Page 36 of Obsession: The Unspoken Sin
“Alice.” Her name came out all strangled.
My God, it was truly her.
“That is one of the things you love aboutAlice?” She ventured with a teasing but also hopeful look in her eyes.
No. Surely, he merely saw the emotion he wished to see.
“Alice,” he breathed again, nothing more than her name.
He was more than half afraid he’d conjured her from his greatest dream, and in this plane, he wanted to exist forever, here and now.
The slight smile at the corners of her lips eased.
She is real. This is real.
Denbigh belatedly recalled what she’d said. Hers. It had been a greeting.
He found himself speaking quickly. “Your name…it was agreeting. Of sorts. On account of…” His words all rolled together into one. “Mysurpriseat discovering you here, because I wasn’t expecting you.”
Denbigh grimaced. Bloody hell, here is where he wished he possessed a smooth tongue like the Dukes of Argyle, Rothesby and all the other rogues.
He rushed to explain, “Not that I wasn’t excited to see you, Alice, because I am. Very much so, just surprised…”
Alice touched a single gloveless index finger against his mouth.
“I was teasing, Laurence.” Her eyes and voice were so tender, so gentle, so…loving? Or did he imagine that because he wanted to hear that emotion so desperately from her?For him.
Denbigh’s throat worked spasmodically. “I wasn’t sure if we were in a place where we’d tease one another ever again.”
His voice was as raspy as when he’d suffered a vicious throat infection as a child. There had been talks amongst his doctor and his father that he’d register while stirring in the throes of his illness, suspicions that he’d not make the night and would die, a mere lad of ten. His mother had wept.
His father had been perturbed but grateful that he had two other sons to fill his place.
As for Denbigh? He’d been so very fearful about dying and missing the rest of his life. Now, with Alice before him, Denbigh appreciated just how tragic it would’ve been to depart this earth without ever having knownher.
They spoke at the same time.
“I—”
“I—”
Filled with arrestive desperation, Denbigh didn’t even attempt to do the gentlemanly thing and let her go first.
“But it was true, Alice. Your indomitable spirit is one of those things I love about you. There are so many of them.” He murmured that last part to himself.
She’d come here for a reason that likely wasn’t him waxing on about her. It suggested he was attempting to sway her and persuade her to forgive him and give him a chance to love her.
“Forgive me, you clearly came for a reason. I take it you read my note.”
That could be the only way that she was here at this very place even now.
Alice nodded in confirmation.
“I was expecting my man of affairs.”
“Yes, I know,” she murmured. “I asked him to arrange a meeting for us here.”
His loyal man of affairs had carefully left out that important detail. Then it hit him…
