The Marquess Who Loved Me - By Sara Ramsey Page 0,116

against him. She tilted her face up to look into his eyes. “I might consider it,” she whispered.

He dipped his head and grazed his lips against hers. “And this bait?” he asked.

“You win,” she said. She draped her arms on his shoulders and kissed him thoroughly, consumingly. Her mouth wanted more of him. Her hands wanted to touch him, everywhere, but she contented herself with his broad shoulders and the silky hair that brushed across her fingers. The tempo of the kiss matched the thudding of her heart — and they came together without hesitation, without regret, as though all the walls between them had crumbled into dust.

When he pulled back, she sighed as she lost him. “What shall it be tonight, Nick?” she asked. “Do you want me as a woodland nymph? A gardener? A lost princess trapped in the woods?”

He shook his head. Then he gestured to the bed of plants behind him. “Do you know what these are?” he asked.

She squinted into the darkness. “Strawberries?” she guessed. “But it’s too early to pick them. The chef will have your skin if you interfere with his produce.”

“I will not commit any crimes against the chef,” Nick vowed. “But I’m disappointed there are no blackberries in the conservatory. I cannot find a blackberry in Surrey at this time of year to save my life.”

“Why do you want blackberries?” Ellie asked, bewildered. “Surely the chef has some blackberry liqueur. He might make something with it for you.”

“You don’t understand, do you? I’d hoped you would, but you may not remember that day as I do.”

“That day…?”

He frowned as though willing her to share his memory. “The day we picked blackberries,” she said suddenly. “I think it may have been the best day of my life.”

It was a dramatic thing to say — but then, it had been a dramatic day. Everything was bright, cloudless. The berries were sweet; Nick’s laugh was sweeter still. He had only just started laughing for her then, and she had treasured each time he sparked a smile for one of her jests. And when he had kissed her…

“It may have been the best day of my life, too,” he said. “So perfect that I sometimes wondered what the purpose of life was, if that day could not be bettered.”

Then he took her hands into his and stripped off her gloves. “Can you guess why I brought you here?” he asked.

She shook her head. She hoped she knew why he had brought her there. But she wasn’t going to rush him. “If it’s to tell me you are going back to India, I shall murder you.”

He stuffed her gloves into his waistcoat and twined his fingers through hers. “No trips to India in my future. But I have thought a lot about beginnings.”

Nick paused. Ellie held her breath. It seemed the whole conservatory held its breath — in the cool mist of the greenhouse, they were utterly alone, utterly able to focus on each other.

And what Ellie felt in Nick’s grip on her hands made her heart flip.

He drew a breath. “I have thought a lot about beginnings. That blackberry patch was a beginning. And it felt right, tonight, to revisit it — not with the girl you were and the boy I was, but with who we are now.”

She squeezed his hands, but she didn’t speak. And for once, Nick didn’t need to be drawn into laughter. He smiled at her. If there was awe in his eyes, it wasn’t the worship she hated — it was the same awe that she felt, that they could be together, in this moment, and it could feel so right.

“I never thought I would have to make this speech, you know. It was always you, Ellie. Always, always you. There would never be anyone else for me. And I suppose my stupid revenge was an attempt to convince myself that I could let you go. But I can’t. Everything I am, everything I want to be, is for you.”

“It was always you, too,” she said, in a voice that was suddenly hoarse. “And it always will be. No matter where this leads.”

She could have let it go at that, at least for that night. But Nick didn’t stop. “I know where this leads. It will always lead back to this moment. Don’t you see? Our lives aren’t intersecting paths. This isn’t a crossroads. This moment is a mirror of that day in the blackberry patch — and there