“Elias—”
“No, hear me out.” He crossed the space between them and leaned forward until her cocoa-scented breath whirled across his face. “I don’t want you. I love you, and that love surpasses all want in such a way I could never have you and still feel at peace. I could throw rice at your wedding, hold your firstborn, watch you live without me . . . and I’d handle it all perfectly well because love—this tether binding me to you—would endure.”
Josephine looked up, her eyes glistening with tears.
“But I’d rather not do those things,” Elias whispered. He cupped her cheeks, anchoring his forefingers behind her ears. “Don’t marry Sebastian.”
The words coursed with ease as if they’d been inside him all along. He should’ve spoken them months ago, before that moment in the hallway, before each attempt to distance himself.
“How dare you burden me with this,” Josephine wheezed. She grabbed his wrist and dragged him into the shadows, away from the ballroom. “Do you expect me to break my promise to Sebastian and his family? I gave my word—”
“You’re a pawn to them,” Elias said. “They don’t care about you.”
A sob grated in the back of her throat. She tensed, her lips pursing. “Do not pretend you’re any different. If someone else had kissed you at that party, you—”
“What? You think me so easily won by a kiss?”
Josephine crossed her arms. She gazed at the sprawl of hills and gardens, her eyelids drooping from exhaustion. Was she enraged by his confession or that he’d waited until now to give it? Did she feel the same about him?
“You must know,” he whispered. “What I feel for you isn’t founded on a kiss. I’m certain, because I spent weeks thinking about what might’ve happened if it hadn’t been us that night. I debated and contemplated, but then I looked at you and all logic melted away. It wasn’t the kiss that changed me. It was you, Josephine, when you became my friend.”
Elias sagged against the manor’s stone exterior. He shivered. A new cold with teeth seemed to infuse the air. It chewed through his tailcoat, stung his nostrils, and nipped at his skin. It filled his mouth with a bitter taste.
The landscape appeared menacing from where he stood. Winter smudged the estate into a chalky smear. Gentlefolk prowled the maze of mirrors, their merriment echoing like parish bells. But where the torchlight ended, a savage darkness began, coating the moors with a gloom blacker than tar. If someone ventured beyond the fire’s glow, they might not find their way back.
Josephine sighed when a dull melody vibrated from the house. She turned to face Elias, her expression begging him not to quarrel with her anymore.
“I’m sorry for waiting until now,” he said.
“You’re sorry?”
“Please, Josephine—”
“No. No, you can’t say all this and expect me to . . . I don’t even know what you want from me. We spent weeks together. You could’ve told me about your feelings a long time ago, but you didn’t. You let me go on pretending that I didn’t loathe Sebastian, that I’d happily become Mrs. Darling, when all I wanted—and despised myself for wanting—was you. But you were my friend. I understood you couldn’t marry me. I accepted our situation—”
“Josephine.” Elias launched off the wall. He grabbed her shoulders and drew her close, his arms shaking. “I’m sorry. I am.”
She opened her mouth to speak but stopped when guests emerged from the ballroom, all laughing at high volume. Elias motioned for her to follow him beneath a pergola of ivy and icicles. They hurried into thicker shadows, where ribbons of torchlight sliced through foliage.
Josephine leaned against a lattice and watched Elias pace. “Do you mean it?” she whispered, her bottom lip quivering. “You love me, then?”
He nodded. “I love you, then.”
“And you want to marry me?”
“Yes.” Elias walked forward until their shoes touched. He propped his forearm on the lattice, curving over Josephine, close enough to feel the heat radiating from her body. “When I look back at my life, all the good moments . . . you’re in every one of them. And I’d rather face a thousand bad moments with you than experience one good with anyone else.”
“What about your father? He won’t accept me—”
“I think he might.”
Josephine sniffled and reached for Elias’s hand. She laced their fingers, her grip tight as though she feared he’d leave. “Time doesn’t work in our favour, does it?”
“No, time understood what it was doing,” Elias said. The hoping, the longing, every twinge of heartbreak had changed him for the better. It had brought him and Josephine to this moment despite the odds. That’s how he knew . . .
They would be together at the end.
“You haven’t asked me.” Josephine drew a breath and held it captive. She tilted back her head, the pergola’s shadows like a mask on her face.
“Should I ask you?”
“What would happen if you did?”
He smiled, his heart racing out of control. “If I asked and you said yes, I’d talk to Sebastian and beg for his blessing. I would explain our situation to my aunt and uncle. Then, regardless of what followed, I would marry you.”
A weight lifted from Elias’s chest. Until now he had focused on practicality, whether his decisions would lead to wealth and acceptance. He needed Lord Welby’s approval but not if it cost him a life with Josephine. Yes, he would marry her, for any other fate seemed cursed. Regardless, he would stand by her side.
“I’m not accustomed to this,” Josephine said with a gasp.
“To what?”
“Feeling happy.” She wiped the sides of her eyes, her smile growing. “Go on. Ask me.”
“You’ll have to end your betrothal to my cousin.”
“Gracious. What a dilemma.” She laughed hard—Elias’s favourite laugh. Her eyes squinted. Her nose scrunched above the grandest smile. “Mum will throw a fit.”
Elias pressed his forehead against
