Page 73 of Hunted By the Guardian
Lord Barchester looked furious, but he must have realized that she was right. “Very well,” he snapped. “Laura—come with me. You and I do have much to talk about, and I think perhaps now is the best time to do so.”
It would have been hard to say whether Laura looked more devastated or more angry. The look she cast at Violet as she walked past her was pure poison.
Violet ignored it. None of this is on my hands, she reminded herself. She wasn’t the one who had abandoned Noah. She wasn’t even the one who had learned about what Laura had done—though she was grateful Jonathan had done so.
Jonathan waited until they were gone, then closed the door behind them. “I imagine your father won’t like that,” he said, gesturing to the closed door.
“It would probably be a more effective use of our time not to worry about what my father likes,” Violet said evenly. She returned to the chair she had been sitting in and took her seat. “But whatever you wanted to say, you ought to make it quick. We should be done with this as swiftly as we can.”
The words were a dagger to his heart. When she had agreed to stay and talk with him, he had taken it to mean something that, apparently, it had not. “You don’t have to talk to me,” he told her. “I thought there were things you and I might want to resolve between us, that’s all.”
“Well,” she said, “I do think that if you’re offering the option for Laura to be a part of Noah’s life, you might offer me the same thing. I thought you might agree to let me see him from time to time.”
“Oh—of course,” he told her. “That was always a possibility. You’re welcome to come and spend time with him whenever you would like. In your case, I don’t even feel that we need to ask him what he thinks—I know what he will think. He’ll be thrilled to see you again. He’s been very sad since you left, you know, and no small amount of angry with me. It will be a great relief to him to realize he can still have you in his life.”
Violet nodded slowly. “Good, then,” she said quietly. “I’m glad things are settled.”
Was that it? She didn’t want to speak to him about anything else—was that what she was saying to him? It seemed that way. He wondered if he ought to take her standoffishness as rejection. Maybe she was saying that she was done talking to him—maybe that was what things are settled really meant.
And suddenly—emphatically—it was not good enough.
Things were not settled. Not for Jonathan. The way he’d felt when he had walked through that door and seen that she had been here all this time—that could never be called settled. There were many things in that feeling—hope, exhilaration, excitement—but there was no peace. He would have no peace until he told her exactly what was on his mind. He could see that now.
And the words came tumbling out, so much more easily than they should have, because he had been longing to say them for such a long time.
“Violet,” he said, “I need you to come back home. Not just for Noah, but for me. I need you there. You need to come back. Please.”
She looked up at him. There was mistrust in her eyes. But behind it, he thought perhaps he saw something more. A sparkle of openness. Maybe it was forgiveness.
Maybe it was hope.
“I am home,” she said slowly.
“But you’re not,” he insisted. He walked to the chaise and took the seat beside her. He ached to reach for her hands, but he stopped himself. Not unless she seems as if she wants me to. Only then will I reach for her. If she doesn’t want this the way I do, I must be ready to walk out of this house with nothing.
The idea felt like ice in his heart. Surely that wouldn’t happen. Surely she would see what he needed to tell her and would understand the importance of it.
Surely she would agree.
But even if she doesn’t, I must unburden myself. I must say these words, and if doing so means rejection, then I will accept that.
“Your home is with me,” he told her. “What you and I have together…it’s something special. Something magical. You sense that. I know you do. Even though you might want to turn away from me and pretend that we never found what we did…can you do it? Can you really? Because I can’t leave you behind. I was never asking you to stay with me out of pity, Violet. I don’t pity you. I yearn for you. I need you to be with me. I need you to come home.”
“Are you…saying this because you need my help with Noah?” Her voice trembled. “Because you don’t need to do this for that reason. I will help you with him. You know how much I love Noah. I can live here—anywhere—and still be a part of his life. I will always help you with him.”
“He does need you,” Jonathan agreed. “But that’s not why I want you back. It’s not because Noah loves you, Violet.” Throwing caution to the wind, he reached over and took her hands in his.
She didn’t pull away.
“It’s because I love you,” he said, holding her gaze. “I am in love with you, Violet. It broke me when you left. And I’m sorry I couldn’t figure out how to just tell you this when you were still with me. I’m sorry I made you feel as though I only wanted you to stay out of pity. That was never the case. The only person I pity is myself, because for a brief moment I had you in my life, and then I lost you. Because now I might have to learn how to live without you, and that thought is unbearable. I want you to come home to me. I want you to marry me.”
She breathed in sharply, her eyes going wide. “Marry you?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t come here meaning to say that,” he said. “I didn’t even know that you would be here. But now that we’re face to face, now that I know how good it feels to see you again, I never want to lose you. I want you to be my wife, and I want the two of us to be Noah’s parents together.”
Her eyes filled with tears, but still she did not answer.
“We’ve been fighting so hard not to be a family,” he murmured. “We’ve both been trying so hard not to have these feelings, but they just seem impossible to avoid. And now I realize that I don’t want to avoid them. I like it when Noah slips up and calls us his mum and dad. I like the picnics and the books we read together. I like the idea that people in town might see us together and think there’s something between us. There is something between us. There’s my love for you. And I hope very much that I haven’t been wrong in thinking that you might love me too.”
