Page 69 of A Torn Allegiance
Chapter Twenty-Three
Prince Hayes held Elsie’s handin the park as they stood and walked farther along. Suddenly shy about what she wanted to admit, she looked up at him twice before speaking. “Did you know? When I’m with you, I feel like I could accomplish anything.” She turned to him, amazed and grateful for this strong man at her side.
“And I with you,” he said. “Together, we truly could conquer anything, do anything, overcome any problem.” He sighed. “Unfortunately, my problems don’t ever really go away, but with you at my side, I see solutions on the horizon.” He stood taller and turned to face her. “Before I met you, I didn’t know what my life needed, and now I can’t imagine doing any of it without you.”
They had reached a quiet, private copse of trees. She stepped into his arms without even planning to. “Father will be pleased.”
As his arms wrapped around her, the irony of her words settled in her gut. Just a few days past, he might not have been so pleased, nor even now, if she told him of the prince’s latest activities involving Lamoreaux. She still didn’t have the exact answers she sought, but she was not going to change this moment for anything. What she saw in Prince Hayes told her he was an honorable man. How that knowledge fit in with his known collaboration with traitorous people was yet to be discovered. She would have laughed at her ridiculous line of thinking if it were not so poignantly true. All she felt certain of was the fact that she didn’t want to live her life without Prince Hayes. Surely, there was a reason for everything he did.
His arms wrapped more snugly around her.
She stepped closer, and his strength seemed to enfold her.
For a moment, she let everything sink deep inside her—the peace she felt when she was with Prince Hayes, the opportunity to have him at her side, the thought that a man such as he would single her out. She looked up into his face.
His gaze traveled along her hairline, down her cheeks, deep into her eyes, and then rested on her lips. “I’d like nothing more than to kiss you.”
She sucked in her breath.
“For once, it ismywords that surpriseyou?” He chuckled. “’Tis true. The thought is very appealing.” He pulled her closer.
She lifted her chin. “I’ve never been kissed. What will it be like?”
His smile was soft, his eyes warm. “It will be the best manner for me to tell you what I plan to say every day and forever.”
She swallowed and waited. What would he say?
“I love you, Elsie, not only for your stunning hair and eyes that captured me first, even from the portrait in your front hall, nor for your lovely softness here in my arms, but most, I love your thoughts, your ideas, your passion, your caring. I love your mind. You seek solutions, rather than just pointing out problems. You work for good. You treasure good literature. You know Sir Walter Scott.” He laughed.
She lifted her hands up along his arms to the tops of his shoulders. “All of that?”
He nodded. “So when you tire of hearing it, know all those words and more are in my heart and my head, at the forefront in my thoughts, when we are together, when we ride or laugh or dance at a ball or listen interminably to the inferior conversations of others when all I wish is to hear your words. It is in my heart and mind always. And most especially... when I kiss you.” He lifted a hand up at the back of her neck, his fingers tangling into her hair, disturbing all manner of pins. She softened against him and stood on her toes, and when he tilted his head and sought her mouth, she met him partway.
His lips were soft and firm at the same time, questioning and resolute. She’d never felt anything like the closeness she felt to him while his lips explored hers. He pulled her gently up against him and continued, one kiss after another until she was lost. Everything tingled, and her legs no longer functioned; her arms clung to him. He kissed her once more, twice, a third time, laughing before he created some space between them. “I don’t want to stop.”
“And I don’t want you to.”
His eyes smiled into hers with a reflection of the joy she felt. “Now we can never be apart.”
She shook her head. “No. We cannot.” Her voice, a whisper, surprised her and brought her back to their reality, a newer, happier place than the one she’d lived in last week. No one was in that part of the park. The horses grazed nearby. The sky was the brightest blue and the air a soft breeze cooling her heated skin. Could life always be thus?
They walked along in silence, her hand held firmly in his, as though they would never let go.
“How are you?” he said then.
She lifted her lashes in surprise. “Hmm?”
“You’ve said very little.”
Her smile grew. “Uncharacteristic, perhaps?”
“In my experience, very.”
“I am just taking it in.” She stopped and turned to him. “In truth, I’m afraid that if we talk too much, if we allow time to pass, that all this will go away and things will be difficult again.”
“Again?”
“Well, just not what they are now. This. I’m so happy with you. Happy, amazed that you would care for me so, humbled, in awe.” She looked away, embarrassed at her sudden, passionate response. “I love you too, Hayes.” She tried his name out on her lips.
