“Only impressions. I’d hoped…But I couldn’t remember.” Her voice grew husky with emotion. “I had imagined the feeling of despair came later, but it’s been there all long, hasn’t it?”

Gabriel’s throat tightened. He didn’t want to think of her hungry and despairing. She wasn’t made to suffer. She was made to be adored.

“I don’t know about despair,” he said. “But I know about want. When you start life without, you never lose the emptiness of it. If you’re lucky, you can use it. It keeps you sharp. Helps you survive.”

“Survival isn’t the same as living.”

“No?” He huffed a cynical laugh. “I never had the luxury of the distinction.”

Her arms remained around his neck, her body pliant and trusting against him if only for this fleeting, precious moment. The full skirts of her black silk dress spilled about his legs in a profusion of starched petticoats and wire crinoline.

Mine. The word reverberated through Gabriel’s veins, even as he counseled himself not to hold her too tightly, not to be too precipitous. It was dangerous to reveal the innermost desires of one’s heart. A surefire way to guarantee those desires were left unfulfilled. And he didn’t want that. He didn’t want to frighten her away.

“You don’t understand,” she said. “After all these years, I thought I’d finally find the place I belonged.”

“You have,” he assured her. “It’s here. Right here, with me.”

So much for not being precipitous.

Her arms loosed from his neck. She slowly pulled back to look at him, hands resting lightly on his shoulders. Her troubled eyes were glistening, but true to her resolve, no tears spilled. “Gabriel—”

“I mean it,” he said. “Nothing else matters.”

Her brows knit. “How can you say that? Aren’t you at all dismayed to discover I’m not who I’ve pretended to be?”

“I know who you are.”

Her lips trembled. She shook her head. “You don’t.”

“I’ve known since the beginning.”

A startled look crossed her face. “But how—?”

“We’re the same,” he said. “I told you so the night we met.”

Understanding registered in her dark blue gaze. Her expression softened. “We may well be so. It doesn’t change the facts. I came to London for a purpose.”

Gabriel didn’t have to ask what that purpose was. She’d admitted it to him that afternoon in Hyde Park. It was Compton who had drawn her here, not the glamour of the season or the hope of finding a wealthy husband. What Gabriel didn’t understand was why.

“All this effort,” he said. “The fine clothes. The Mayfair address. The tales about your French finishing school and your wealthy former guardian. Have any of them been true?”

“A version of the truth.”