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“No,” Laura agreed. “I don’t imagine you will. But you’ll have time to work it out, and you will no longer be working it out alone.”

The house was dark when they arrived, Iris long asleep, and they made their way up the stairs without speaking. They passed Iris’s door, where Nathaniel paused briefly, as he did every night now, to listen for the sound of her breathing, before continuing toward Laura’s chambers.

Once they were inside, with the door securely shut behind them, Laura turned to him.

“I’m not afraid anymore, Nathaniel,” she said.

Nathaniel looked up.

“Not of you. I was never afraid of you, whatever you decided my expression meant that night.” She crossed to him and took both his hands. “I mean the other thing. My mother. The fear I told you I’d carry my whole life. I stood in that corridor tonight and listened to a man describe how he isolated a woman until she believed no one would come for her, and I thought… that was the thing that killed Isabella. Not childbirth and not illness, but being alone. And I have not been alone since the day I came to this house.”

“Laura—”

“I want a family with you,” she spoke over him. “Not because it’s owed, or expected, or written in a contract. But because I want it. Because I want to watch you tell a child of ours the night garden story the way you told it to Iris, and I want Iris to have a cousin, and I want this house full of people who say the hard things out loud.” Her eyes shone. “I’m still frightened of the risk. I think I always will be. But I’d rather be frightened beside you than safe by myself, and I’ve finally worked out that those were always the only two choices.”

Nathaniel could not speak for a moment, overcome by love and respect and want and need.

“If you want that, too,” Laura added, her voice suddenly uncertain. “But you may not. It’s very late, and I’ve rather sprung it upon you…” She winced.

“Yes,” he said.

“Nathaniel—”

“Yes.” He pulled her to him, his hands framing her face, his eyes stinging. “Yes. God, yes. I have wanted you, all of you, since the night I found you asleep with Iris curled up against you. That was when I could no longer imagine a life that didn’t have you in it.” He kissed her hard, gently nipping her bottom lip before pulling back. “Whenever you’re ready, my love. Not a day before. Not a minute before. And if you change your mind a year from now, or five, I want you to know that it changes nothing about what I want from this marriage.”

“I know,” she said, laughing and crying at once. “That’s the reason why I’m ready. But perhaps we should get some rest first. Will you hold me, my love?”

“I would like nothing more.” He scooped her up into his arms and carried her to her bed.

Outside, the rain had started again, soft against the windows, and somewhere in another room, a little girl slept soundly in a house where no door was locked.

And the Duke of Duskwell, who had spent three years believing his life had ended in a sickroom in Lord Grantham’s house, held his wife in the firelight and at last let himself begin it again.

CHAPTER 32

Nathaniel woke first, or perhaps he had never truly slept.

The rain was still pattering softly against the windows, and the fire had burned down to a bed of red embers that threw long, shifting shadows across the ceiling.

He glanced at a nearby clock; it was just after two in the morning. Laura was curled up against his side, her hand still resting flat over his heart.

He lay there for a long while, simply watching her. He looked at her soft, pink lips, at the loose fall of her dark brown hair across the pillow, at the small frown that marred her brow whenever some dream tugged at her.

He had told her yes, and meant it entirely. The certainty still astonished him, even hours later. He had wasted so much time thinking of his vengeance that he forgot what truly mattered.

That dirty business was over now, and the promise of the future was warm and insistent and literally pressed against him. He found himself drawn to her like a moth to a flame, no matter how tired he was.

I cannot simply lie here beside her and let the night pass. I will not waste another moment.

He pressed a slow kiss to her temple and felt her stir beneath his lips, her breath quickening. His hand slid around her waist and rubbed her curvy hip.

“Mm.” Laura’s eyes fluttered open before she glanced over her shoulder at him. “You’re meant to be asleep.”

“I find I can’t manage it after…” His hand traced idle patterns from her hip to her shoulder, then down her arm. “I keep thinking of everything you said tonight. I keep wanting to hear it again, to be certain I didn’t invent it out of hope.”

“You didn’t invent it.” She turned into him, her leg sliding easily between his, her body arranging itself against him like they were made for each other.

He ground his length against her backside.