Chapter 35 #3
Sebastian crossed the space between them. “You need say nothing tonight,” he murmured. “Take all the time you require. I shall neither press you nor resent the pace of your healing. I ask only one thing.”
Slowly, she opened her eyes.
“Judge Darcy by the measure of her own character.” His voice grew quieter.
When he looked toward Darcy, the calmness left his face, revealing a love so unguarded that her heart ached beneath it.
“She is the kindest soul I have ever known. She surrendered her hopes, her comfort, and every private dream to protect her sisters. She carries guilt for wounds she never inflicted and offers compassion even to those who have given her pain in return.”
His gaze returned to his mother. “I do not ask you to love her because I hope she will become my wife. I ask only that, in time, you allow yourself to see the woman she truly is.”
His mother stared at him through tears she would not permit to fall. Sebastian bent and pressed a lingering kiss to her cheek. “I love you, Mother. Marrying Darcy does not make that love smaller.”
The words remained between them. The countess did not answer.
She returned to the pianoforte and sat with rigid care.
After several long moments, her trembling fingers found the keys.
The melody that emerged was quieter than before, a simple lullaby Sebastian remembered from childhood.
He reached for Darcy’s hand, and together they left without asking more than the countess could yet give.
Only when they stepped into the cool night did Darcy breathe freely.
Sebastian led her into the gardens, where moonlight silvered the gravel paths, roses spilled over dark hedges, and a fountain whispered beyond the yews.
The air smelled of damp earth and late blossoms. Darcy wound her arms around his neck and rested her cheek against his chest, listening to the strong, steady beat beneath it.
“I know your mother may never accept me,” Darcy said at last, lifting her face.
Her gloved fingers traced his cheek with aching tenderness.
“And I shall never blame her if she cannot. She loved your father with her entire heart and trusted him with the most vulnerable part of herself. He broke that trust most cruelly. When she looks at me, she may see the betrayal before she sees the woman standing before her. She may remember the husband who broke his vows and the woman who helped make that betrayal possible.”
A tear escaped and traveled down Darcy’s cheek. “I could never resent her for that.”
Sebastian caught the tear with his thumb, his touch reverent.
“I promise you this. I shall always treat her with kindness and respect. If she keeps her distance, I shall answer with patience. If warmth is beyond her, I shall never punish her with coldness. I will wait for whatever measure of peace time may grant her, because if our places were reversed...” Darcy’s voice broke.
“If another woman came between us and took your heart from me, I believe something within me would never recover.”
“It never could happen.” His answer was absolute.
He cupped her face between both hands, sheltering her from every uncertainty but the truth in his eyes.
“There is no woman who could turn my heart from you. I would sooner surrender every title, every acre, and every privilege of my birth than surrender the life we have found together.”
A smile touched her lips. “I know,” Darcy whispered. “I truly know.”
He rested his forehead against hers. “You once asked whether I dared choose you despite everything that stood between us.”
“Yes.”
“I hope to spend the remainder of my life proving that answer was not merely spoken in passion.”
Darcy smiled, love filling her so completely that even the ache of all they had endured seemed woven into its depth. “And I shall spend mine proving that neither of us chose wrongly.”
His answering smile was slow, unguarded, and wickedly sensual, the smile she loved above all others.
“God help me, I wish to lift your skirts and ravish you beneath the roses.”
Her laughter spilled into the garden, bright and free. “I love you so very much.”
He lowered his mouth to hers. The kiss was neither desperate nor hurried. It was slow, deep, and reverent, filled with every vow they had yet to speak before God and the world.
Held against him beneath the silvered sky, Darcy no longer feared what tomorrow might bring. There would be trials and joy and grief, because love had never promised them an untroubled life. It promised only that neither would face that life alone.
She had not been rescued from loneliness.
She had walked through it, claimed the future she desired, and found Sebastian reaching for her on the other side.
He loved her with his entire self. That certainty healed every broken place within Darcy’s heart.
For the first time in her life, she knew there would always be one place where she was wanted beyond duty, beyond obligation, beyond scandal.
She belonged, wholly and irrevocably, in Sebastian’s arms.