Page 114 of Exile's Return

He shook his head. ‘No, that’s not what I was thinking. There is only one woman I want to share my bed with.’

She looked up sharply. ‘What do you mean?’

He had fought a battle, survived imprisonment, torture, and death, and sailed the seas as a French privateer. And yet a fear such as he had never experienced before clutched his heart. He did not want to lose this woman. He just had to find the courage to say a few simple words.

He cleared his throat. ‘That night at Seven Ways when you came to me…was it because you just felt sorry for me?’

Agnes shook her head. ‘No. I said that because…’ she bit her lip, ‘maybe I wanted to push you away. You had found Kit and I thought you wouldn’t need me anymore. It was easier to hurt than be hurt.’ She took a breath. ‘I love you, Daniel. I probably have from the moment you rescued me on that street in London, however base your motives were.’

Daniel sucked in his breath and looked away. ‘I have to admit, my motives were less than pure, but there has been precious little time for love or tenderness or even affection in my life in the last years. I don’t deserve your love.’

She rose to her feet to face him. ‘I do understand…I come with two children and a tarnished reputation, and…’

She didn’t finish. He seized her and wrapped her in his arms, silencing her with a kiss. She responded in kind, joined in a desperate passion that took his breath away. As they broke apart they leaned into each other, forehead to forehead, nose to nose, her very breath his breath. He found her hands, twining his fingers with hers.

‘Marry me, Agnes,’ he said.

Her fingers tightened on his. ‘Daniel … I … ”

‘I understand that the children are a part of you and, God willing, there will be more children.’ A thought welled inside him and he allowed it to spill over in a deep-throated laugh of pure joy. ‘I want to grow old with you by my side, surrounded by our children and our children’s children, Agnes. We can rebuild Eveleigh…’ He stopped and straightened. ‘You haven’t given me an answer.’

‘You haven’t told me why you want to marry me, Daniel.’

He had to think about that one for a long moment. When it dawned on him, he smiled and gathered her hands in his own, pressing them to his heart. ‘I love you, Agnes Fletcher.’

‘And I love you and I very much want to marry you, Daniel Lovell.’

He wrapped his arms around her and held her close.

‘As soon as this matter is settled,’ he said. ‘For now, you are dead on your feet, Agnes.’

He swept her up in his arms and carried her over to the bed, laying her between the covers.

‘Will you stay?’ she murmured.

He shook his head as he bent to kiss her. ‘Not tonight. Like you, I need my bed and a good night’s rest.’

Chapter 49

Agnes woke to a large, slobbery kiss from Henry. She rolled him over and tickled him until he begged for mercy, with Lizzie joining in until they were one giggly knot. Sarah Truscott entered the bedchamber bearing a tray with fresh bread, jam, and frumenty for the children’s breakfast. She set the tray down on the table and extricated the children from the tangle of bed linen.

‘Sir Jonathan asks that you join them,’ she said as Agnes tumbled from the bed. ‘I’ll help you dress.’

‘You’re cheerful this morning,’ Sarah went on to remark, as Agnes hummed to herself while she drew a comb through her tangled hair.

Agnes laid the comb down and looked at her reflection in the mildewed mirror provided by the inn. ‘I have good reason to be,’ she said.

Coiling Agnes’s wayward hair into a knot, Sarah smiled. ‘Many good reasons,’ she said, adding with a cheeky grin, ‘but mostly to do with an ‘andsome man with a scar on his face?’

‘Maybe,’ Agnes replied.

She all but bounced into the private parlour with a cheery ‘Good morning.’

The three men seated around the table looked up, but Agnes had eyes for only one man. Daniel’s smile warmed her as he held out his hand. She placed her hand in his and he raised it to his lips, never once looking away. His grey eyes, soft and smoky and no longer the icy grey of a winter stream, drew her in, and she leaned toward him, kissing him as if they were the only two people in the room.

Jonathan coughed. ‘I see. That is how the land lies, does it?’

‘About time,’ Kit commented. ‘We’ve been watching you two pretending indifference for weeks now. It was getting very tiresome.’