Once Upon a Marquess (The Worth Saga 1)

She shook her head. “No. It’s this: if you hadn’t believed, long ago, that I deserved to take apart clockwork, I wouldn’t be here. I didn’t want to admit that I had any reason to be thankful to you. But… It doesn’t hurt now. Thank you.”

His hand closed. Not just around the sheep; around her fingers, clamping around them. He pulled her closer.

“This is a really, really, terrible idea,” he said.

Her heart was pounding. “I know all about terrible.” Her voice was a whisper. “Enough luck, enough time, and terrible…”

For a moment, it was if they stood in that apple orchard. As if all the years of hurt had washed away.

“Yes?” he asked. “What happens with enough time?”

She exhaled and looked up at him. “Even terrible turns to magic.”

For a moment, he could not quite believe that he held her, that she was looking up at him with those wide, guileless eyes once more. It felt as if the empty years between them had vanished, as if they might start not with the new, but with the very, very old. The substance of what they’d been to each other had fallen into disrepair, but the foundation had been good. Hadn’t it?

She rose up to him as he leaned down, her breath sighing. Their lips touched, and all the years disappeared in a moment of pure sweetness. It felt as blinding as the sun flashing across the clear water. Her lips were soft; her hand was warm in his. His other arm curled around her and she came to him, pressing against him, opening up to him.

Like that light glancing across the water, though, it did not take long to change. A minute, no more, until that first heady thrill of holding her, kissing her, gave way. Until he remembered her looking up at him and telling him she hated him.

Those eight years could not vanish, not with the first kiss, nor with the second. He remembered every one. Every night that first year, looking out his window and wondering how she did. Every night he’d imagined her coming to him. Every empty soirée he’d attended, every perfectly lovely young lady who would never do because she was not Judith. His hand slipped up her spine; her mouth opened to his.

Sweet gave way to bittersweet.

He couldn’t erase those eight years for her, either. She’d put a good face on things—Judith always put a good face on things. But she had only conquered horrible because horrible first sought her out.

They couldn’t kiss and forget. There was too much to remember on either side.

He took the sheep from her hand and set it on the table. Then he took her face in his hands and kissed her again.

“Judith,” he said, “I wish I could take the shadows from your memory.”

She looked up at him and shook her head. Her jaw shifted in the palm of his hand. God, he’d missed her so much. But the Judith he missed—the Judith of innocence and sunlight and orchards, the Judith to whom he’d handed half his soul, no longer existed.

This was the Judith of clockwork and rickety houses.

“You were right,” Judith said. “We are more alike than I thought.”

“How so?”

“I had thought to myself,” she said, “that when you had to choose between me and your principles, you chose your principles.” She reached up and touched his cheek. “I have just realized that I did the exact same thing to you. You asked me to choose you above my wounded heart, my pain, my pride, my love for my family. I didn’t choose you either.”

He let out a breath. “It’s not comparable, Judith. The things you’ve lived with…”

“Maybe not. But I don’t need to compare who has lost more to know I’ve hurt you. And if I hurt you a fraction as much as you…”

She stopped and shut her eyes.

Kissing her hurt. He did it again, letting himself feel every ounce of that pain. This, this is what they might have had. He might have had this tenderness without the accompanying shards of glass piercing his heart. He might have had this sweetness without regret or pain. He might have been able to kiss her without casting shadows.

He’d rather kiss her with shadows than not kiss her at all.

“This isn’t going to work,” Judith whispered as he kissed her again. “Too many things have broken between us. You can’t trust someone with your soul twice.”

“Maybe,” Christian said. “But I’ll help you pick up the pieces anyway.”

She exhaled and leaned against him. The house creaked around them. She was here in his arms for now, at least.

“Thank you,” she said. “Don’t forget your sheep.”

He smiled. “What do you mean by that, Fred?” he asked in a Cockney accent. “I never forget my sheep. How else are we to make Christmas jumpers for all the cygnets on the pond?”

There was a pause, and he could feel her shaking her head against his shoulder. But when she spoke, her voice was amused. “Christmas jumpers. Not Christmas jumpers again, Bill. Can’t we just purchase sweets from the store like normal swans? You always buy the yarn; I always end up doing the knitting. My wings are getting tired.”

No doubt they were. She’d faced down terrible, but from what he’d cleaned up today, and what she’d told him about Camilla, terrible kept coming back.

“Take a rest,” Christian said. “This time, I’ve got it all in han—in wing.” And he did. He knew precisely what he had to do.

She snorted at him. “I left a letter in your office,” she said. “On accident. If you could send it back to me?”

“Of course.” He reverted to his non-swan voice. “I’ll be out of town for a little time on some business. If you need me, send a note to Jeffries and he’ll cable me. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“And if I don’t need you?”

“Send a note to Jeffries anyway,” he said. “And he’ll send it on to me, wherever I am.”

“This isn’t going to work,” Judith said.

“I know. But…” Words failed him, and so instead of speaking, he pulled her close and kissed her again—one last time, one last kiss, drowning in the feel of her until he could scarcely breathe.

He let go only when it hurt too much to continue.

Chapter Nineteen

Judith’s head spun as she ascended the stairs. It felt as if today had been a year compressed by some housekeeper’s trick to fit in the space of twenty-four hours. She’d lost one sister, found Christian, kissed him, and lost him yet again. She didn’t know which direction was which, or what she should be doing.

She did know which direction she needed to address next: upstairs.

The bedrooms appeared dark as she ascended the creaking stairs. She checked on Benedict first. He was asleep, as best as she could tell, slumbering on his side under the covers. She opened the door to the room she shared with Theresa with more trepidation.

It looked like a cyclone had struck the room in her absence. Clothing had been yanked from the wardrobe and was strewn about the room, dangling over chairs and cavorting in piles on the floor. The blankets were piled high on the bed. Her sister clutched the edge of the pillow she held over her head. She might have been asleep…but as Judith was pondering the matter, Theresa turned, burrowing deeper into the bedclothes.

“Theresa,” Judith said softly. “Tee.”

Her sister didn’t respond.

Judith sat next to her. “Tee, sweetheart. I’m sorry I shouted at you. I lost my temper. I shouldn’t have done.”

A sniffle met her.

“I love you, though,” Judith said. “I will always love you, no matter how many cabinets you break, how many cats you bring home. I can’t promise never to be angry with you, but I will still love you.”

Her sister sniffed again, and then rearranged herself under the covers to curl against Judith’s leg. Judith set her hand on the lump that was presumably Theresa’s shoulder.

“I want so many things for you,” Judith said. “I want you to be able to marry as well as you can.”

Theresa didn’t respond.

Not everything hurt, but one thing did. Judith looked at the anger, th

e bitterness that she’d carried for so long. She hadn’t wanted to acknowledge any of it. But now…

“You were right, too,” Judith said. “I am harder on you than on Benedict. In part, it’s because you’re…you. But also…” Her chest hurt thinking of it. “Our uncle offered to take in everyone but you. It wasn’t your fault, sweetheart. You were six. But I think I’ve been unfair to you because of that. I’ve held it against you. Just a little, but it’s always been there. I’m sorry. I’m going to do my best to let go.”

Curious, how that admission lightened her heart. That ugliness that she’d tried to avoid… She remembered sitting by the stream after visiting her uncle, opening her hand in cold water. She felt as if it were all swirling away now.

“I’m sorry,” she said again. “I love you. I wish you never had to worry about anything ever again.”

A hand hooked over the edge of the blanket, and Theresa’s face peered out.

“Judith,” Theresa said, “I don’t want to be a lady. You have to be a lady to not worry.”

“Why don’t you want to be a lady?”