Page 72 of My Duke, The Stranger
“Don’t apologize.” He continued towards her. “Don’t ever apologize for caring. Your father was sick and you rushed to be by his side. It is exactly what I would expect from you.”
“You are not angry?” She looked skeptical.
“As I said, I was worried.” He reached her. “But never angry. How could I be angry when you did the only thing that you could? The very thing that makes you who you are.”
“Worried?” She rolled the word over her tongue. “And scared, perhaps?”
“I was.”
“How did that make you feel?” she asked as she licked her lips. “I know that you would rather not feel such things. Better to not care than to feel any sense of fear, right?”
He laughed softly. “Once, I might have agreed with you.”
“And now…” Hope filled her eyes as she searched him.
“Now…” Cassian stood right in front of Isolde. He let her see the worry that was so clear. He let her see the fear that had filled him. But he also let her see his relief, how happy he was that she was well and had not been hurt. He let her see that he was willing to take it all, no longer hiding and running, but fully exposed. “Now, there is just one thing I can think of to do, but I would belying if I said it did not bring me some trepidation. Fear…” He smiled. “But the type I should embrace.”
“What do you mean?”
“I spent so long avoiding the bad, Isolde. I spent an eternity pretending that it did not exist because I thought that would make me happy. But what you have taught me is that the bad is necessary because it makes those good moments so… One cannot love if they care for nothing but themselves.”
“And do you care?” Her eyes flicked to his lips. A crack of thunder somewhere in the distance. Rain drenched her hair, pouring down her face. But she had never looked more beautiful. “Do you want to love? Even if it means you might sometimes feel pain and sadness? Will you take that risk?”
“I have taken that risk,” he said as he reached out and took her hands. She did not resist. “I lived it today, when I learned what you had done. And because I came after you, I see now why people choose to live this way.” He made sure to smile, ensuring it reached his eyes as he trapped her in them. “I want it all, Isolde. The pain. The sorrow and the suffering. And…” He glanced at her lips. “And the love that comes after.”
She said nothing. There was no need. Her response was a glance at his lips, a squeezing of his hands, and the slightest movement of her head as she leaned forward…
Unlike last evening, Cassian did not second guess himself.
He wanted this. He wanted the pain, he wanted the misery, just as he wanted the good that came from it. He wanted to care for others, so that they might care for him too. He wanted to open his heart and accept his feelings, because the woman who had his heart fully had already done the same for him.
So, as the rain fell about them, as thunder split the sky, Cassian pulled his wife forward and planted a kiss on her lips that had been so long coming, and all the better for it.
That kiss said all that needed to be said. It swept through their bodies, entwined them, bound them together as no vow or confessions of love could. It wasn’t just passion, and it wasn’t just desire. It was love. It was everything that Cassian had been missing from his life, and now that he had it, he wondered why he had been so afraid.
So much time lost… but so much time to make up for it. And as they kissed in the rain, Cassian made himself a promise. He would never be alone again.
Twenty-Nine
Isolde was in the morning room, enjoying a cup of tea and the return of sunny days, when she was informed of a guest who had just arrived. And once again, the look on Mr. Pembroke’s face told her, without her having to ask, that this guest might not bring her joy.
“He’s here…?” Isolde swallowed the lump in her throat when Mr. Pembroke told her who it was. “Right now?”
“In the foyer, Your Grace,” Mr. Pembroke said. “He did not tell me the reason for his visit, only that it was in your best interest if he spoke to you at once.” The side of his lip twitched. “And in private.”
“Where is Cassian?” she asked.
“In his office. I planned on seeing him as soon as I left you.”
Isolde thought quickly. The arrival of this guest could only bring with it bad tidings. And as was typical in Isolde’s life, the timing could not have been worse. Finally, she and Cassian had found level ground, an admission of their feelings, and a willingness to put the past behind them so that their future might be one worth living for.
Their kiss from yesterday still lingered on Isolde’s lips. She had thought of little else since then, just as she had thought long and hard about what it meant.
From the moment that Cassian had woken up in her cottage, he had confessed to her his love. Once he learned her secret, he had denied those feelings, fighting against them as if he could bully them away. But that kiss proved what she had always known. Her husband loved her and finally he was willing to accept that.
But did she love him?
Isolde cared for Cassian. Of that, there was no question. Also, she wanted Cassian to be happy. She knew the man he was, she knew his heart as if it was her own, and she knew that she wanted to be with him. But was she in love with him?
