Page 98 of Duke of Emeralds
She drew in a trembling breath, anger giving way to something softer, more wretched. “I was prepared, you know. For you to leave. We agreed to it from the start.” She scrubbed at her eyes with the back of her hand. “But I thought—I thought you might have the decency to allow us to reach the right time and not abruptly leave.”
He kneeled in front of her, took her hands in both of his. She did not pull away. “I am a coward, Hester. But I could not stand to watch myself fail ye every day. I thought if I let ye go, it would hurt less. When ye fell off that horse, I feared I could not protect ye.”
She shook her head, hard. “It hurt more than the fall. It hurt so much I thought I would die from it.”
Thomas pressed his lips to her knuckles. “I am so, so sorry. For every pain I’ve given ye.”
She studied him for a long, silent moment. “What happens now, Thomas? Will you leave again?”
He lifted his head. “If you ask it, I’ll go. I will give ye a divorce if that is your wish. Or an annulment, or whatever ye need. I want only to see ye happy, Hester.”
She gave a watery laugh. “And what if I do not want that? What if what I want is my husband?”
His heart started up again, unsteady and wild. “Then ye have him. For as long as ye’ll take me.”
Her lips trembled. “Do you mean it?”
He moved to sit beside her, wrapped her in his arms, and this time, she did not resist. “I do. God help me, I do. I never wanted to love anyone, but I love ye, Hester Green. I love ye as much as a man can and live.”
She burst into tears and buried her face in his shirt. “You are a fool, Thomas. A colossal, unrepentant, impossible fool.”
He grinned into her hair. “That I am. But I’ll spend the rest of me life making it up to ye.”
Pulling back slightly, he cupped her face and brought his lips to hers, kissing her very slowly and with all the sweet longing of a man who had waited two months for this moment.
Hester wrapped her arms around him and leaned into him while he deepened the kiss, never wanting it to stop.
At last, they parted for breath, and she looked up at him, her eyes swollen and shining. “You broke your promise, you know. You swore you’d never make me cry.”
He wiped her cheeks with his thumbs. “Then punish me, lass. Name yer price.”
She smiled, wobbly and radiant. “It’s a lifetime, Thomas. A whole, splendid, infuriating lifetime.”
“Ye drive a hard bargain,” he murmured then kissed her, again and again, until she was laughing through the tears.
Thomas drew her close. “Still, we’re taking ye to a physician. I want to be sure ye’re not truly ill.”
She rolled her eyes but nestled into his side. “You do realize this is going to be a subject for Anna’s gossip for at least a year.”
Thomas smiled, content for the first time in his life. “Let them talk. So long as they know ye are mine.”
She huffed but did not disagree.
He rose, helped her to her feet, and caught her hand in his. She squeezed it, warm and sure.
“Let’s go home,” he said.
EPILOGUE
“Ye move again, Duchess, and I’ll be forced to tie ye to the stool.”
“If you tie me to anything, Thomas, you’ll have to finish the sketch yourself.” Hester slumped her shoulders a deliberate inch, daring him with her eyes. “I am convinced you are doing this on purpose, to avoid the burden of improvement.”
He regarded her down the length of a half-used charcoal, arms folded. The studio was a riot of natural light and even more riotous in the arrangement of its contents—Hester’s embroidery hoops and trays of silk thread tangled up with stacks of Thomas’ account ledgers, jars of pencils, and an entire menagerie of paper animals Arabella had staged for an imagined siege on Noah’s fortress of pillows.
“The only improvement I’d suggest,” Thomas said, crossing to inspect her pose, “is that ye refrain from mutiny for just five minutes.” He set his hands to her shoulders, tilting them as if she were a stubborn marble bust. “There. Now hold.”
She pursed her lips and let a beat of silence pass. “You know I hate being still.”
