Page 121 of Her Scandalous Pursuit

“Me? Why?”

He shrugged. “I just didn’t feel such a pull. I didn’t feel it when your grandmother showed it to us, either.”

“Really? How odd.”

“I think your power must have been stronger than it.” He smiled at Thisbe.

“Or perhaps it was our love that was more powerful,” Thisbe said.

He leaned in to kiss her, and the conversation was put aside for the moment. When Desmond raised his head, he said, “You should sleep.”

Thisbe shook her head. “I’m fine—I’m feeling stronger by the moment. And I’ve done nothing but sleep for—How long has it been?”

“It’s been a day now.”

“A day!”

He nodded. “I was getting worried... Hell, I was terrified. You didn’t die—or, rather, you did, but you came back to life, but I feared your mind was gone. That you would be nothing but a shell.”

“Stop. Go back. I ‘came back to life’? What does that mean?”

“When I pulled you from the water, you weren’t breathing. But the Swiss discovered a century ago that if you forced your own air into someone’s lungs, sometimes he would begin breathing again on his own.”

“That’s what you did for me?” Thisbe gazed at him, wide-eyed.

He nodded. “I read an article not too long ago about pushing the water out of one’s lungs and he suggested that pushing the air out of your lungs, as well as in, would more closely simulate breathing. I was afraid I’d break your ribs, but I was desperate. Your lips were blue. You looked...”

“The way you saw me through the Eye.”

He nodded.

“Grandmother’s prediction came true, after all. Our love led to my death. What we didn’t know was that your love would be bring me back.”

Desmond leaned forward suddenly, setting aside her cup and taking both her hands in his. “Thisbe, I am such an idiot. Which, of course, probably comes as no surprise to you.” He lifted her hands to kiss them. “I should have trusted you, trusted myself. What I told you the other day, that we aren’t bound by an inflexible destiny, that we can reshape our fate into something better—that is the truth of the matter. It’s what I believe. But I was afraid to believe that you could actually love me.”

“How could I not love you?” Thisbe caressed his face.

“There are many reasons, but I’m not foolish enough to point them out.” Desmond smiled. “It makes no sense, but I wanted a future with you so much that believing I could have it terrified me.”

“I understand.”

“Do you? I’m not sure I do. All I know is that yesterday, when I saw you go off that ledge, all I could think was that I would not let you die. Whatever I had to do, I would. The only thing I couldn’t do was sit back and allow it to happen. Our lives are what we make of them. They’re what we do with what we’re given. I had been given the most precious gift possible in your love, and I’d been too scared, too stupid, too blind, to take it.”

Tears filled Thisbe’s eyes. “Then you’ll marry me?”

Desmond grinned. “I’m the one who’s supposed to ask you.”

“I never do what I’m supposed to,” Thisbe retorted. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she kissed him. When at last she pulled back, she said, “So will you? Marry me?”

“Of course I will.”

“And all those qualms about being thought an adventurer?”

“Why should I care what other people think? All I care about is you,” he told her. “And if that means living in an enormous house with your delightful family, and being waited on by servants, and researching exactly what I want in our own private laboratory...well, those are hardships I shall simply have to bear.”

Thisbe laughed and pushed back the covers, no longer cold at all. After swinging her leg over his, she straddled him and hooked her arms loosely around his neck. “Then perhaps you might show me how glad you are that I didn’t die.”

His mouth softened, his eyes darkening. “Are you sure you feel well enough?”