Drops of Gold (27 page)

Marion pressed her fingers to his lips, which brought back that old, familiar fluttering in her heart. “A trial period?” she asked.

He nodded his head without speaking, her fingers still pressed to his lips.

“To decide if I love you enough to take a chance on you?”

Layton nodded again, the vulnerability in his eyes all but undoing her.

“Can I ask you something before I give you my decision?”

“Of course, Marion,” he replied, removing her muting fingers by taking her hand in his. “Anything.”

“Why did you—” This was harder than she’d expected. “The morning after you kissed me the first time.” She felt herself blush. “Did I do something to—You lectured me. Chastised. All but said you found me and my kisses”—another blush heated her cheeks—“horrid. I don’t understand.”

Especially in light of the fervid kiss he’d only just given her.

“I was afraid,” he said quietly. “Between what I saw as the difference in our stations and the gossip that still occasionally surfaces in reference to Bridget’s passing and my guilt over her suffering and the lies I’d manufactured during the course of it all . . . I couldn’t ask you to share that burden.” Layton stared at their clasped hands. “And I was afraid you wouldn’t. That you didn’t, couldn’t—”

“Love you that much?” Marion finished for him, smiling for the first time in far too long. She didn’t think it possible to love him more.

Layton nodded without speaking, his fingers playing with a lock of her hair that had come loose. Tiny, tender gestures like that were among the things she treasured most about him. They were evidences of his thoughtfulness, reassurances that no person he cared for would ever be neglected.

“If you doubted my love for you, what sent you chasing after me?”

Layton reached into the noticeably wet outer pocket of his coat and pulled out what at first looked to be a mess of river junk. But on closer inspection, she recognized the pile as sodden leaves, no doubt fished from the River Trent.

“Drops of Gold,” she whispered.

“There were twice this many, Marion.” Layton let them drop to the floor, wiped his hand on his coat, and took her hand again. “Three times, perhaps. I remembered what you said about the river bringing the Drops and the Drops bringing joy and happiness. And I realized . . .”

“Realized what?” Marion knew she clasped his fingers a trifle too tightly, but she had to know, had to hear him say the words.

“The river brought me you, Marion Linwood.” He pulled his hands free and wrapped her in his arms. “You and your stories. Your eternal optimism. Your refusal to be cowed by what I now realize was a suffocatingly unhappy household. You came. And you saved us. And I fell hopelessly, completely, in love with you. It scared me, Marion.”

“Does it still?” Marion asked, though she was smiling.

“Absolutely,” he answered. “But I am far more frightened of losing you.” He kissed the top of her head. “Say you will come back, Marion.”

She closed her eyes, savoring the moment. “I want to go home, Layton.”

“Oh.” He sounded completely deflated. Clearly, he’d misunderstood.

“No, Layton. Home to Farland Meadows.”

“The Meadows?”

“I could not imagine being happier anywhere else in all the world than I would be there.” Marion looked up at his face. “Promise you will never make me leave.”

“Marry me, my love?” Layton whispered.

No words could possibly have been sufficient in that moment. She pressed a kiss to one corner of his mouth then to the other. “I love you, Layton. I have for so very long.”

A look of contented peace filled his eyes even as a grin split his face. “We didn’t make this easy for ourselves these past months, did we?”

Marion shook her head. How they’d both suffered in silence!

“I told your cousin that if I wasn’t out in ten minutes he was to turn the carriage around and head back to Collingham.” Layton held her as closely to him as she imagined she could possibly get. He tucked the carriage blanket around her legs.

“We’re going home?” Marion laid her head against his shoulder.

“Will you help me make it a home again?”

“It only needs a little cheering.” Marion felt warm for the first time all day, all month, perhaps. “And a great deal of love.”

“And heaps of soggy leaves,” Layton added with a laugh.

“Oh, Layton.” Marion fairly sang. “What a story this will make.”

“What a story, indeed,” Layton muttered, kissing her once more for good measure as the carriage began to slowly roll back along the road toward home.

Sarah M. Eden read her first Jane Austen novel in elementary school and has been an Austen addict ever since. Fascinated by the English Regency era, Eden became a regular in that section of the reference department at her local library, where she painstakingly researched this extraordinary chapter in history. Eden is an award-winning author of short stories and was a Whitney Award finalist for her novels
Seeking Persephone
and
Courting Miss Lancaster
. Visit her at www.sarahmeden.com.

Courting Miss Lancaster

The Kiss of a Stranger

Seeking Persephone

Friends and Foes

An Unlikely Match