“I was an idiot,” he said. “I thought I was being noble, when all I was being was a coward. Afraid of hurting you. Afraid of being hurt in return. Too much of a coward to tell you that I loved you.”

Laura blinked rapidly. Her lips parted, but no words came out.

“I love you,” he said again. “I should have told you long ago.”

“How long ago?” she asked.

“I knew it the night we danced together at Margate. But I think it must have been there even longer. This feeling within me.” His gaze drifted over her face. “It’s strange. When I left Marseilles for London in company with George… All the time we traveled…I thought I was coming to Surrey to meet Henrietta Talbot. But more and more, I begin to think I came there to meet you.”

Her eyes glistened as she gazed up at him.

“I wonder if there is such a thing as fate. Some force that drew me to you, across continents, and across the sea. I think I knew you the moment I laid eyes on you. My love. My Laura.” He brushed a tear from her cheek with the pad of his thumb. “It’s not a marriage of convenience. Not for me.”

“Oh Alex.” She bent her head.

He tipped her face back to his. She looked as though she wanted to say something more but couldn’t find the words. He could sympathize. In that moment, the right words seemed in woefully short supply.

So he did precisely what he wanted to do.

He leaned down and kissed her, right there on the beach at Cannes. In public for all to see.

Her lips yielded to his, softly, sweetly, just as they always did. Shaping to his mouth so perfectly that his heart squeezed with near-agony at the pleasure of it.

When at last they broke apart, her cheeks were flushed pink. His wife. His water nymph. The person he loved most in all the world.

She glanced down the beach at a couple who had stopped walking to watch them. “I fear we’re on the verge of causing another seaside scandal.”

“Let them stare.” Alex tucked a flyaway lock of ebony hair behind Laura’s ear. “Tell me…what do you think of my plan?”

“The plan for Hayes’s perfumes?”

“And for us. You and me, here in the South of France, with a house near the sea.”

“And Teddy and Aunt Charlotte, too?”

“And them, too. Your family.” A lump formed in his throat. “Our family.”

At that, Laura flung her arms around his neck, startling a laugh out of him. “Yes, then.” Her shawl slid down her back. “Yes, yes.”

He encircled her in an unyielding embrace, crushing her heavy skirts against his legs. “To which part?”