“Will?” he called out as he entered the clubhouse, which was eerily silent compared to the bustle of race days. He set his bag down on the floor. “Will?” he called again when he heard a footstep across the room, but it wasn’t Will who emerged.
It was Julia.
“Eddie,” she said, and his name on her lips gave him the chills.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, shocked at her presence.
“I went to Lord Torrington’s and the groom told me you had just left for the stables. I saw Will and asked him to give us a minute.”
Eddie nodded, walking toward her as though there was a wire tying the two of them together, slowly becoming more taught.
“What else is there to say?”
“Only this,” she said, determination crossing her face. “You are mine. And I am yours. I love you and know you feel the same, despite your words to the contrary. You think that you are making my life better by letting me go, but I need you to be aware that if you walk away from me again, all you will be doing is ruining a love that will never die. I have loved you since I was fourteen years old, when you saw me as nothing more than a girl. But over the past couple of weeks together, I feel as though we have come to know one another better than many people will in a lifetime. Does that seem crazy? Probably. If you feel nothing for me but some affection, then so be it. I will be a fool, but a fool with no regrets. But if you do love me – and I do not know how you couldn’t after that kiss – do not throw this chance away.”
She took a deep breath, and Eddie could see how much she had thought this through.
“So I ask you one final time, Eddie Francis,” she said, her blue eyes blazing into his. “Do you love me?”
“Oh, Julia,” Eddie said, his defenses finally, at last, beginning to crumble at her words, the expression in her face and all that had led up to this moment. He had done what he could. He had tried to push her away, to make her believe that he did not love her, but it seemed that either she was more perceptive than he had given her credit for, or that his love was so strong that nothing he could do would ever properly hide it. “Of course I love you.”
Tears began to leak from her eyes, and he lifted a hand to gently wipe them away before cupping her cheek in his palm.
“I don’t know what I will ever be able to offer you in life. I have saved nearly enough for a home of my own, and I promise I will do all I can to give you what you deserve. Some years I may have great success, others may be much leaner. My life is rather haphazard, as I find myself racing all over England, so I cannot promise much stability. But what I can promise you is this — every day for the rest of my life, I shall love you with all of my heart and all of my soul. I will never allow a day to go by without you knowing just how beautiful you are, inside and out, and how much you mean to me. I know how much you are giving up for me, Julia, and I can hardly bear to think of it, but I can no longer deny you.”
“That’s just it,” Julia said, her voice a near whisper as her lip trembled. “I am giving up nothing important, but I am gaining everything in the world.”
He swept his thumbs across her face, wiping away the tears that continued to fall, under her eyes and over her cheeks. Eddie didn’t even realize he was smiling, but he must have been grinning like an idiot at her words, for soon enough her own lips began to curl up into a smile, and then the two of them were standing there, staring at one another with ridiculous grins filling their faces.
Finally he leaned down and kissed her — and how different it was this time. Never before had he kissed a woman he loved with all his heart, all his soul. And this time, when he brought his lips to Julia’s, it was not with the desperation of their previous kisses, when they never quite knew if it was the last time they would find themselves together. No, this kiss was one of promise, of anticipation of what was to come.
Which, of course, Eddie could hardly tear his mind away from. He backed Julia up against the wall of the empty changing room, and she gasped when she came flush against it. It seemed as though she might have forgotten where she was, though after a couple of moments she shook her head as though clearing it.
“Eddie,” she said, her voice as shaky as her breath. “My whole life I have been waiting to know what it is like for a man to make love to me — and when I say makelove, I mean it, for I would never have settled for anything less. Will you… will you show me?”
Eddie swallowed hard and stepped back half a foot. He would never have imagined that Julia — his Lady Julia — would ask him such a question. His entire body shouted at him to say “yes!” and to take her right here, right now.
But this was Julia, the woman he loved, a lady who deserved the highest treatment any man could ever give her. Her first time should be in a place where he could worship her as the very queen she was.
“I will gladly show you, little one,” he said, eyeing her full lips, her beseeching eyes the color of the sky on a cloudless day calling to him. “On our wedding night.”
“Oh, Eddie —” she began to protest, but he brought a finger to her lips, shaking his head.
“We best get married soon, then, should we not?” he asked, grinning at her, and she clutched at his shirt as she nodded.
“I’m over twenty-one. We can marry as soon as we wish. Where should we go?”
“Wherever you choose,” he said with a small smile. “Though I don’t think we should go too far from your family. You are close and, little one, I do not wish you to be estranged from them.”
She nodded, her expression slightly melancholy.
“Have you anything packed? We should leave as soon as possible, to get the most out of the light of day.”
“I do,” she said slowly, and he wondered at her hesitation. “But it is at the house still. Would you mind terribly if we returned? And, Eddie,” she laid a hand on his arm. “My mother is aware of what we feel for one another, and she understands. She told me that as long as there is love, that’s all that matters. It is only my father who we may have to convince.”
Eddie smiled, appreciating the fact that Lady St. Albans had not stood in their way. Julia was right, however — he still had his questions about what Julia’s father would think of their match.
“Do you think… he would have any way to keep us from one another?”