Alex pulled her into his arms, burying his head in her neck. “You’re too good for me,” he said. “I don’t deserve you.” There was a moment’s silence between them.

“But it wouldn’t have been like that if I had been less of a bumble-head and able to put things together,” Alex said more calmly. “In many ways the course of my whole life has been dictated by that garden girl: you. Do you know that I dreamed about you for weeks afterward? You were crying and I was trying to comfort you, or you were lying in my arms, and I was kissing you. Either way the dreams were a torment. I forced Patrick to go back to that Cyprians’ Ball with me the next Saturday, but I couldn’t find you. I went to five ton balls in the next two weeks, but I couldn’t find you there either. And then I went to Rome, and I found someone who looked like you … and so I married her, but she wasn’t you either. And finally when I met the daughter of a certain duke in London, even though I had no idea she was my garden girl, I wanted nothing but her. I planned to marry you about two minutes after meeting you at the ball, you know.”

He smiled down at his wife’s dazed expression. “I’m afraid, my love, that you must be my fate.”

Charlotte clung to him, relishing the feeling that came from being in his arms. And now there were no shadows between them.

“I missed you,” she whispered. “I missed you so much.”

“I missed you too. I missed you even when I was the most furious. Do you know, I always knew that we would be together again? Even as I raged about the house saying hideously stupid things, I knew that no matter what, I had to have you back, because you are part of my heart. Losing you would be losing myself.”

Alex’s wife smiled up at him, her clear eyes shining with love. “You couldn’t lose me, darling. Next time you storm out of the house I’ll follow you wherever you go.”

“But don’t ever leave me, Charlotte. I couldn’t bear it.”

“I won’t.”

“And I will cherish you,” Alex whispered. “Until we are old and gray: past that time, for all time.”

Charlotte made no answer to Alex’s promise, for the promises they exchanged then were silent ones, given in sweetness, taken in sweetness, remembered forever.

A Note about Potency and the Pleasures of Scandal

A Note about Potency
and the Pleasures of
Scandal