path.”
“I have a feeling it will be a happier one,” Thaddeus said. He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it, before bowing and walking away.
After everyone bid farewell to Mr. Finney and his cousin and returned to the inn, Betsy retired to her bedchamber very conscious of one thing: She did not care to be ignored by Jeremy as she had been during the meal.
She was used to meeting his eyes when someone said something foolish. She’d overheard a prediction that all the songbirds in England had died in the storm, but Jeremy just nodded, his head courteously bent toward Mrs. Grabell-Pitt. She was used to being the one he turned to, and virtually the only person he spoke to.
That realization made her twitch because she wanted Jeremy to have friends, to carry on conversations with others.
She just didn’t want him to overlook her.
Sometime later she sat by the fire, drying her hair as Winnie fluttered about the room, then finally took her leave. Slowly the old inn quieted, with just a shudder now and then as a gust of snow struck the windows with particular force. What had been pretty swirls of snow had transformed into a gale that hurled itself against the building with the force of gravel tossed at a lover’s window.
Clementine’s hateful voice kept echoing in Betsy’s ears. But she had made up her mind to do this thing that society forbade.
As her choice.
She chose Jeremy, here and now, and not merely when a ring would mark her as his possession. In fact, he hadn’t even asked her to marry him; simply discussed their marital future. It was that memory that brought her to her feet and into the dark, chilly corridor.
She paused, hand flat against his door, just to make certain that her inside landscape entirely agreed with this decision.
It did.
Jeremy was hers.
His door swung open soundlessly and she walked forward just enough to ease the door shut behind her. His fire was still burning high, so it cast rosy light around the room: over the great four-poster and its high canopy, over the looming chest of drawers—
Over the man who had risen to his feet from a chair by the fireplace. Light flickered over him as if with love, shaping the planes of his face like one of Mr. Finney’s artworks.
“Hello,” Betsy said, reminding herself that she didn’t believe in being nervous. She had allowed herself that emotion only when she met the queen.
“Hello,” Jeremy replied. His smile said a great deal more.
They moved toward each other as if they were following the steps of a very slow, very grand country dance. One that was danced by kings and queens and countryfolk alike.
When they were beside each other, she squared her shoulders and met his eyes. “I decided to come to you. I hope that is all right.”
“I do believe that you are the bravest woman I’ve ever met,” he replied.
He couldn’t have said anything better; Betsy felt herself begin to glow. “I haven’t been brave to this point, but I have made up my mind to change. I outlawed being nervous, but now I need to outlaw being afraid.” She hesitated. “I have chosen courage, and now I choose happiness.”
“I love you as you are,” he whispered, and then his mouth came down on hers.
Her breath caught in her throat because their tongues met as if they kissed every day, every night. He tasted right, which sent a shiver through her whole body, and pushed her against him gently, the way a pebble might roll up a beach when the tide comes in.
One doesn’t fight the tide.
All the time they kissed, Betsy’s tongue danced to the pulse she felt in her throat. Her arms were around his neck, but it wasn’t enough, so she let one slip down his side and then around to his back, caressing him through the thin fabric of his shirt.
She was delighting in the pure strength under her fingers when he eased away.
“No,” she said, her voice an aching whisper.
“I have to know that you want me, not just this,” Jeremy said. His lips ghosted down her throat, and the tip of his tongue traced patterns over the tender patch under her ear.
“I want you,” Betsy said. And then, not in answer to what he said, but because it was the truth of her heart: “I love you.”
He stiffened and lifted his head, then drew her over to the fireplace. “I need to see your face,”