Charis released a spurt of unwilling laughter. “You sound like you recommend a period of incarceration.”
He gave a dismissive huff. “I wouldn’t go that far.” He sobered. He floundered for an explanation that made sense. Difficult, when none of it made sense to him. “I have to live with what happened in Rangapindhi. It wasn’t my fault my colleagues died…”
“But your conscience lacerated you because you couldn’t save them. It’s that overdeveloped protective instinct again.”
“I despised myself for living when they died.”
The words hung stark in the air. Her hand tightened around his. The silent communication crushed the seeds of self-hatred still lurking in his heart. Her voice vibrated with sincerity. “My love, if you hadn’t lived, you couldn’t have saved me. The workings of destiny are mysterious.”
Her words echoed the odd moment of perception last night where he’d struggled to view himself as an outsider would. When he’d felt the shades of Parsons and Gerard hover uncannily close in the thick darkness, so reminiscent of the pit where his friends had died.
He’d always imagined his colleagues must hate him from beyond the grave for living when they’d perished in pain and humiliation. But the spirits that kept him company through the long hours of blackness in the mine had been benign, not angry at all. Ever since Rangapindhi, he’d remembered them as gruesome specters. Last night they’d visited him as they’d been in life. Fine, brave men who had sacrificed everything for duty.
Only then, blessed by his dead colleagues at last, had Gideon taken the most terrifying step of all.
He’d contemplated establishing a life at Penrhyn with Charis and, God willing, children. Trevithicks to fill the rambling old house with laughter and chaos and love. That hope had sustained him through the darkness and the violence and the incarceration. He wanted to build on the love that already grew between him and Charis and stoke it into a blazing, endless fire to light his days.
If she agreed.
His hand closed ruthlessly around hers. “And I thought about you.”
“I should hope so,” she said unsteadily. She looked up at him, and he caught the sparkle of tears in her hazel eyes.
“I thought how I love you and what an arrogant ass I’ve been.” He paused and spoke with difficulty. “Last night, I realized I’d reached the limits of selflessness. I sat in that cave and imagined living without you. I couldn’t bear to contemplate it.”
She lifted her free hand to touch his face in a gesture that cut right to his aching heart. “Oh, my love, you don’t have to live without me.”
He came to a standstill. “Charis, I can’t promise I’m cured, I can’t promise anything beyond my eternal love. But you need to know I’ll never willingly give you up. You’re mine forever.”
The radiant certainty in her eyes warmed him to his bones. “Gideon, I love you. You love me. That’s all that matters.” Her smile took on a hint of seduction that fired his blood. “Now take me back to Penrhyn and swive me silly.”
Her gaze held no questions. She accepted him as her future just as he accepted her. More than accepted. Greeted with open arms. His doubts melted away like snow under the sun. He’d have time for explanations and apologies later. Or perhaps explanations and apologies would never be needed.
He dropped Khan’s reins. “Come here, Charis. If I don’t kiss you, I’ll go mad.”
Laughing, she fell against him. The kiss was an act of passionate gratitude for their survival, a wild melding of lips and tongues and teeth. It was a physical expression of a love that touched his soul. A love he knew would last the rest of his days. They were both breathless and trembling when they finally drew apart.
He lifted her up on Khan’s back and leaped into the saddle behind her. “Hold on!” he shouted and headed for home at a breakneck gallop.
Khan came to a rearing stop in Penrhyn’s front court, his hooves clattering on the stone paving. For Charis, the ride had passed in a rapturous blur of wind and color. She clung to Gideon, lost in a tumult of emotion. That extraordinary kiss still heated her blood, made her heart thunder.
A groom dashed out to hold the restive horse while Gideon jumped down and tugged Charis after him. Her feet fleetingly touched the ground before he swung her into his arms.
“Gideon!” she gasped, as he strode up the worn stone steps to the front door that opened as if by magic. Her heart swooped and skipped a beat. She felt like she was being kidnapped. It was incredibly exciting. “You make me breathless.”
“I will before I’m finished,” he promised in a low voice, marching into the house.
Ooh, yes, please.
She hooked one hand around the strong column of his neck as he passed the curtsying maid who had opened the door. The dark, cavernous hall flashed past, then they climbed the staircase. He turned at the landing and swept her into his room.
She’d never been in here. She had a momentary dazzling impression of light and casement windows opening onto a sparkling sea. Old carved furniture. A breeze smelling of the ocean.
Gideon started kissing her, and she didn’t care where she was as long as he never let her go. She closed her eyes and gave herself up to the hungry predations of his lips.
“I love you,” she said over and over in broken sentences, kissing his face and his neck and the skin revealed by his torn shirt. What exquisite freedom it was, finally to say the words without restraint.
He kicked the door so it banged shut behind him and carried her to the bed. He came down over her, kissing her as if he starved. The musky scent of his arousal filled her senses. Ruthlessly, he tugged his coat off and tossed it to the floor.