Page 105 of Forget Me Not

She hugged the book to her, watching him with an earnest uncertainty. “It isn’t a matter of forgiveness,” she said. “I forgive rather easily, really. Likely a bittooeasily.”

“Then what is this chasm between us now? I am desperate to span it.”

“I have been left behind and pushed aside by so many people so many times that I’ve grown far more comfortable in isolation. Being alone is safe. It isn’t so vulnerable.” Pain radiated from her, but so did hope, so did fortitude. “When we were first married, I told myself I could guard against the risk of so close a connection by remaining closed off. But that proved impossible.”

“It also proved injurious,” he said quietly. He didn’t know if he would ever fully forgive himself for the pain he’d caused her.

“I don’t entirely know how to let myself trust you again.” She filled her lungs, then emptied them slowly. “But our friends have firmed my resolve to try and have given me reason to believe that trust would be worth regaining.”

“And what reason was that?” He was practically holding his breath.

“That you love me.” She set the book on a nearby table and reached for his hand. He took it willingly and eagerly. “I asked you a few days before our wedding when you came upon me sitting on our rock if you loved me as a man ought to love his wife. You weren’t able to say that you did. I hadn’t expected you to.”

That felt like a lifetime ago; so much had changed since then.

“But the Gents have begun to convince me that your answer would be different if I asked you again.”

He pressed their entwined hands to his heart. “My answer would be infinitely different.”

She closed the gap between them and leaned against him. He wrapped his free arm around her.

“Will you be hurt if I tell you I’m not yet ready to pose that question again?” she asked quietly.

“I will understand.”

She leaned a little more heavily against him, as if allowing a little more of her burden to be shared. “And will you hold me for a moment? You did promise you would if ever I needed you to.”

“Of course, my darling Julia.” He slipped his other arm free and joined it to his first, embracing her fully and properly. “I ought to have been here all these years, holding and comforting and loving you.”

She rested her head against him, one of the benefits of a lady who lived by her own opinions on fashion rather than Society’s dictates. A tall, powdered pompadour would have made their current, very tender arrangement quite difficult.

“Perhaps it is for the best that you were gone as much as you were,” she said.

He was too shocked to respond.

“If you had always been here these past years, I would have grown up gradually in your eyes rather than suddenly. You might never have stopped seeing me as your little childhood friend.”

His childhood friend. Though she was, of course, that, and he remembered with fondness their years of adventures and mischief, he found himself struggling to feel that way about her now. The love he had for his Julia had deepened and grown almost beyond recognition since then.

“Would you consider staying here, Julia?” he asked. “The family wing, as you know well, is large and mostly empty. You could have your pick of any room. Mother would love to have you here. And I’m desperate to.”

“Have you missed me, then?” Her tone was lighter than it had been. A good omen.

“Terribly. I used to return to Lampton Park, eager to traverse the gardens and land, lounge in my favorite corners of the house. None of that has brought me a feeling of home since returning here this time.” He tucked her in ever closer. “It hasn’t felt like home until now. I suspect, Julia Jonquil, this house will never be home to me without you in it.”

“Would you read to me if I came to stay here?” she asked.

“Of course.”

She looked up at him, a hint of devilry in her eyes. “And maybe play hide-and-seek now and then?”

He let a wicked smile spread over his lips. “Oh, yes.”

She laughed, though she made hardly a sound. “I suspect I’m going to enjoy my time here.”

“That is the goal, sweetheart.”

It was, in fact, the goal he, in that moment, set as his top priority from that moment on: that his darling, dearest Julia would always be happy in their home, wherever that home might be.

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