Page 169 of A Curse of Hope and Shadows: Part I
“Want to convince me it’s for the best? That a little distance will do us good? That I’ll soon get over you and we’ll both find someone more appropriate?”
“No,” she said, “I won’t tell you that.”
“Will you think it?”
“I should hope for it.Thatwould be the better outcome, wouldn’t it?”
“But?”
“I… I don’t want you to forget me.”
Dimitri rested his forehead against hers, tangling her fingers in his, crushing them to his chest. “I won’t. Not ever.”
“I won’t forget you, either.”
She tangled herself in his arms again, pressing her body to his, lips and hands and chests.I will not let you go. I swear it.
The horses stamped their feet. The driver coughed.
“I need to go,” Dimitri whispered into her, heads pressed together.
“I know.” She clung to him. “Just a few more seconds, please.”
All the seconds. Every one. Give all of them to me.
I don’t want to let go, I don’t want to let go, I don’t want to—
Dimitri disentangled himself from her arms, and walked down towards the carriage, gaze cast downwards as if a single glance at her could trap him there forever.
“Write to me,” he begged.
“I will.”
“Adeline,” he stopped at the door. “What you said before—”
“I didn’t mean a word of it. You areeverythingto me, Dimitri Von Mortimer. There exists no word for what you are. I’m not sorry for any of it. I’ll never be sorry. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
Dimitri turned, and his smile ruptured the clouds, and for a second, she swore she felt sunlight again.
“I’ll come back,” he told her. “And I’ll love you more than ever. I’ll find a way for us to have a future, Adeline Elsing. On my mother’s grave, I swear it.”
“I believe you,” she said, “but until then—”
She raced down to the carriage door, and kissed him so deeply that the kiss became a tangible, solid thing, the kind he could take with him.
“Until your return, My Lord,” she said. “I will be waiting.”
