Page 53 of Across the Star-Kissed Sea (Proper Romance Regency #1)
I hugged his arm. “You were simply trying to keep me from trouble. Mrs. Hallyburton is a formidable foe.” And I couldn’t be more grateful that she’d come to accept my presence, if not appreciate it.
She seemed to have a new respect for me after I’d run into the fray to find the captain, and she had even given me one reluctant “Well done” after the battle.
He nodded absently. His arm was tense, and he walked stiffly, eyes forward. They kept shifting back and forth, almost as if he were reading something visible to him alone. He usually only did that before a sermon, and I always assumed it was his silent rehearsing. What was he rehearsing for now?
The answer hit me like a squall—the spontaneous dinner with the Peytons and étienne at the house, the suggestion that we hike up by the fort to watch the sunset, his clear agitation.
He planned to propose.
My mind fuzzed. Propose. To me. The convict’s daughter from Portsmouth, who might have been a scullery maid if she’d listened to her family. I breathed in so sharply I nearly choked. How could this be happening to me?
Did it matter? I glanced up at him out of the corner of my eye.
We would never be rich by Society’s standards, perhaps not even comfortable by its standards, but we would have enough.
I would have a husband I could trust, who would love me with all he had, and he would have a wife who .
.. I winced. A wife who couldn’t control her tongue or her temper.
But who adored him in return. In accepting him, I would certainly be receiving the better end of this bargain in more ways than one.
He fussed with his hair, which was touched with the warm light of the Mediterranean sunset just beginning to break. Oh, Elias. He already looked perfect.
Something came alive inside of me—a pulsing, radiating, worrisome, lovely thing I couldn’t quite name, and I counted the seconds, hoping it would not be long until I found out if my wonderful imagining was coming true.
Elias
We stood at the top of the hill, not far from where the army had halted its work on the new fort for the day.
To our left, the sun had sunk toward the horizon, spilling ocher light over the sea and island hills.
étienne had melted into the foliage, while May and I surveyed the scene.
Would he spy on us from the tree line, or would he let us have our moment?
Our moment. I tried to swallow. What if she pushed me away again? She’d promised not to, but I was asking for more than friendship. More than flirtation and stolen kisses in quiet corners of the Marianne . I was asking for her world, for her heart, and—hardest of all—for her trust.
You’re taking this too quickly. It has only been a week since you mended things.
So much had changed in that week. There had been tentative times, but there had also been so many moments of joy like I’d never felt before. Safety, relief, companionship, understanding. Things I’d felt with few people before, even those of my own family.
Might as well get it over with, then.
I would if the voice could ever be quiet.
May stood beside me, eyes closed as the breeze played over her face.
She’d removed her makeshift bonnet, letting it hang down her back.
The skirts of the Saxon blue gown she wore peeked out from under her coat and fluttered against my leg, and my heart fluttered along with them.
A small smile graced her lips. If I could only get my mouth working, perhaps I could see scenes just like this every evening for the rest of my life.
Show life that it cannot beat you , Miriam had told me before the journey had begun. I would show it. I would quiet the voice of doubt in my brain. And I wouldn’t only quiet it; I would conquer it.
“May?” What a way to start. I cleared my throat. I could do this. “I ... I was wondering ...”
She turned eagerly toward me, brows raised expectantly. “Yes?”
I gathered her hands in mine, hoping she wouldn’t feel their trembling. “I wanted to ask you something. Something important.”
She nodded. “What is it?”
I blew out a deep breath. I’d prepared this for a week, but what I wished to say still felt awkward and unrefined.
I prayed it would come out with more finesse than the jumbled mess in my head.
“I’m so very grateful for the time we’ve had together the last few months.
You’ve made this voyage a wonder I never expected.
” I kept my gaze glued to her face, searching for any sign of what she was thinking, but she only watched me with silence and serenity.
I gulped, stumbling over what came next in my speech.
My head had gone blank as sand washed smooth by a departing tide.
“I haven’t much to give.” Wait. That wasn’t supposed to come next. Heaven help me.
She cocked her head. “You certainly have a great deal more than I do, whether we are speaking of desirable qualities or financial assets.” She ran a finger down along the buttons of my coat and back up, sending a thrill up my spine.
“May.” I was losing my head. And it was half her fault. My face heated as I looked down at the green waistcoat barely showing under my blue coat. Should I have worn something more muted?
She laughed, a light and giddy sound that quieted some of my anxieties. “I’m sorry. I’ve flustered you. Go on.” She rested her hands on my chest and rose up to kiss my cheek. Her breath tickled my ear, and even though her lips barely grazed my skin, gooseflesh ran across my arms.
“Don’t start that,” I said as she pulled back. But I didn’t want her to stop. I caught her hands, keeping them against my chest. “Then I’ll never say what I need to.”
She gave me a coy look. “Start what?”
“You know perfectly well.” This was not going as planned.
She pulled her hands out from under mine and clasped them in front of her in an innocent gesture. “I’ll be good. I promise. Ask me what you wish.”
I couldn’t withstand the teasing. Not from her. My shoulders slumped. “Now you are laughing at me.” I should’ve expected I couldn’t propose properly to this woman. Nothing about our courtship had been proper. I supposed I’d have to get used to that. Somehow, I didn’t mind the idea.
She gasped, hands flying to her hips. “I am not laughing at you!” A smile threatened to break her mock indignation.
“You are giving me that look you have when you’re laughing at me.”
“You and your wild imagination.” She shook her head, folding her arms.
I couldn’t hold out anymore. I caught her in my arms and pulled her in tightly. She giggled, something I had heard so rarely from her. “Perhaps you should have just continued what you were trying to start since I won’t be able to say what I wish to anyway.”
“You mean start this?” Her lips eagerly found mine, and I didn’t respond to her question.
I couldn’t respond to it. She stole my breath as she pressed fiercely against me.
No shame, no timidity, just desire for me to be hers.
And I was already hers. I had been for so long. Perhaps longer than I realized.
I trailed my hand up to her neck, holding her there as I returned her kiss. Somehow, I was always following her into these kisses. I hardly minded. I’d follow her love wherever it led us, to sunlit mountaintops or across star-kissed seas.
“I’ve missed that,” she whispered, not breaking our connection.
“So have I,” I whispered back.
She pulled away slightly, and I opened my eyes.
“You were going to ask?” she said.
“Ask what?”
She huffed. “Ask me to be your wife. Weren’t you?”
Oh. That. “Yes, of course. I mean to say, I hope with every last breath that you will be.” Stop bumbling, and ask the question. “Will you?”
She circled her arms about my neck. “Yes. What took you so long to ask?”
I opened my mouth with an exasperated exhale but was cut off from any protest with another laughing kiss. Life would never be dull with May, and at the moment, I could not think of anything that sounded more wonderful.