Mary Balogh: Secrets of the Heart

"No, of course not," she said.

"Why not?" he asked.

"Because I love you for yourself," she said. "The past is of no concern to me. What you have done makes no difference to the way I feet."

"And why should our attitudes be different just because we are of different gender?" he asked. "I love you, Sarah. It does not matter who possessed you before me. I do not need the assurance that my bride is an untouched vessel."

Sarah swallowed painfully. "I did not fight as much as I might have," she said.

He pulled her roughly against him, gritting his teeth only briefly against the pain. "Oh, my love," he said, "you must leave this. You have tortured your mind with guilt for far too long. Perhaps you need to talk to someone about it all. At some other time, if you wish, you must tell me all about it, put into words all the dark memories that have haunted you for years. But not now, Sarah. I want to hear you tell me again that you love me. I want to hear you say you forgive me enough to marry me. Will you marry me, love?"

She pulled her head away from his shoulder and looked up into his eyes. "Are you very sure, George?" she asked wistfully.

He sighed audibly. "I am not at all sure that I have finished doing violence for this morning," he said. "I have a strong urge to put my hands around your throat, my love, and squeeze very slightly." He looked deeply into her eyes and smiled. He seemed not even to notice the effect on his swollen lip. "Yes, Sarah," he said, "I am very sure. We have lost four years. Let us start to make up for them today. Shall we?"

He bent his head and touched his lips to hers. She responded instantly, putting her arms up around his neck and pressing closer to him. Heat flared instantly. He wrapped his arms around her and opened his mouth over hers. He did not need to coax her lips apart. Her tongue came to meet his and to entice it into the warm softness of her own mouth.

But she pulled away from him before the embrace could advance to any more interesting phase. "Oh, your poor mouth, George," she said. "It must be hurting so. It is all cut inside."

"It hurts to have it away from yours," he, said, risking excruciating agony by grinning at her. "I think there must be remarkable healing powers in your lips, love, and even more in your tongue." He moved toward her again.

"Damnation!" he said as someone knocked on the door.

It opened at his bidding and Fanny and Lady Murdoch stood in the doorway.

"Oh, George," Fanny said, her eyes wide with anxiety, "the most provoking thing. When Lady Murdoch sent for her carriage, it was discovered that the axle is completely broken. It will take all day to mend. And we cannot lend our traveling carriage because I promised it yesterday while you were away to Lady Cavendish to go visiting this afternoon. And when we sent into the village to hire the carriage there, we were told that the coachman is dreadfully ill and there is no other. It looks very much as if Lady Murdoch and Miss Fifield will have to stay until tomorrow."

"And if the carriage being broken were not enough, Sarah, my love," Lady Murdoch added, "the groom swears that one of the horses is looking rather lame. Will you mind very much staying another day, dear? I know you have your heart set on leaving this morning, but really one more day will be neither here nor there. And indeed, my digestion is not all that it should be again. I must need more of those Bath waters. I shall not be sorry for an extra day of rest."

Sarah repressed a smile. They looked an unlikely pair of conspirators.

"I could not agree with you more, ma'am," Cranwell said, moving one step back from Sarah. "One day is really of little importance when I have got Sarah almost to agree to delay here for the rest of her life."

"Almost?" Fanny squealed. "What do you mean by 'almost,' George?"

"I talk too much," Lady Murdoch said. "It is an old woman's infirmity. Not but what I could always talk twice as much as almost anyone else I have ever known. My dear late husband once said that he should have a trumpet to blow when he wished to add a word to the conversation. I perceive, my dear Lady Fanny, that we have interrupted a marriage proposal and that dear Sarah has not yet had a chance to say yes. I think we should run to the stables-that is, that you should run to the stables, for I am just a slow old woman, though the time was when I could have given you or any young lady you could name a good run for your money. What I am trying to say, dear, is that we should notify the groom that perhaps he does not have to do anything drastic to the coach after all. If we are not too late, that is."

"Oh, Miss Fifield… Sarah," Fanny said in an agony, "you are going to say yes, are you not? Please, please. I want you so much as a sister."

"You can go and get better acquainted with Lady Murdoch, my girl," Cranwell said, "without further delay. If I have my way, we shall be seeing a great deal of her in the future."

He pointed firmly to the door when Fanny opened her mouth again, and the two ladies left the room in a state of suppressed excitement.

Cranwell reached out for Sarah and pulled her against him again. He rested his forehead against hers. "Perhaps you would be wise to say no," he said. "I have the feeling that those two will be trying their best to rule our lives in the future."

"I have grown to love them both very dearly," Sarah said.

"Heaven help us if they ever find out," Cranwell said fervently. "They are probably out there now with their heads together planning our first child."

"Oh, George," Sarah whispered.

He pulled her closer to him, his cheek against hers. "I want to give you children, Sarah," he said. "I want to fill your life with love. I want to make the past like only a bad dream. Let me love you. Marry me."

"Oh, I do love you, George," she said.

He lifted his head and smiled down at her. "I have never met anyone more reluctant to say yes," he said. "Do you need more persuasion, love? I have a whole arsenal of arguments if I need to use them."

He moved his hands around to cover her breasts and touched his lips lightly to hers again.

"Oh, my answer is yes," she said, pulling back from him a mere two inches. "Of course it is, George. Yes, yes, yes."

He tried to close the gap between their mouths again.

"Of course," she added, putting up a hand and touching his lips lightly with her fingertips, "I would still love to know what all those arguments are."

"Would you, love?" he said tenderly, his mouth smiling, his eyes on her lips. "Would you really? It might take some time. We had better lock the door."

"And throw away the key?" she asked hopefully.

"What a very tempting idea!" he said. "I can tell you of one key you may certainly throw away, Sarah. You already have the key to my heart and have had it for a long time. You may do what you will with it. I shall not want it ever again."

His mouth covered hers in a kiss that contained all the affection and tenderness and love that had been missing from their lives for four years. The loneliness, the pain, the bitterness were forgotten for the moment. The heating had begun.

They both drew back to smile into each other's eyes.

"Sarah," Cranwell said, "I am the most fortunate man in the world. When I think of the odds against this happening!"

"I know," she said. "I still cannot believe it. George, I do love you so."

They continued to smile for a moment longer before he caught her to him again in a bruising hug. His injuries were forgotten. He sought her mouth once more, and soon everything outside the circle of their arms receded.

It was fortunate that Fanny and Lady Murdoch had put the library strictly out of bounds to all guests and servants for the rest of the morning, for its two occupants completely forgot to lock the door.