being unfair. Tell me one of her opinions with which you agreed.”
“What?” he said again. That clap of thunder was louder. They needed to get moving.
“You said you agreed on every important point. I’m interested in one of Rosalie’s points.”
Randolph tried to remember an occasion when Rosalie had expressed a strong opinion. Such as the determination of his current companion on their first meeting—never to marry a country clergyman. He couldn’t come up with one. “She was very young,” he said. “Her mind would have developed over time.”
“I’m sure it would have,” answered Verity. “And such development would have promoted idyllic happiness.”
She sounded very much like Randolph’s dry inner voice, which so often spoke wisdom, however sharp or unwelcome. Perhaps he had set Rosalie up on a pedestal, Randolph thought. Or rather, he’d idealized their story. The truth was, he hadn’t really known her. There’d been no time.
Verity was perfectly right, he acknowledged. Rosalie hadn’t expressed opinions or done anything in particular. She’d admired him, and that had been enough for his younger self. He’d been a little smug, cocky, stuffed full of fresh learning and great plans. A pretty girl who was eager to praise them was the summit of his desire. There was no telling where their lives would have gone. Very likely Rosalie would have tired of listening, at some point, if her death hadn’t destroyed all their possibilities. She’d been a human girl, not a paragon. He would always remember her affectionately, but…
He didn’t want a wife who simply listened and agreed, Randolph realized. Not any more—if he ever really had. He wanted a partner full of ideas and passions, who occasionally interrupted him and quite often made him think. Even when he didn’t really want to. He wanted someone who contributed to plans for their future, rather than accepting whatever he suggested. He wanted a woman who set him afire with longing. In short, he wanted Verity Sinclair. He loved her as he’d never loved Rosalie, with a man’s clear-eyed understanding and wholehearted intensity.
He hadn’t said so when he offered. He hadn’t understood the depth of his feelings then. He needed to tell her. It was becoming a familiar impulse, the need to tell Verity, to hear what she thought.
“I’ve made you sad,” she said, sounding rather melancholy herself. “I beg your pardon. Of course I know nothing about it.” She looked at the ground.
He’d barely even kissed Rosalie, Randolph thought. There’d been a few stolen embraces after their engagement was settled, but those had been nothing like the flash of passion with Verity by the pianoforte, or the ecstasy at Quinn’s cottage. And to compare such things was caddish, and he wouldn’t do it. He didn’t have to. He knew where his priorities lay.
“I’m not usually waspish,” said Verity. “I suppose I was…am jealous.” She sighed. “How dispiriting.”
“I don’t think of Rosalie,” Randolph repeated. “She’s gone. My mind is full of—”
“And yet, what does Shakespeare say? Her ‘eternal summer shall not fade.’”
She touched some truth in that—a wispy, nostalgic principle. “For the callow youth I was, perhaps. But as you guessed, that boy thought more of himself than any other. What he called love…” Randolph shrugged. “I don’t quite recognize it now. Not since I’ve become acquainted with you. It’s much more…expansive, isn’t it? Fiery and challenging and informative and rather all-encompassing, really.”
“Love?” murmured Verity.
“I’m not sure why it took me so long to see that I love you with all my heart.”
She stared at him. She blinked and swallowed. “I was thinking exactly the same thing,” she said, wonderment in her voice.
He smiled down at her, joy unfolding many layered inside him. “Well. That’s good then.”
“Oh, Randolph.” She threw herself into his arms.
Jubilantly, he caught her. And here was yet another sort of kiss—this one free and exulting, a promise sealed. How many more were waiting to be discovered? He couldn’t wait to find out.
The crack of thunder over their heads seemed a proper punctuation—and much too close. He had to step back. “We need to go. The storm is nearly upon us.”
Verity nodded. Hand in hand, they hurried back toward the gate. They were barely halfway there when, with a blinding flash and a splintering crack, lightning struck a tree not twenty feet away. Randolph moved quicker than thought, an arm around Verity’s waist, pulling her tight against him. He took a long step and then another. Even as the thunder assaulted them, shaking the very air, he got them behind a