“You do?” Eliza asked.
“I do,” Somerset said emphatically. “I have for a long time, now.”
Eliza stared at him.
“But at the dinner party . . .” she said.
“I cannot excuse my behavior,” Somerset said. “I had thought, upon my return to England, that I had long ago overcome the . . . anger I felt toward you upon leaving these shores. But being in your presence again, I was not prepared for the feelings which would arise.”
He grimaced, and added, with a defeated shrug, “At times it has felt just as if I am eighteen, again.”
“For me, too,” Eliza whispered.
“I am not alone in it, then?” Somerset said.
“No,” Eliza breathed. “No, not at all.”
The relief sweeping through her felt sufficient enough to knock her off her feet. She had not thought . . . She had not hoped . . .
“And I confess,” he continued doggedly, “that the reason I have lingered so long in Bath—beyond anything that my duty required of me—is because . . . Because I still . . .”
And Eliza knew what he was going to say, even as he hesitated—knew too that if the words were spoken, they could not go back.
“I still love you, too,” she said.
It was the bravest thing she had ever done. Somerset jerked back as if he had been shot.
“My lady,” he breathed. “The nature of our locality prevents me from being able—”
But after ten years of waiting, Eliza would not allow herself to be inconvenienced by such a nonsensical piece of honor. She reached out and laid a trembling hand upon his shoulder, tracing her fingers down the front to grip his lapel.
“Somerset,” she said, with clear instruction. Then, softly, “Oliver.”
“Eliza.”
He kissed her. And though they had only shared such an embrace once before, they fell into one another as easily as if they had done so a thousand times.
“I missed you dearly,” she whispered when they broke apart, their foreheads still pressed together, his breath still ghosting across her lips. “When I saw you again, I was sure you had quite forgotten all that had passed between us.”
Somerset shook his head emphatically.
“Then I am a better actor than I thought,” he said. “For I was overcome.”
He embraced her again and she had forgotten what it felt like to be kissed in such a way. Not for duty, not for obligation, but with such intent that to stop even to breathe felt unthinkable.
“Oh, what are we to do?” Eliza said, when at last they parted.
“Well, I should hope that after kissing me in such a way, you would intend to marry me,” Somerset said, laughing a little.
“We cannot become engaged before a year and a day has passed,” Eliza said. “The disgrace . . .”
“Not until you enter your half-mourning, at least,” Somerset agreed. “Until then, it shall have to remain a secret.”
“And what about Margaret?” Eliza asked anxiously.
“What about Margaret?” Somerset said.
“She is needed by her sister, for the new baby,” Eliza said. “But then—after—she will live with us.”
“Will you have need of a companion when we are married?” Somerset asked doubtfully.
“I will always have need of Margaret,” Eliza said.
Somerset picked up her hand and kissed it.
“You are very sweet,” he said. “Of course. She will be my family too, soon enough.”
This reassured Eliza only for a moment.
“Your family despise me,” she said, covering her face with a groan.
Somerset could not disagree.
“They are protective,” he said, drawing her hands down gently and covering them with his own. “And I think they will like you a great deal more now that Tarquin will inherit Chepstow again.”
“Whatever do you mean?” Eliza said.
“Oh, just that it—well, it would go a long way to easing matters with my sister . . .” Somerset said.
“But Chepstow is mine,” Eliza said.
“And when we are married, it will be ours,” Somerset reminded her.
“But . . . but it was given to me,” Eliza said. She did not know why, exactly, she was fixating on such a point as this—it was, after all, a minor one in comparison to at last marrying the person she had loved all of her adult life.
“It was given to me,” she repeated quietly. Surely that counted for something?
Somerset’s gaze flickered between her eyes as if he could not quite understand her expression.
“Eliza, is this not our second chance?” he said, when she did not speak. “It may not have been what my uncle intended, but is this not worth sacrificing whatever we need to?”
The look in his eyes was so tender, so vulnerable, that she was not sure she could bear to see it. And if this was their second chance, Eliza wanted nothing more than to grasp it with both hands and never let go, but . . . Try as she might to focus only upon Somerset, her mind was racing. There was so much they had yet to discuss. So much about her new life that he did not know. She had not even told him about the portrait, yet, but how to broach such a topic now, in a carriage, when time already felt as if it were running out.
“There is much we have not spoken of,” Eliza said softly.
Somerset ducked his head to catch her eye.
“We have time,” he said gently. “We love each other. Everything else, we can solve.”
He made it sound so simple. It was so simple. Eliza’s frown slid from her face.
“We can,” she agreed.
“And while circumstances have not been kind to us, in the past,” he said, “we have the means to change that, now. We shall do better.”
She squeezed his hands in return.
“We shall do better,” she agreed.
The carriage drew to a stop. There was a thump on the roof.
“Five minutes!” Somerset called in response. Then, cupping his hand to her jaw, he spoke urgently. “I still must leave tomorrow. I must take a tour of my lands—I am afraid with this recent rain of them becoming flooded out—but I will write. And in six weeks, I shall return.”
“Very well,” Eliza whispered, leaning into his touch.
She had waited ten years. She could wait six more weeks.