Page 51 of A Lady's Propitious Match
The silence stretched between them, filled only by the distant sounds of the ballroom and the fragile breaths Clara took to steady herself. Christopher, however, remained by her side, offering a silent anchor amid the tempest of emotions.
The words hung in the air like a heavy mist, casting an eerie stillness over the once vibrant garden. The announcement hit Christopher with a force that reverberated through his entire being. A powerful surge of emotions threatened to overwhelm him as the realization sank in. Clara, the one he had come to cherish, was slipping away beyond his grasp.
His pulse raced, his hands trembling imperceptibly as he struggled to compose himself. The worst fears that had lingered in the shadows were now a stark reality. He had always known that their time together was borrowed, but the cruel truth cut deeper than he had anticipated. Clara, soon to be wed to another, was slipping through his fingers like grains of sand.
He could not stand that, he could not bear it at all.
In a desperate surge of passion, Christopher reached for Clara’s hands, grasping them tightly. The moonlight cast a silver glow on their entwined fingers, a fleeting symbol of a connection that might soon be severed. He stared into her watery eyes, the depths of his own gaze revealing the turmoil within.
“Clara,” he declared fervently, his voice breaking through the silence, “what we have shared — it means everything to me. It has not been just a facade, not merely pretend. I am not sure how you feel, but if I do not express this now, then I will never get the chance to. This is my last chance to speak…”
Clara stared at him, almost hopefully as Christopher tried to gather himself up. This was harder than he thought it would be.
Was he really going to do this?
He knew that he would regret it forever if he did not.
He would always look back at this moment and wish that he had acted, because this could be a pivotal moment of his life moving forwards.
That did not make it any less scary to say however.
“Clara, it is important to me that you know that I have fallen entirely in love with you, completely and irrevocably. This has become all too real for me. I do not want this to end. I do not want to lose you. I can not imagine a life without you. As I try to picture it now, my chest hurts. It aches because I have never wanted anyone as much as I want you.”
His confession hung in the air, a raw admission of the depths of his emotions. Clara’s eyes widened with surprise, mirroring the shock that reverberated through Christopher’s own being. The connection they had discovered together, the stolen moments of intimacy, now carried a weight that demanded acknowledgment.
In a sudden surge of determination, Christopher’s words spilled forth like a torrent. “If there is even the slightest possibility that you could feel the same way, Clara, we should not let this slip away. We should run, flee this suffocating reality. Let us elope to Gretna Green, marry in haste before the world tears us apart.”
It was not something that he had ever planned on doing, but as the words spilled out of his mouth, they felt perfect. He was surprised that they had not thought of this earlier.
But then again, nothing had forced them to speak their true feelings until now.
Christopher’s heart pounded in his chest, the gravity of his proposal sinking in. The air in the moonlit garden felt heavy with anticipation as Christopher waited, every heartbeat echoing in the silence that enveloped them. Time seemed to hang suspended, his breath caught in his chest as he clung to the fragile hope that Clara might choose him over the oppressive fate that awaited her.
He watched Clara’s face, her features bathed in the soft glow of the night. Her eyes, still moist with unshed tears, held a mixture of vulnerability and indecision. Every muscle in Christopher’s body tensed, as if awaiting a verdict that could alter the course of their intertwined destinies.
The weight of the impending choice loomed over them, threatening to crush the delicate connection they had nurtured. Christopher’s mind raced with the possibilities of what her decision could mean — the sacrifices she might make, the repercussions that could echo through their lives. The specter of a bleak marriage, of a future without the shared warmth they had discovered, hung like a storm cloud over his hopes.
