She tipped her head at a funny, endearingly sweet angle. “I . . . It is a perfume. I found it in my sister’s room and pilfered the bottle,” she chattered, as was her way. “I felt, given the fact she and the rest of them forgot me”—that prattling which had once annoyed him—“I was entirely within my rights to avail myself to whatever they’d left behind”—but now that he so very much loved. At last she stopped, for a moment. “Do you not agree?”

Val couldn’t help it. She was so refreshing and pure, and he tossed his head back and roared with laughter.

Myrtle scrunched her nose, and then as if mirth were contagious, she added her laughter to his. The sound of it, clear and bell-like and ringing so perfectly with his, infused even more lightness within. “I . . . uh . . . yes. I shall take this as agreement.”

Gathering her hands in his, Val raised each to his mouth, placing a kiss upon the tops of them, one at a time. “You are a treasure.”

And treasures were to be cherished and protected.

He’d failed in the past, but he’d not fail where this woman was concerned.

The driver knocked on the door once, and Val immediately disentangled his hands from Myrtle’s, just as the young man drew the panel open.

“I would have us retire to the nearest inn for the night,” Val said, “and proceed . . . more slowly, tomorrow.” He didn’t care how long it took, just that they arrived safely and with Myrtle in one piece.

The young man doffed his hat. “As you wish, Your Grace.” With that, he dipped a bow, closed the door, and then a moment later the carriage dipped slightly as he hefted himself onto the driver’s box.

As he wished, the servant had said.

If he were to truly have any wish he wanted granted, he’d have himself be the man he’d once been, not the gruff, brooding arsehole whose wit had become at worst macabre, and at best drier than a French wine. He’d be a man deserving of Myrtle. Nay, she deserved a man who wasn’t broken in all the ways he was, a man who’d somehow reassembled the jagged pieces of himself that had remained after that long-ago night.

As it was, he would be content to steal the remaining moments he had with her.

It would be enough.

It had to be.

Chapter 20

Chapter 20

They arrived some twenty minutes later. Myrtle, Val, and Horace.

As they walked the snow-covered path, her arm twined with Val’s while in his other arm he carried her valise, the jubilant sounds of unrestrained laughter rushed to meet them. Horace panted rapidly as he bounded back and forth down the path, expending repressed energy and barking happily as he raced about.