His words overwhelmed her to the point of mute paralysis. Oh, how she wanted to believe him. But it made no rational sense.
Finally, she managed a tiny shake of her head. “It can’t be true.”
“It’s true. Believe me, love. I’ve shoveled so much actual horseshit in the past year, I’ve lost all patience with the figurative sort.” He turned her hand palm-up and stared into it, as though he might read his fortune there. His thumb traced a circle in the center of her palm. “I have been humbled, in many ways. I’m but a tiny gear in a vast machine, expendable and unimportant. I’ve learned what it is to labor hard, for long hours, on very little food.”
She believed this part, without question. The evidence was written all over him. When she’d been pressed against him in the larder, she’d sensed how his body was leaner now, all muscle and sinew. His face was tanned and weathered from regular exposure to the sun. And his hands… She felt the calluses on his thumb as he caressed her palm.
“Most of all,” he said, “I have been humbled by the comprehensive and inescapable quality of my own stupidity. My colossal arrogance. I thought that I could share that night with you and then go on to fulfill my mission, unaffected. I was wrong. So damnably wrong. Violet, I’ve thought of you daily. Dreamt of you nightly. Longed for you in every private moment and scoured my letters from home for any word of your—”
“Your letters from home? But you said your family didn’t know where you were.”
“They don’t. They write to an address in Antigua, and the letters are diverted. Once every few months or so, I’m given leave to ‘visit my mother,’ which means a trip to our regional base. There, I sit in a small room, read their letters and pen replies. It’s the only chance I have to read or write English. For that matter, it’s the only chance I have to read anything. I haven’t read a book in a year.”
“Oh. Such deprivation.” She spoke the words without any hint of irony. For her, going without books would be as great a trial as going without food.
“In one of her letters, my sister mentioned that you’d come to Spinster—” He bit off the derisive moniker and began again. “Spindle Cove.” He released her hand and reached to stroke her cheek. “I loved thinking that you were just across the Channel. Mostly, I loved knowing you weren’t married to another man.”
“I’m not married yet, you mean. The family’s lost patience with me now. My mother is adamant that I return to London and find a husband. The family carriage comes for me tomorrow.”
“I know.” He drew a raspy breath. “That’s why I was determined to come tonight. I think I would have swum the Channel, if there’d been no other way.”
“But how on earth did you get here?”
“Last week, I had my regular day for correspondence. And there was this letter from my sister. She said you were coming back to London, and it was meant to be her grand project to marry you off this spring. When I read those words, my heart just sank like a stone. We had a small craft making the crossing to Hastings. I traded every favor I was owed, dropped my father’s name several times. I did everything short of get down on my knees and beg. Finally I was given permission to make the journey, and when we reached spitting distance from Spindle Cove, I took the jollyboat to row in. That part didn’t go as planned. Wrecked the cursed thing on a boulder. Somehow I must find a new boat in time to rendezvous with the departing ship at dawn. But before I go…”
He moved close to where she sat cross-legged on the floor, wrapping his arms and legs around her. “Can I convince you to wait for me? I’m a third son, due to inherit nothing. My material prospects were always modest, and now I’ve ruined my dashing good looks.”
She started to speak, but he interrupted her with a swift bee-sting of a kiss. It left her stunned, throbbing. Just a little swollen in places.
“I can’t imagine a life without you, Violet. I won’t press you for your hand just yet. But if you could tell me you’ll wait—just wait until this mad war is over—and give me a chance to win you, I should consider it the best Christmas gift I’ve ever received.”
She stared at him, trying to make him out. He’d spun a pretty tale for her in this ballroom. A tale that made him out to be quite a hero—serving the Crown to avenge his fallen brother, secretly loving her all the while. She wanted to trust him so badly. And it was precisely that desperate wish to believe that made her doubt her own judgment. He’d done this all before—made her feel cherished and adored one night, then left with barely a word the following day. It had taken her almost a year to recover.
Perhaps she wasn’t the real reason he’d come here. Perhaps he was just using her again, feeding her the words she wanted to hear, giving her the sensations she wanted to feel…all so he could get what he wanted and be off. With her own perception so clouded by years of infatuation, how could she be sure?