Heaven help him, but he was sinking even deeper. Why, why must love happen again here? Why not in some drawing room in London, where he was well received and the obstacles would be few? “And what of you? How have you remained unwed when you are so lovely and highborn?”
When she sighed, he almost wished the question unasked. Almost. “I was betrothed once, but Fran?ois’s interest was only in my face and my dowry. I did not realize it. Not until a month before the wedding, when I caught him in an embrace with one of my friends. At which point he laughed at me for thinking he had ever loved me. It was my friend he had loved all along, and as she had just inherited a large sum, he said he intended to end our engagement and marry her instead.”
Fairchild winced. Perhaps in a way it was similar to his story, but Winter had never been cruel. She had done her best to spare his heart. This Fran?ois seemed to have deliberately trampled Julienne’s. “I can imagine how that hurt.”
She gave him a bittersweet grin. “I was less hurt than angry. I believe I said something about my grandfather not making a pleasant enemy, so perhaps he ought to think twice about his decision.”
He couldn’t resist chuckling. “A well-placed threat, to be sure.”
“I had not even spoken with Grandpère yet when I received word that Fran?ois had been killed on a hunt.” She shook her head and cast that glacier gaze to the distance. “Angry as I was, I did not wish such a tragic accident upon him. My friend, she…she was devastated but could not admit why. And there was I, mournful but not as everyone supposed. Still, I was glad for the excuse to remain apart from society for a while.”
“I imagine. And then, when your mourning was over…the duc?”
“Oui.” She rested her head against his chest again. “He returned to court just as my mother insisted I attend the balls again, and his interest was quick and clear. No one else would ever dare speak for what he had claimed, and so here I am. Five-and-twenty and very, very grateful to be yet unwed.”
“Oh, Julienne.” He knew not what else he could say and feared that if he dared say more, it would only prove him more the fool. Pound as his heart may, he could not give in to the longing for her. Her mother obviously disapproved, and her father just as obviously had never considered such an unbalanced match. How could he have? They had both thought Fairchild would be meeting Lady Julienne for the first time on this trip.
Yet his hand, when he commanded it to let go of her hair, only made it so far as her cheek before settling again. And his other arm, when he thought he had better set her away from him, pulled her closer.
And it surely helped not at all when she smiled up at him the way she did now, with passion and a pinch of mischief. “Are you never going to kiss me, Isaac?”
The chuckle escaped against his better judgment. “This is only the fourth time we have been in company. Only the second alone.”
“Ah, but we must not overlook those scores of dreams.”
Perhaps they did deserve to be counted since they were shared. And perhaps, since this could well be his only chance to kiss her, the folly of it could be forgiven. Surely ’twas right that he was able to embrace a woman he loved once in his life, was it not?
She was already lifting herself up on her toes, her arm had already snaked around his neck. Perhaps because he had already lowered his head and pulled her against him.
Their lips touched in a soft caress, no demand within it. No rush, no regret could find a handhold in his heart now. There was room for nothing but Julienne, for the swell and crash of love that overtook him. He cradled her gently, yet firmly enough that when she sank against him, he held her up.
Kiss melted into kiss, deepening from want to need and from need to promise. The obstacles ceased to matter. Anything, he would give her anything she ever needed, ever wanted, would do anything he must to earn the right to hold her like this every day. To make her his wife, his love, to show her in a million such soul-searing kisses that she was all he would ever need.
“I love you.” He whispered the words in her ear when finally he pulled away enough to catch a breath, and punctuated it with a kiss upon her jaw. Then another, and another, headed back for her mouth.
“Je t’aime,” she murmured against his lips. “Je t’adore.”
A hundred years wouldn’t be long enough, neither a thousand nor a million to show her how true were those words. For whatever reason, their souls had touched here in the grotto those months ago and had recognized then what the Almighty had known all along—that they were meant for each other. That though He led them on the strangest paths, all was worthwhile when they found each other.