Page 107 of Why Do Earls Fall in Love?
Her heart swelling, she closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against his.
“You taught me with your perceptive gaze and your imagination and your laugh. With apple cake and sketches of maids. With kisses and sighs and long nights of love. That’s what we have between us, Charlotte. It’s real love. You renegotiated our agreement to get it, now I want you to come back and live up to your end of the bargain. You showed me how to love and be loved. And now I cannot live without it. Without you.”
“Neither can I. Without you, I mean. These have been the most vile and lonely three weeks of my life.”
He drew her down for a kiss. It was several, long minutes later that he drew back. “Fortunately, we have all of our lives and a thousand ways to make up for these best-forgotten weeks.”
“A thousand?”
“A million.”
“Shall we keep score?”
“Only if we change the game. I don’t want points for shocking you any longer. I want a point for every new and inventive way I can conjure to show you how much I love you.”
“Oh, good,” she sighed. “Let’s race to see who gets first to one hundred.”
“What happens when we reach it?”
“Then we keep going.”
And so, they did. Forever.
