for anything less than what would make my heart full.” He paused. “You make my heart full, Hyacinth. Only, ever you. I was lost until I kissed you in the moonlight. Lost until I found you. I have been waiting. Waiting for you. For this. For us. I just did not know it until you were here, in my life, in my arms.”
The impulse to throw her arms around his neck and smother his gorgeous mouth with hers was strong. She fought it back with all her restraint. Because there were words she needed to say as well. Questions she needed answered.
“Why did you spend our time apart acting as if I had ceased to exist?” she asked. “Surely if you loved me, you would have called upon me, sent me a note. You would have attempted to see me.”
“Because I was terrified of the way you make me feel, sweetheart.” Stroke, stroke, stroke went his thumb on her jaw, a maddening caress. “Why did you truly disappear on the last night of our arrangement?”
“For the same reason,” she admitted.
“We could have saved ourselves a great deal of heartache had we not been so stubborn,” he pointed out, his gaze filled with love.
No man had ever looked at her the way Tom did—as if she were not just special, but priceless. As if she were beloved. Why had she doubted him? Why had she doubted herself?
“Indeed, we could have.” Hyacinth wrapped her arms around his neck as she had been longing at last, pressing her body to his. “I love you, Tom. Quite desperately. You make my heart full also, in a way I never knew possible.”
He took her waist in his hands, anchoring her to him tightly, and dropped his forehead to hers. “Thank God, sweetheart. Marry me?”
She stared into the depths of his brown eyes. Those eyes that were sparkling with hints of cinnamon and gold. Those eyes that saw her so well. Those eyes that reflected nothing but devotion back at her.
The fetters of the past fell away as she stood there within the circle of Tom’s arms.
“Yes,” she told him.
One word. So right.
She pressed her lips to his and kissed him with all the love in her heart.
Chapter Nineteen
“Are you certain you forgive me for telling Sidmouth?” Lottie whispered as Hyacinth and Tom were saying their farewells following the wedding breakfast.
Hyacinth gave her friend an impulsive embrace. “How could I be angry with you for making certain everything worked out the way it should have?”
Lottie’s well-intentioned meddling had led her here, after all. She was Lady Sidmouth now. Tom’s wife.
Her friend hugged her in return. “Oh, thank heavens, dearest. You have no idea how much I struggled over the decision. But I feared you were making a grievous mistake.”
“And naturally, you thought you would intervene,” came a masculine drawl.
Hyacinth stepped back to see the Duke of Brandon had joined them where they stood on the periphery of the immense gathering. The Duchess of Arrington had insisted upon inviting nearly half of London, it seemed, to celebrate Tom and Hyacinth’s nuptials. Fortunately, the dining hall at Arrington House was proportional to the guest list.
“My intervention was timely,” Lottie said coolly. “Lord and Lady Sidmouth love each other and are destined to be together. Anyone can see that. I merely did what was in their best interest.”
“Hmm. Best interest as you deemed it,” Brandon said.
Hyacinth frowned, looking from her friend to the duke and back again. The air between them seemed to have altered, possessing a definitive chill which had been absent before. But surely that was silly, was it not? Lottie had not spoken a word of anything to Hyacinth. Still, Hyacinth had been rather consumed with the preparations for her whirlwind wedding to Tom.
Lottie gave a disdainful sniff. “At least they are not living a lie, Your Grace.”
There was something in her friend’s tone that gave Hyacinth pause. An undercurrent of accusation.
“Perhaps we have different definitions of what is a lie and what is the truth, my lady,” he said smoothly.
Their cryptic dialogue was making Hyacinth dizzy. Or mayhap that was her delicate condition. It was difficult to say for certain. But before she could pursue the matter, Tom was at her side.
“The carriage is ready, darling,” he told her. “Shall we go, Lady Sidmouth?”
He was so beautiful, so beloved, her husband. All worries about Lottie and Brandon fled as she basked in the love shining in his eyes. “Yes, Lord Sidmouth. I do believe we