Chapter Nineteen
He stepped back.
Of everything Adrian had done for her, that small movement was the thing that nearly undid Ophelia. She had to swallow hard against the sudden thickness rising in her throat.
All her life, men had crowded her with their decisions. Her father had chosen a husband. Markham had chosen the use he would make of her. Even love had too often reached her as a future already arranged.
Adrian had opened what doors he could and then stepped away from the last one, leaving her to choose it for herself.
Before the society that had treated her as only a prize, he waited for her answer.
No one spoke. The musicians had fallen silent, and the dancers stood motionless upon the polished floor.
Ophelia could feel the attention of the room, but for once it did not press her smaller.
She had stood before them wearing her mother’s legacy and named Markham’s deceit.
She had been seen, and it had not destroyed her.
She looked down at the shining bangles on her wrists.
Shirin had worn them in English drawing rooms where women stared and men whispered. She had worn them without apology, refusing to allow England to teach her silence. Ophelia had hidden them for five years, believing safety required the concealment of everything that named her.
She would hide nothing now.
Ophelia raised her eyes to Adrian. He stood with his hands behind him, his whole heart on his face, and a clear space of floor between them.
She crossed it herself in three quick steps, and he took his hands from behind his back and held them out to her, hope dawning in his expression.
“Yes,” she said.
The word came out thin, her throat tight with emotion, and she took his offered hands before saying it again.
“Yes. Not because you rescued me, and not because I require a duke to make me safe. Because I choose you, Adrian. Freely, and with my whole heart.”
His careful composure gave way, and joy broke over his face, utterly unguarded.
Around them, the room erupted a rush of whispers. Ophelia scarcely heard it.
Adrian lifted her hands but did not draw her closer. “You are certain?”
She almost laughed. “Do not become tiresome now.”
“I have always had a talent for it, I am told.”
“I am certain.” She let her happiness show in full on her face. “And yet, in full awareness of your tiresomeness, I still choose you.”
Only then did his fingers close fully around hers.
Josiah approached them. His eyes were red, and for a moment the old uncertainty returned to his face, as though he did not know what authority remained to him.
“Ophelia,” he said hesitantly.
She turned towards him.
“I have no right to give permission,” he said. “I understand that now. But if you still want your father’s blessing, you have it. For what it is worth, and without condition.”
Nothing between them was mended, not yet, and no promise had been made that it ever fully would be. Still, she thought, a beginning was no small thing.
“I want it,” she said.
Her father bent and kissed her forehead. When he straightened, he offered his hand to Adrian, who freed one to shake it. “Honour her.”
“I will.”
Ophelia tightened her hold upon Adrian’s other hand.
“And listen to her,” Josiah added.
Adrian’s crooked smile appeared. “She generally makes that unavoidable.”
Lady Daventry reached them next. The crowd watched her almost as closely as they had watched the proposal.
“My party appears to have improved itself beyond anything I planned,” she said.
Adrian kissed her cheek. “You always said I lacked ambition.”
“I did not mean you to display it all in one evening.”
She looked at Ophelia. For an instant uncertainty passed between them, the memory of every cost Lady Daventry had named.
Then the Marchioness held out both hands.
“Welcome to the family, my dear.”
Ophelia accepted them.
Lady Daventry kissed her cheek before turning to the company.
“I cannot imagine why the musicians have stopped. We have an engagement to celebrate and a Twelfth Night cake to cut.”
The words gave the room its instructions.
Conversation rose at once, laughter tangling with congratulations while fashionable opinion quietly rearranged itself.
Those who had arrived eager to witness Ophelia’s humiliation now came forward to admire her courage, her gown, and, most of all, her bangles.
Miss Pettibone emerged from the company in tears and caught both Ophelia and Adrian in an indiscriminate embrace.
“I knew it,” she declared. “From the very first. The moment His Grace became entangled in the wool.”
“You said it was the holly,” Adrian reminded her.
“The wool came before the holly. I knew it twice.”
Sir Hugh rescued her before she could explain further. Lady Elise remained a few paces away, one hand pressed to her mouth and tears bright in her sharp eyes.
Ophelia went to her. “You were right,” she said. “That the door would open.”
Elise drew her into an embrace. “Your mother knew it would. I wish she was here to see you, dearest girl. Shirin would have been so very proud.”
For a little while, Ophelia allowed the room to claim her.
She accepted congratulations, endured the transparent revisions of former critics, and related the history and provenance of her mother’s bangles to a covetous duchess who all but ordered her long-suffering husband to set sail for India immediately to source some for her.
Adrian stayed near without hovering. Whenever she looked for him, she found him watching, but he did not rescue her from conversations she could now manage herself.
At last Lady Elise took pity on them.
“The library is empty,” she said. “The door will remain open, and if either of you causes another scandal tonight, I shall send Pettibone to supervise.”
Adrian offered Ophelia his arm.
“That is the most terrifying threat I have heard all evening.”
They escaped before Elise could reconsider.
The library was dark except for the fire and the light entering from the hall. Someone had left a book open on the reading table, and the smell of leather and old paper hung under the smoke of the hearth. Music began again in the ballroom, softened by the half-open door.
For the first time since Adrian had proposed, they were nearly alone.
He closed the door by another inch, then turned towards her.
“I had a speech.”
“I enjoyed it.”
“That was the shortened version. I rehearsed the other for two nights.”
“Did you? I am glad you forgot it. it would have been insufferable, like enough.” She could not keep the smile from her face as she teased him.
“Cruel woman.”
She sobered. “You stepped back. That said everything I needed, without pretty words to wrap it in.”
His expression was soft. “And you crossed the distance.”
“I did.”
He lifted his hand to her face, giving her time to turn away. She placed her palm over his and held it against her cheek.
Then he bent his head.
Their first kiss was nothing like the almost-kiss in the croft, or the one beneath the kissing bough. There was no storm to blame, no cold driving them together, and no fear that either had mistaken the other’s choice.
His mouth touched hers gently. Ophelia rose on her tiptoes to meet him.
The kiss deepened only by a breath, warm and wondering, before he drew back far enough to look at her.
“You are still certain?”
She put both hands around his neck.
“Very tiresome.”
This time she kissed him.
Beyond the open door, a shout went up as the Twelfth Night cake was cut and Miss Pettibone discovered the pea. Her voice rose above the laughter, demanding the privileges due to the Lady of Misrule.
Ophelia smiled against Adrian’s mouth.
“Lady of Misrule, indeed,” he said, laughing. “Shall we leave her in charge of our wedding arrangements?”