lydia.”
He laughed. “And you believed that malicious nincompoop?”
“Peter,” she said, very seriously, “you know how the Vows work. You know there was no guarantee that you would still feel the same way about me afterward.”
He had no counter to that. God, of course she had wondered and worried and finally thought the worst. The inability to talk freely had let this fester for days.
“You couldn’t fall in love of your own free will before, and now you can,” she added. “So yes, I did believe Rydell might be right. Why wouldn’t you have wanted the most beautiful and accomplished woman in town?”
He pulled her close. “That woman is you. You.” At her soft snort, he said, “No, listen. Besides the fact that I would never fall for someone who looks so much like your mother, there’s no one who compares with you.
You brew better than I do, you get angry crowds to see things your way, you deliver babies, you saved everyone in downtown Washington from instantaneous death—you saved me—and if you could still feel my emotions, you would have no doubt. ”
She said nothing for a moment, her arms tight around him. Then she replied, “It was just one baby.”
It seemed a good sign that she was now finding the humor in the situation, but he wasn’t willing to assume anything at this point. “Tell me you believe that I love you.”
“Yes.” She caressed his cheek. “I do. But could you explain why you were so upset when you proposed? You were. It was obvious.”
“Yes, I was. Because it had just occurred to me that you didn’t want to get married and you were being forced into it by circumstances.”
She pulled back. “What? When did I tell you I didn’t want to marry you?”
“In Croft’s shop. The very first day I came back.”
“I most certainly did not—”
“No, no, I mean—you said you didn’t want to marry anyone. That you preferred having your life and finances under your own control.”
She let out a sound that was almost a laugh. “My God, I did. I’d completely forgotten about that. So when you sat here and offered me a different sort of marriage, you meant a marriage of equals—”
“Yes, and you thought I meant … What? A marriage in name only while I cavorted with your sister?”
“That about covers it.”
He shook his head. “After all we’ve been through together, you really should have given me a bit more credit than that.”
“We’ve been through Plan B.” He could hear the emotion in her voice. “You can’t tell me that doesn’t bother you anymore. I betrayed your trust—you told me that.”
He fumbled for the switch and turned on the light. Her face was streaked with tears.
“Yes.” He took her hands. “And I betrayed your trust first. You forgave me, so why can’t I do as much for you?”
She opened her mouth to respond, hesitated, and closed it. Then she stepped into his arms and kissed him. It was a slow kiss, a full-of-meaning kiss. By the time they went back to their dinner, the food was cold.
He didn’t care.
“When will you marry me?” he said. “How about tomorrow?”
“Well,” she said, her lovely crooked smile playing on her lips, “I have so much to do still. Centerpieces to arrange and a dress to buy and—”
“Tell me with a straight face that you care about any of that,” he said, grinning.
“Not even a little! But a marriage license is rather important, and we’ll have to wait until Monday to get it.”
“Monday, then. Marry me on Monday.”
“Yes,” she said, looking as radiantly happy as he felt.