“You didn’t think so at the time.” The sheer neutrality of her tone betrayed her suffering as nothing else could.
He swallowed the choking lump in his throat and admitted the humiliating truth. “Yes, I did. But I believed the world would bend to my will merely for the asking. You were too fine for my possessing, and I was too arrogant to see just what a treasure I had. I was impatient and self-centered, and you were right to hate me.”
“You weren’t impatient last night.”
He laughed
without amusement. “Misery is an excellent schoolmaster. I’ve learned the error of my ways. Although I can’t expect you to believe that, after the hash I’ve made of everything.”
“I should have trusted you.” Her voice was muffled.
“I wasn’t worthy of your trust then.”
The question hovered—was he worthy of her trust now? He prayed desperately that it was so. He prayed that he hadn’t placed himself beyond redemption and that she’d give him another chance. He wanted to swear his allegiance, promise he’d never hurt her again, vow to make her happy. But emotion too strong for words jammed the declarations in his throat.
Silence fell, a silence heavy with remembered pain and everything still unspoken between them. Because he couldn’t resist touching her, he rested his hands lightly on hers. The urge stirred to seize, to grab, to compel, but he crushed it. Last night, she’d given herself freely. He refused to compromise that memory. After today, it might be all he had left.
She sighed softly, her breath a sensual tickle against his skin. “The snow is so clean.” Her voice was soft, musing. As if she spoke to herself rather than for his ears. “Even after the storm, it’s perfect. It’s waiting for us to make the first footprints.”
He tightened his grip on her hands. So much hinged on the next moments. He struggled to find the right words, wondering if the right words even existed.
“Our future could be like that, Alicia. A new path. A new life. A Christmas miracle.” He paused, swallowed, and his voice was husky when he spoke what lay in his heart. “Come back to me.”
He felt her stiffen. His heart breaking, he waited for her to move away, to reject him, to speak in that cold, cutting tone that she’d reserved for their few meetings in London.
“For how long?” Her voice was quiet.
She hadn’t moved away. Yet.
He stared at the glittering scene outside without seeing it. Instead he remained utterly focused on his wife. Again, he risked honesty, even if honesty cost him any hope of achieving his dream.
“For the rest of our lives.”
This time she did draw away, and he felt the inches between them as grim absence. “Why?”
He turned to study her. The light from the window illuminated her as if she stood on a stage. Swathed in the white bed sheet, she looked unhappy and uncertain and remarkably young. Almost as young as the pretty girl he’d married. “Because I love you.”
“No…” She shook her head in disbelief.
Kinvarra smiled at her, even while she split his heart into a hundred bleeding pieces. Again. “Yes.”
Alicia raised her chin and regarded him as if what he said made no sense. “I was so foul to you. How can you ever forgive me?”
“How can you forgive me? Let’s rise above the past, my darling. I want you with me. I’ve never wanted anything else. Don’t let old mistakes destroy our hope of happiness.” He paused and swallowed. “If you love me, come back to me.”
For an unendurable moment, her expression didn’t change. Kinvarra’s every heartbeat tolled the knell of doom. Then the tension drained from her face, and her eyes turned as blue as a clear sky. Suddenly, in the depths of winter, he basked in the reviving warmth of summer sunlight.
She stepped toward him, although she didn’t touch him. “Sebastian, I love you, too. We’ve wasted so much time. Let’s not waste any more.”
Shaking, he reached out to curl his hands around her upper arms and drag her unresisting body against him. He could hardly believe that this was happening. Yesterday he’d been lost in an eternal mire of despair. Today the world offered love and hope, and a future with the woman he adored. The swiftness of the change was dizzying, left him reeling.
“My wife,” he murmured and kissed her with all the reverence he felt in saying those two words. “My countess. My beloved.”
The vivid, passionate woman in his arms kissed him back with a fervor that set his blood rushing in a wild torrent. Bright, unfamiliar joy flooded him as he realized that Alicia at last was his.
Then because it was cold and he wanted her and he loved her—and he’d been apart from her for longer than mortal man could bear—Kinvarra swung his smiling wife up in his arms and strode across to the rumpled bed.
Her Christmas Earl