She’d set the scene, embellishing it with romantic touches, Nell had arranged the menu, and all she had to do was speak her heart.

And if he doesn’t say it back? a niggling little doubt tried to surface.

She thrust it firmly away. She would entertain no doubts, no fears. A few days ago, over mugs of cocoa in the kitchens, she and Nell had had a long talk. Nell had openly shared her own experience with Silvan, and had told her about the twelve years they’d wasted. Chloe couldn’t imagine loving in silence for so long.

Twelve years! Sheesh, she wasn’t going to be able to wait twelve more hours.

When Chloe had been a teenager, not knowing anything about kissing, she’d practiced on a pillow, feeling inordinately silly, but how else was a girl supposed to get a feel for it? She’d read books, and avidly watched movies to see how lips met and where noses went, but it wasn’t the same as actually trying to press her lips to something. (Personally, she harbored the firm conviction that there wasn’t a person alive anywhere in the world that hadn’t practiced kissing on something. A mirror, a pillow, the back of their hand.)

Since her first kiss had been reasonably successful, she decided that practicing saying “I love you,” wasn’t a completely idiotic idea.

As there weren’t exactly a plethora of mirrors around the castle, when she left the gardens, strolled into the great hall and spied the shiny shield hanging on the wall near the hearth, she yielded to impulse, dragged a chair over to it and hopped up, peering at her reflection.

She wanted the moment tonight to be just right. She didn’t want to stutter or stammer around.

“I love you,” she told the shield softly.

It hadn’t come out quite right. It was a good thing she’d decided to practice.

She wet her lips and tried it again. “I love you,” she said tenderly.

“I love you,” she said firmly.

“I love you,” she tried a sexy voice. Reflecting a moment, she decided it was probably better that she just speak normally. She didn’t do throaty well.

Saying it felt good, she thought, staring at her reflection. She’d been holding it so tightly inside her that she had begun to feel like a pressure-cooker about to blow her lid off. She’d never been able to keep her feelings to herself. It wasn’t part of her make-up, any more than casual sex was.

She smiled radiantly at the shield, pretending it was Dageus. The three simple words just didn’t seem like enough. Love was so much larger than words.