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He’d always known there was more to her than met the eye. How strange that now, when she was finally going to tell him, he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear. They loved each other. They were going to be happy. Don’t change the story now.

“I’m not a laundress. Well, I am, but that’s not all.”

He couldn’t help the smile that twisted his lips. “That much I figured out already.” A schoolmaster’s family, he’d guessed, or perhaps even a vicar’s. A family with access to learning, but whose credibility couldn’t survive a scandalous marriage.

She continued without acknowledging his comment. “My family was—is—quite wealthy.”

This he hadn’t expected. Wealthy. He would never be wealthy. If they left the city, their circumstances would be even less promising. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.” He cleared his throat, hating the unsteady throb in his voice. “You said you didn’t have anyone but Granny.”

“There wasn’t anyone. At least, not anyone who would acknowledge me.”

“That’s splitting hairs.” James tried to make sense of her words, but they danced about his mind, refusing to settle in any logical pattern.

“Well, you’re the lawyer. You would know.” Her voice was sharp.

An uncharacteristic flush of anger surged through him, making him ball his hands into fists. “Sara, just get to the point.”

“I—I was born Sara Ballantine.”

James was still for a long moment. He only knew one family named Ballantine in the city and that was—“I don’t understand.”

“Thomas Ballantine is my father.” James shook his head and she continued, a thread of impatience in her voice. “Oh, surely you’ve heard the story of Ballantine’s disgraced daughter.”

“You’re Sally?” Hints began to fall into place. Her insistence on staying away from society. The look on her face when she discovered he worked for Thomas Ballantine.

“Papa wanted me to marry Osgoode.” James gave a sharp intake of breath, but she refused to look at his face. “I refused, and he told me I was no daughter of his. If I left with Colin, I was never to darken his door again. I didn’t see my father again until this morning.”

“You mean to tell me that Ballantine, one of the richest men in Toronto, let his daughter scrub laundry at Cooper’s Inn?

” James crossed his arms. The story was incredible, unbelievable.

Yet what motivation would she have to lie?

He remembered the strange hesitation in Ballantine’s voice when he’d said the name Sally and the flush on his cheeks.

“He didn’t know any of that.” Sara looked down at her hands, her fingers rubbing against the remains of a callus.

“They’d arranged my marriage to Stephen Osgoode.

I was afraid, if I went back, I’d have to—” She met James’s eyes.

“You know what Osgoode is. He’d find some way to trap me into it, I knew it. ”

James’s hands clenched at the fear in her voice. He took a step toward the bed, and then another, feeling her anguish down to his soul. “Yet you went to your father this morning. What did he say?”

Tears filled her eyes. “He said he was sorry.” She barely got the words out before a sob shook her. James closed the space between them in one step and sat beside her, gathering her close in his arms.

“Hush, my love. Hush.”

Sara wrapped her arms around him, pressing her face into the nook between his neck and shoulder.

He breathed in her scent, pulling the soft curves of her body close.

Her hands crept around his waist, returning his embrace, and sending a shock of awareness through him.

His hand soothed the supple line of her back until her sobs subsided and she took a steadying breath.

“I never thought I’d hear him say those words. I thought I was alone.”

“I wish you had told me.” How could she ever be happy with the life he offered, when her father could give her so much more? She’d grow unsatisfied, just like—

“James, look at me.” The touch of her hands on his face brought his attention back to her with a snap.

“I’m sorry. Had I known you were so intimately connected to him, I would have told you before we wed.

After, when I found out... well, I thought it could damage your career.

What if he refused to acknowledge me? Or punished you, though it was no fault of yours? ” Her voice broke.

“You thought all that, but you never thought to trust me with the truth?”

“I was afraid I’d lose you.”

“But that’s not what happened. You can’t lose me, Sara Kinney. You’re stuck with me now.” The thought made his stomach dip.

A hint of a smile curved her lips. “I didn’t believe I’d ever be this happy.” He sucked in a breath. Did she really have no regrets? “There’s no one else I’d rather be with. Granny said you were the one, but I never believed her.”

What Sara needs is a family. I reckon that’s what you need, too. He smiled. “She told me the same thing. I assured her she had the wrong man.”

Her fingers twisted in the linen of his shirt, her eyes wide and warm. “Granny’s never wrong. I love you, James. Forgive me?”

“There’s nothing to forgive.” The joy he’d felt earlier, coming home to her, returned, stronger than ever. She loved him. She wanted to be with him. “I think I might be the happiest man in Toronto tonight.”

She smiled and there was a subtle shift in the air about them. James’s hands on her back slowed, tracing the fine bones along her spine in a delicate swirl. She drew closer, her breath cool against his neck, making him shiver.

He closed the remaining space between them and touched his lips to hers, softly at first, then more firmly as her arms tightened around him. His hands cupped her face as he deepened the kiss. They fell back on the bed and her arms moved up to wind around his neck, her fingers buried in his hair.

With a groan, he broke off the kiss. “Sara?” he gasped. He tore his eyes from her lips and forced himself to focus on words. “Are you sure?”

She smiled. “I’ve never been more confident about anything in my life, James Kinney.”