Page 40 of Yours Always
“Were you really going to leave again without saying goodbye?”
His heart slammed into his ribs. He turned sharply and there she was. No coat. Cheeks flushed pink from the cold. A few curls escaping their pins, wild and beautiful. He opened his mouth, but the words refused to come.
Sarah leaned into Gideon, letting the horse nuzzle her as she held Matthew’s gaze soft and steady. Not the girl who had run from him shattered, but someone stronger now. Someone who had survived.
“I wasn’t sure you wanted to see me,” he said at last, voice rough. “I thought it would be easier this way.” Sarah gave a wrylittle smile. “Matty, have you not learned by now that the more you think something through, the worse your decisions tend to be?”
Matthew barked a laugh, short, surprised, and a little broken. He had missed her. “I suppose that’s been proven true as of late,” he murmured, a roughness still in his voice. He managed a crooked smile, though it didn’t quite reach his eyes. Sarah only stood there watching him. There was nothing hidden in her gaze, just truth, and somehow, that undid him more than anything she could have said.
“Sarah,” he said, quieter now. “Is there something you wanted to talk to me about?” She nodded, her voice soft. “I saw Grace…” Matthew tensed, shoulders drawn and posture guarded. He wasn’t sure where this was going, but every part of him braced for impact.
“Benjamin told her everything,” she said. “About my mother, and about what you said before you left for Scotland; that you were going to offer your own proposal if it wasn’t too late.” Matthew froze. The world narrowed to the sound of her voice and the way his heart slammed against his ribs.
“Why didn’t you?” she asked gently. A whisper, but it cut through him all the same. He blinked, once. “What?” His voice barely escaped him. “Why didn’t you propose, Matty?” She said his name with such tenderness, it nearly brought him to his knees.
He turned from her sharply, his hands reaching for the bridle, gripping it, grounding himself. Then one hand raked through his hair, refusing to meet her gaze. “Lizzy,” he said, voice raw, breath catching in his chest. “I have lost everything.” A pause. His hands stilled. “I am barely hanging on by a thread.” He looked at her for just a moment, but Sarah just stood still. Waiting. He swallowed hard. “I suppose Grace told you all that too.”
“She did.”
His jaw tensed. “Did Benjamin tell her everything?” The bitterness in his voice surprised even him. “Was nothing sacred between them?”
“That’s what people do when they love each other,” she said gently. “They share the weight.” He exhaled a shaky, broken breath; the sound of a man unraveling.
“Matty,” she said again, voice gentler now. “I need to apologize.” He shook his head, already beginning to protest, but Sarah pressed on. “I was angry because I felt you wouldn’t tell me what was on your heart…” She paused, breath hitching. “...but I wasn’t willing to share mine either.”
“Sarah, you don’t need to—”
“I love you.” The words came fierce and unflinching, cutting straight through the space between them. “I love you so much it hurts.”
He stilled. The words split him open. No one had ever said them to him quite like that. Like a gift. Like a truth she’d carried and could no longer bear to keep.
“I didn’t end my engagement because I thought you and I were going to be together,” she said, her voice trembling but sure. “I ended it because the thought of another man loving me and knowing me, when all I wanted was you, was unbearable.” She drew in a breath, her chest rising with the weight of it. “And if I couldn’t have you, I decided I’d rather love you silently from afar then pretend to love anyone else.”
She stepped closer. Her voice was a whisper now, barely a breath between them. “If you don’t love me,” she whispered, “I will survive it.” She paused, just for a single heartbeat. “But if you do, and you are choosing to stay away, that will destroy me.”
He reached for her, helpless against the force of her words. His hands cradled her face, reverent and aching. He leaned in, his forehead brushing hers, breath to breath, trying not to breakthe fragile tension between them. “Oh, Lizzy girl,” he whispered, “it’s not that.”
“Then what is it?” she begged, the words torn from her. Tears spilled freely now, tracing the path of every unsaid fear. He swallowed, the truth catching in his throat. “I have nothing to offer you.”
“Nothing?” Her voice cracked in disbelief.
“Nothing of consequence.”
She reached up, her fingers feather-light against his cheek. “All I require is your heart.” Her touch was tender, and certain. “I don’t care if we live in a boarding house or stable,” she said fiercely. “I would sew shirts or sell flowers in the street if it meant being yours.” Her voice broke, not with weakness, but with conviction. “I would do anything, Matty. Anything.”
Something inside him shattered, and then reformed in the very next breath. He closed his eyes, as though bracing against the force of her love. When he opened them again, they were shining. “I know you would,” he whispered. “That’s why I love you.” The words fell from him not like a confession, but like a vow. One he’d carried quietly for years, tucked in the safest corner of his heart.
“I am hopelessly in love with you, Lizzy.” His voice deepened, thick with memory and truth. “I have loved you since you were a little girl with pigtails and too much spirit, and I have loved you every year since, as you became the fiercest, most breathtaking woman I have ever known.”
He wrapped his arms around her waist and drew her in, forehead still resting gently against hers. “I don’t have two coins to rub together...”
“I don’t care,” she whispered. “I love you. All I want is you.”
He let out a breath that sounded almost like a laugh, but it was soft, disbelieving, full of wonder. “Well then,” he murmured, breathless, “Sarah Elizabeth Weston, though it may very well bethe greatest mistake of your life, will you do me the greatest honor of mine... and marry me?”
She smiled through the tears in her eyes and pulled his face toward hers until their noses touched. “Yes,” she whispered against his lips. “Yes, I will marry you.” Then louder, steadier, as if sealing the truth between them: “And it won’t be a mistake. Being your wife will be the greatest joy of my life, Matthew Fenwick, and I never want to hear you say anything different.”
He kissed her, long, deep and true. His arms tight around her, her hands buried in his coat. It was the kind of kiss that felt like a beginning. When they finally broke apart, she grinned at him, cheeks flushed, eyes alight. “If we confess all the secret kisses we’ve stolen,” she said, breathless, “we could probably plead for a special license and marry in a few days.”
