A person could become more.
He would never have London out of his blood and bones. London was the place that drove him. It was a machine, something that turned and whirled and buzzed with force and life. He would always be trying to help the people there.
He would always have his club where people could come and be themselves, but somehow, suddenly he felt… here, overlooking the sea-loch stretching out to the great north waters, with the mountains shoring up to the sky? He felt as if he could be himself finally.
His body seemed to hum with peace as he held her hand and they headed towards the beautiful house that was their home on the estate.
He did not want a grand castle.
Grand castles were for those like the Duke of Clyde.
This place was far more intimate.
And as they wandered up the stone path to the house that was still larger than anything he could have imagined as a child, he turned to her. “I think we should stay here for a time,” he ventured.
“Do you not long for London?” she queried.
He faced her, his heart still half convinced he could lose her, “I long to do something new with you, here.”
She lifted her gaze to him, tilting back her bonneted head. “Tom, I worry that—”
“No,” he murmured, “there is no need to worry, my love. You and I, we need to know each other, to become something new together… to grow together.”
Her lips parted in a slow smile. “To learn about each other?” She offered. “To learn who we are? I know that I need to learn who I am without the rules of the past holding me.”
Tom nodded, savoring the feel of her body so close to his, her skirts brushing his boots. “And I wish to be by your side while you do that.”
“I can do it in London, Tom,” she said. “I promise you. I do not want to take you away from—”
“You are what is important to me, Elizabeth,” he cut in, passion blazing deep inside him. “All of that? I have organized things so well that they will run with no difficulty. I promise you that the houses that I have, the club that I’ve arranged, all of it can run without me without the slightest difficulty. You see, I made certain a long time ago that those things had their independence and did not solely rely on me.”
She laughed suddenly. “I believe it, Tom. I think you could organize the world if society allowed you.”
He smiled, a low laugh rumbling out of him to meet hers. “I don’t think that you are wrong. But I want to tell you that I love you. And I shall tell you every day, every hour, if need be, until you feel it deep in your heart, in your soul, in your bones.”
Her eyes widened and she lifted a gloved hand to his cheek as they stood before the house covered in ivy. “Tom,” she said, “I do feel it. I feel it so deeply in my soul that I was terrified.”
“My love has terrified you?” he blurted.
She nodded, her gaze deepening with emotion. “Yes, because I did not know if I could love you in return. Not because you do not deserve love but because it has never been shown to me, because I did not know how to do it. But just like a toddler…” A bemused smile tilted her lips before she professed, “like the children in the Clyde castle… I can learn. And that is what my life is going to be now. One step after the other, one mistake after the other, one moment after the other. Will you go with me?” she asked. “On that journey of learning, of learning how to love…”
That smile bloomed into a dazzling, earth-shaking smile. “Because I do feel it, Tom, I feel it deep in my heart too. I love you. I simply need to learn how to show you.”
He pulled her close as his heart hammered against his ribs, the world suddenly opening before him with possibility and light.
He kissed her mouth softly, bowled over with wonder at her spirit. “You and I are both creatures who will have to learn,” he said. “I had so much taken away from me as a child, Elizabeth, that I too had to learn how to love, had to let go of the cruelty of the past, had to let go of the fear of everything being taken away from me. But when you came to my club and you announced what you wanted for yourself, I could not deny the fire that leapt in my heart and the need that burned through me… the love that was created then.”
She beamed up at him, free. “Tom, I think I fell in love with you the moment you said my name in your dark voice from the shadows. Somehow, I knew that you were changing everything. I knew that my feet were about to wander off to a very different path than the one that they were on. You awakened me, Tom. You opened my eyes and showed me what I could have. You let me believe that I was worthy of more. Oh Tom,” she breathed. “I love you.”
“And I you,” he replied, his heart so full, his throat hummed with emotion.
“So let us stay here in Scotland,” she announced, “for a while and see what the world can bring us.”
He held her close. “Together,” he said. “The world has and will always bring us together.”
Epilogue
Five years later.