He glanced at her again, and there was a sudden tensing in his expression that hollowed his face, made it gaunt with strain. ‘It’s my heart, Tara. It comes with the ring if you want it—’
A hand flew to her mouth, stifling a cry in her tearing throat. ‘Marc! No! Don’t say it—oh, don’t say it! Not if...not if you don’t mean it!’ Fear was in her face, terror. ‘I couldn’t bear it—’
Her fingers pressed against her mouth, making her words almost inaudible, but he could hear them all the same.
‘It’s too late,’ he said. ‘I’ve said it now. I can’t take it back. I can’t take back anything—anything at all! Not a single thing I’ve ever said to you—not a single kiss, a single heartbeat.’ Emotion scythed across his face. ‘It’s too late for everything,’ he said. ‘Too late for fear.’
He lifted his free hand, gently drew back the fingers pressing against her mouth, folding his own around her, strong and warm.
‘What good would it do me? Fear? I can gather all the proof I want—the fact that you returned my cheque, refused my emeralds, gave away a couture wardrobe! That my insane presumption that you had helped me dispose of Celine only to clear the path for your own attempt on Hans was nothing more than the absurd creation of my fears. But there is no proof! No proof that can withstand the one sure truth of all.’
He pressed her fingers, turning them over in his hand, exposing the delicate skin of her wrist. He dipped his head to let his lips graze like silken velvet, with sensuous softness... Then he lifted his head, poured his gaze into hers.
Her eyes glimmered with tears, emotion swelling within her like a wondrous wave. Could this be true? Really true?
‘Will you take my heart?’ he was saying now. ‘For it holds the one sure truth of all.’
His eyes moved on her face, as if searching...finding.
‘It’s love, Tara. That’s the only one sure truth. All that I can rely on—all that I need to rely on. For if you should love me then I am safe. Safe from all my fear.’
His eyes were filled with all she had longed to see in them.
‘And if my love for you should be of any value to you—’
Another choking cry came from her and her arm flung itself around his neck, clutching him to her. Words flew from her. ‘I’ve tried so hard—so desperately hard—to let you go! Oh, not from my life—I knew that you were over in my life—but in my heart. Oh, dear God, I could not tear you from my heart...’
The truth that she would have silenced all her life, never burdening him with it, broke from her now, and sobs—endless sobs that seemed to last for ever—discharged all that she had forced herself to keep buried deep within her, unacknowledged, silent and smothered.
As he wrapped her arm around her waist, pressing it tightly to him, something tumbled from his palm. But he did not notice. It was not important. Only this had any meaning...only this was precious.
To have Tara in his arms again. Tara whom he’d thrown away, let go, lost.
He had let fear possess him. Destroy his only chance of happiness in life.
He soothed her now, murmuring soft words, until her weeping eased and ebbed and she took a trembling step back from him. He gazed down at her. Her eyes were red from crying, tear runnels stained her cheeks, her mouth was wobbly and uneven, her features contorted still...
The most beautiful woman in the world.
‘I once took it upon myself to announce that you were my fiancée,’ he said, his voice wry and his eyes with a dark glint in them. ‘But now...’ His voice changed again, and with a little rush of emotion she heard uncertainty in his voice, saw a questioning doubt in his eyes about her answer to what he was saying. ‘Now I take nothing upon myself at all.’ He paused, searching her eyes. ‘So tell me—I beg you...implore you—if I proposed to you now, properly, as a suitor should, would you say yes?’
She burst into tears once more. He drew her to him again, muffled her cries in his shoulder, and then he was soothing her yet again, murmuring more words to her, until once again she eased her tears and drew tremblingly back.
‘Dare I keep talking?’ he put to her.
She gave another choke, but it was of laughter as well as tears. Her gaze was misty, but in it he saw all that he had hoped beyond hope to see.
He bent to kiss her mouth—a soft, tender kiss, that calmed all the violent emotion that had been shaken from her, leaving her a peace inside her that was vast and wondrous. Could this be true and real? Or only the figment of her longings?
But it was real! Oh, so real. And he was here, and kissing her...kissing her for ever and ever...
And then he was drawing back, frowning, looking around him.
‘What is it?’ Tara asked, her voice still trembling, her whole body swaying with the emotion consuming her.
He frowned. ‘I had a ring here somewhere,’ he said. ‘I need it—’
She glanced down, past where the emerald necklace lay on the garden table in its box, into the grass beneath. Something glinted greener than the grass. She gave a little cry of discovery and he swooped to pick it up from where it had fallen.