Page 41 of Hastings (Brothers in Arms #15)
CHAPTER 41
M addy was deliriously happy. She knew that was silly. Simply riding out to visit a sick parishioner with Stephen shouldn’t make her giddy. But it was the sort of thing his wife would do, and Maddy let herself pretend that’s what she was. A very respectable parson’s wife, doing good things for the parish. She stole a glance at Stephen from the corner of her eye. A very naughty, well-endowed, extremely handsome parson. She giggled. Stephen glanced over at her and smiled.
“What has you so amused?” he asked. He turned his attention back to the horse pulling his small carriage. They were seated quite close together, and Maddy had taken advantage of it to press herself to his side and slide her arm through his.
“I was just thinking what a naughty parson you are,” she said, laughing again. “You look so very respectable, but I can’t stop remembering you last night.”
Stephen blushed as he turned to look at her and then quickly looked forward again. “I hope I didn’t do anything to upset you last night,” he said.
“Oh, no! That’s not why I was thinking about it,” she assured him, hugging his arm to her. “I enjoyed it. I want to do it again. Very much.”
“As do I,” Stephen said. He pulled on the reins and slowed the carriage until it came to a stop. Then he turned to her. Her insides were churning. Was he going to send her away now? She let go of his arm and scooted away from him, schooling her features so she didn’t reveal too much and folding her hands tightly in her lap.
“Don’t do that,” Stephen said.
“Do what?” she asked.
“Put on that face,” he told her. “The one you use to hide everything.”
“I don’t do that,” she lied.
“Of course you do.” Stephen sighed. “Maddy, I love you.”
“If you…” Her voice trailed off. She’d thought he was going to tell her it was time for her to leave, before things got even more complicated. “You love me?” she asked, her voice squeaking embarrassingly.
“I want to marry you,” he said firmly. “This wasn’t how I intended to propose, but I can’t wait for you to figure it out yourself. If I do, you’ll be halfway to Australia before you realize it.”
“I don’t want to go to Australia,” she said.
“Good. I don’t either, so I’d hate to have to follow you there just to tell you I love you and to marry you.” Stephen was looking at her expectantly. Whenever he turned his full attention on her it felt like staring directly at the sun. She became blind to anything else around her.
“Well?” he asked impatiently after a moment’s silence.
“Well, what?” she asked.
“Are you going to marry me?” His voice sounded a little strained.
“You know I can’t, but it’s lovely of you to ask me,” she said. She threw her arms around him. “Just knowing that you’d marry me means the world to me, darling.”
“Until you agree to marry me,” Stephen said, gently pushing her away, “none of that then.”
“What?” she asked, sure she’d misunderstood.
“You know exactly how extraordinary physical intimacy is between us,” he said, clucking at the horses to move again. “If you want more of that, then you have to marry me.”
“Isn’t that something I should be saying?” she asked wryly.
“Well, I’m saying it,” he told her. “And I’ll be telling Hastings the same thing.”
“Hastings can’t marry you,” she told him. “That’s silly.”
“Would you rather marry Hastings?” he asked. He didn’t sound upset about it, and she supposed he wouldn’t. He was in love with Hastings, too, after all.
“Hastings wouldn’t marry me,” she told him, quite sure she was right. “He’s going back to London to be a spy or whatever it is he does for Sir Barnabas.”
“No, he is not,” Stephen said firmly. “I have set things in motion to make sure he does not.”
“Oh, no,” she breathed out in shock. “What have you done? He won’t thank you for it, you know. He’s as stubborn as they come. He wants to go back to London.”
“No, he doesn’t. That’s the thing. Weren’t you listening last night?” Stephen sighed and stopped the horses again. “He said he’d been fooling himself that he could stay here. That he’d begun to feel like he’d found a place here.”
“Until I came,” Maddy said sadly. “I ruined it for you both, didn’t I?”
“No.” Stephen took her hands in his. “We were dancing around it until you showed up. And then suddenly we weren’t. I can’t say for certain if anything would have happened between us if you hadn’t shown up, Maddy. You stirred feelings in both of us, feelings that were tangled up with what we felt for each other. It’s all very complicated, but also very simple.”
“I’m simple,” she said. “Explain it to me.”
“That night—good Lord, was it only two days ago?—when you caught us in the parlor, Hastings told me he was trying to decide if he should kiss me before you and I had our assignation, or after. He wasn’t trying to stop it. Just like he didn’t try to stop our kiss yesterday afternoon.” He paused and looked away for a moment before meeting her eyes again. “Maddy, you were right. We could have met anywhere, or nowhere. But we met here. And call it divine providence or fate or whatever you want, I believe there is a reason we three were brought together. And that reason is that we are meant to love one another.”
“I do love you,” she whispered. “And I love Hastings. And I want to be able to love you both as long as I can, while I’m here. But you know I can’t stay. You know I can’t be your wife. I’m not good enough for that, Stephen. Can’t we just love one another now, and forget the future for a little while longer?”
Stephen pulled her into a crushing hug. “You are good enough,” he whispered in her ear. “You’re better than good enough. I’ve never known anyone who wanted to be good as much as you, Maddy. Your soul is pure and beautiful, and I’m sorry that anyone made you feel less than that. But to me, you are the best woman I have ever known.”
“There are things,” she started to say, then she realized she was crying, and her voice was cracking. “There are things I’ve done,” she whispered. “Things you don’t know. Worse things than laying with men I had no feelings for. Stephen, I’ve killed people. Do you understand?”
“I don’t care,” Stephen said. He pulled back and kissed her tears away. “I don’t care what you’ve done. Whatever it is, it helped to make you who you are today. You said it yourself, others made you do those things. Other people made you into that person you’re trying so hard not to be. It wasn’t you, Maddy. You would never have done those things on your own.”
“Maybe I would have,” she said. “We can’t know that.” Was that true? Had she only done what she’d done because other people had forced her? Or was it her nature to be a killer? She feared the answer.
“I know that.” He rested his forehead on hers. “I know that. I know who you are. And I love you. I love how strong you are, how determined, and yet how vulnerable. I want to make you see what I see, Maddy. I want you to love yourself as much as I do, and I want to spend a lifetime together showing you how.”
She held on to his words like a drowning man holds onto the rope thrown to him. “What about Hastings?” she asked tearfully. “I can’t forget him. I can’t just leave him.” Even the thought was enough to rip open her heart.
“Leave him?” Stephen pulled back and looked at her in horror. “No. No, he’ll be right here with us.”
“He will?” she asked hopefully. Was she really thinking about this? About accepting his proposal? It was madness, but sweet madness all the same.
“We will make a life together here, the three of us,” Stephen told her, hugging her close again. “I promise. There is no better place for us than here. You can have me and Hastings, and we can have you and each other. No one here will deny us.”
“Then yes,” she whispered. “Yes, I’ll marry you.” A calmness descended on her as soon as she accepted. This was right . They were right together, the three of them.
“Well, well, well,” drawled a familiar voice. “Isn’t this a pretty scene?”
Maddy pulled away from Stephen to see her old gang captain Dickie Bales grinning at her coldly from beside the carriage.
“Watch her, boys,” he said, and Maddy quickly counted four men surrounding them, all with pistols. She didn’t recognize any of them. “She’s a tricky one, she is. She can kill a man at twenty paces if she’s got a blade. And if not, she can do it with her bare hands. I made sure of it, didn’t I, love?”