The Blood of a Baron - K.J. Jackson Page 0,71

on, will be the crowning achievement in my weak life. Separating you two was the one thing—out of so many—that I truly regret. The one thing that I did so terribly wrong that it is worth forfeiture of my life to right.

I know you will question it, why I put Weston in control of everything with the estate. Simply, it was to lead you two back together. To make you whole again, for I knew I could never do it. It was the one thing Papa made me promise him before he died—he knew how addled I could be—and that was to protect you. At all costs. Protect you, protect your heart, your spirit.

I’ve done a sham job of it thus far, but when Weston appeared back in my life, I finally had purpose. Bringing the two of you together again. For all the barriers you will put up—for all that the both of you will fight it. You were led back together for a purpose—for fate. Don’t ignore that. Don’t dismiss it.

This is the world you both belong in. A world with each other.

Make merry, my merry girl.

Forever yours,

Morton

Her breath held in her chest, her legs gave out and she sank to the edge of the chair by the fire, the letter clutched, the edges crinkling in her fingers.

Morton. The man that couldn’t scrape himself out of debt, out of every hole he’d ever been in, had designed all of this.

Designed a way for her to find Wes again.

To trust him again.

Her eyes closed, her world stilling around her as her chest tightened.

For all of Morton’s faults, he had loved her. Unequivocally.

The air in front of her prickled and she could feel Wes moving before her.

She opened her eyes.

He had knelt before her, his dark eyes level with hers.

“The time was finally right?” The question whispered from her lips.

He nodded. “When I found the letter at your townhouse, it was too early. I wasn’t ready. You weren’t ready. We both would have fought it if we both knew what Morton’s wishes were.”

“Yet you kept the letter with you.”

His wide shoulders lifted slightly. “Even in that turmoil, even though I didn’t want to admit it…I had hope. Hope I refused to admit to. Hope I refused to let into my heart.”

“And now?”

“I’ve seen the world, Laney. Drifted aimlessly. Expelled untold amounts of anger. Tasted everything I could find. And none of it compares to the taste of your skin. Your heart beating next to mine. Your soul within reach where I can touch it, feel it.”

Her breath caught in her throat. “Nothing?”

He shook his head, his look fixed on hers. “I never told you, Laney, but you need to know—I did choose you.”

Her eyebrows drew together. “What? When?”

“Our betrothal. The one that was set in place when you were twelve and I was thirteen. I could have gotten out of it. My father offered that very thing to me on his deathbed—your father was years dead and my father even encouraged it. He said he didn’t want promises of the past to interfere with my happiness in the future.”

She reeled slightly backward. Wes had never told her this, never even hinted at it. “Your father didn’t like me? I always thought—”

“No—he adored you, always. Yet he didn’t want me to suffer as he did with my mother. They had a grand love affair, but he was supposed to marry another, and that was the mess of it all—he loved my mother but didn’t break off his engagement, didn’t do the right thing and marry her until it was too late, until after I was born. They couldn’t elope to Scotland fast enough. And for as much as he loved her, for as much as he missed her when she died, he was always broken at how he’d failed her in that time. He didn’t want me to suffer the same path as his, if fate had it that by some chance I loved another. Not you.”

“And?”

Wes looked downward for a long second, his hands moving to her knees, his fingers clutching her thighs. “And I told him you were my future. You were my happiness. And you always will be. I decided that when I was thirteen and we were betrothed. When I was seventeen and my father offered to null the engagement. When I was nineteen and about to marry you. And I have never veered from it. You are everything, Laney.”

Her throat collapsed on her, her body swaying.

He