Patrick felt as if he’d been slapped, but still, Linley barreled on.
“Save your titles and your money for your heiress,” she said. “And love me for me. As I am.” Linley’s chest heaved. She knew her words hurt him, but she could not let Patrick make a mistake he would regret for the rest of his life. “For once, stop thinking of everyone else’s well-being and start thinking of your own.”
“What do you think I was doing when I dragged you halfway across India?” Patrick said. “I wouldn’t let you die because I couldn’t face living without you. I would gladly give up everything I have, and watch my house crumble to the ground around me, but I will not be content with a life of loneliness.” It was his turn to pant and heave. “You told me once that you were lonely, and I told you I understood. But maybe I didn’t. When I looked you in the face that day on the beach, I had no idea what it meant to feel real loneliness because I had no idea how it felt to have someone. But I know how that feels now, and I don’t want to face one day—let alone the next fifty years—without you.”
Tears ran down Linley’s cheeks as she listened to the man she loved pour his heart out. What a perfect fool he was to give up everything for her sake.
“It won’t be easy,” she said. “We’re both too stubborn to give up our separate lives. We might only see each other three or four times a year. I could never ask such a sacrifice from you.”
“I would bear it. I would do it gladly,” he told her. “Just confess to me the one thing I’ve wanted to hear since that day on the beach in Morocco. Since our kiss in the British Museum. Since the night I first made love to you.” He searched her eyes with his. “Tell me you love me, and I can endure anything.”
“I love you,” she said. “You know I do.”
“Then marry me.” Patrick smiled and ran his fingertips along the tearstains on her freckled face. It had been those freckles that first drew him to her, but it would be her heart that would always keep him. “This could be one of those real moments you told me about,” he said, grinning at her from across the pillow. “I’d hate for you to look back and realize you missed your one chance at really living.”
EPILOGUE
Patrick closed his eyes against the glare of the sun and let the warm breeze play against his hair. He smiled at the sound of Linley’s voice as she strolled down one of the garden paths ahead of him.
He once told her if he ever came to Malta, it would not be for the views. She had blushed then, but when he showed up on her doorstep for a surprise visit a week ago, modesty appeared to be the furthest thing from her mind. They barely made it upstairs before they were both out of their clothes and sprawled across the floor.
It was harder to travel with the war on, but Patrick had been determined to see her before he went to the front.
The clicking of Linley’s little heels against the flagstones told him she’d grown tired of waiting at the end of the path and come back for him. Patrick wanted to prolong that moment—the sting of the sun and the salt air, and the smell of the flowers—for as long as he could.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” she asked.
Patrick opened his eyes. He tried to imagine the harbor without the warships at anchor and their coal smoke blackening the sky.
“I’m sorry it isn’t Morocco,” he said. “I know you had your heart set on spending our anniversary there.”
She shook her head. “No, Patrick. This is perfect. I could not have asked for a better day.”
“Truly?”
“I know traveling to Rabat is an impossibility right now.” Linley reached up to run her fingers along the collar of his thick khaki uniform. “And with everything you had to do in Kyre, it’s a wonder you even made it at all.”
Patrick smiled and took her hand. He knew she was angry with him for joining up. They had argued about it at first, but in the end Linley had been a good sport.
“I’d be a terrible husband if I missed our first anniversary all because of some bally war.”
They both smiled.
It had been a good year. They had their share of ups and downs like any newly married couple, and it seemed like a lifetime ago since they said their vows in that tiny mission camp, but somewhere between his responsibilities and her career, they found time to make a life together.
Or they had, until everything changed.
“Promise me,” Linley whispered. “When all this is over, you’ll come back to me.” She forced her eyes to look up and meet his. “I don’t want this to be our only anniversary.”
“Linley…”