by Julia Kelly
Even though she knew it wasn’t proper for a lady, she lowered the window, poking her head out to see if she could steal one last glimpse of this city that had, in so many ways, become her home during her short stay. But when she turned her head to the right, something else caught her eye. A tall, large man striding through the steam in a gray coat with a black topper covering his slightly long, jet-black hair. A gasp escaped her lips as her heart squeezed in her chest.
Jonathan.
She leaned farther out of the train car, but the steam billowed up, obscuring him. She squinted, frantic for another glimpse of him. Her heart hammered in her chest, half of her not believing that he was there and the other half unable to contain her effervescent hope. He’d come for her. He was here to sweep her up and take her away, just like she’d fantasized.
The cloud of steam cleared.
Her smile slid off her face.
He wasn’t there.
She looked around, frantic to prove that she hadn’t just imagined him walking toward her, but all she could see was a modestly dressed family of two children and a mother waving to a man who hung out of the train car, and a few porters loading the last bits of luggage onto the train.
Caroline crumpled onto the bench and pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes until she saw starbursts. This was no way to live, seeing him around every corner where he wasn’t. Wishing she could manifest him out of thin air. No amount of praying could bring him back to her when he didn’t want to see her. When he couldn’t love her.
The train whistle blasted one last warning as the door to the compartment rattled a little against its track.
Facing the window, she stared out as the train began to inch forward. “No tea for me, thank you. I’d prefer not to be disturbed for the journey.”
“That can be arranged, love.”
Her head whipped around at the soft, low rumble of the masculine voice.
He was here, filling the doorway of her train compartment so fully that his shoulders nearly brushed both sides of the door. A tiny smile tipped his lips, but his eyes were sharp, pinning her right to her seat. His hands were loose at his sides but there was a tension about him, as though he were nervous despite the easy tone of his voice.
“What are you doing here?” She managed to get the words out through dry lips and a tongue that felt as heavy as lead. This didn’t make sense. He wasn’t supposed to be here on this train. He’d turned his back on her, walked away from her when she’d needed him most.
Despite her fantasies that he would come, she nearly told him to go away and leave her to her hurt when he opened his mouth.
“I almost missed you.”
“No one is supposed to know I’m here,” she said.
“Before the Caledonian Hunt Ball, the Tattler had someone watching your house. You were right about us wanting to know who came to call, but I pulled them off. If I hadn’t been speaking to Ross, I never would’ve known.”
“Ross from the Standard?” she asked.
“Yes.”
She shook her head. “I don’t understand. You hate him.”
“I went to see him today because I had a proposal. I want to sell him the Tattler in exchange for his evening newspaper. He’s hungry to put all his resources behind the scandal sheets, and I think it’s time for me to focus on legitimate news.” He looked at her from under his dark lashes, almost shy when he said, “News that doesn’t make its money off hurting people like I’ve hurt you.”
Her hand rested on her breast, trying to control the crazed beating of her heart. “But your business.”
“You are more important than any business. You’re more important than anything.”
She licked her lips, unsure of what to say. She’d fantasized that he might sweep back into her life on professions of love, but all the words that she’d dreamed of saying to him were gone. The only thing left in their place was raw, unfiltered feeling.
“I made Ross promise that he’d never print another article about you, save a wedding announcement and an obituary.”
“Is that morbid?” she asked, tipping her head to one side.
He grinned. “It’s practical. I was just about to leave when a note was delivered saying you’d run off.”
She might have laughed if not for the weight of what lay between them. He still hadn’t told her why he’d done this thing for her—she didn’t know if it was out of pity or regret or some misguided sense of honor. He hadn’t told her the one thing she longed to hear. That he loved her.
She slid her arms across her chest, trying to brace herself for the inevitability of the hurt that would follow when this fantasy didn’t play out as she wanted. She didn’t want him to see what he did to her. If she could have, she’d have been the woman she’d once been with him. Sharp, a little acerbic, and not at all vulnerable. It would have been easier that way.
“You shouldn’t be in here. It’s not proper. You shouldn’t even be on this train.”
His lips quirked. “You’re concerned about being proper now?”
“The circumstances are different.” Her voice broke a little around the words.
“What if I don’t want them to be different?”
The question felled her, striking her down with one swift blow, and a tiny bubble of hope began to form inside her chest once again. It ached against the raw space in her heart, but she didn’t care. It was there, and that was more than she’d thought she’d leave Edinburgh with.
He stepped farther inside, the door sliding closed behind him and cutting them off from anyone who might walk by. It was unthinkable that an unmarried lady such as herself should be seated in this car with a man, but she didn’t care. He made her want to flaunt the rules and do what she wanted. He’d shown her that there was more to life than the hurt she’d nursed for years. He made her want to cast off her cares and chase the one thing she truly wanted. Him.
“I did something unthinkable the day we fought,” he said. “I gave up on something I never thought I’d find.”
Her whole body trembled, but she forced herself to look him straight in the eye and ask, “What is that?”
“Love.”
The word fizzed through her like newly opened champagne.
“I’d never thought that I’d be loved,” he said. “My mother resented my birth because it forced her to marry my father. My father saw only another man’s child when he looked at me. I’ve carried the weight of that around with me for too long, holding it close to my chest because I thought it would protect me. It was my shield from the world.” He knelt down so that their eyes were level. “And then I met you.”
Gently he picked up one of her hands in his, his feather touch stroking over her skin, which prickled just from the thrill of being close to him.
“You dazzled me from the first moment I spoke to you in the theater,” he said. “I could hardly keep my eyes off you before, but when you opened your mouth I should’ve known I was gone.”
A single, surprised laugh bubbled up on her lips. “And so you antagonized me for weeks afterward?”
He grinned. “Childish, I know, but I didn’t understand how I could be so drawn to a woman who wanted nothing to do with me. And how could I blame you? I’m inferior to you in so many ways.”
“You’re not though!” The words rushed out of her.
He pressed the palm of her hand to his cheek, leaning into her touch as though it were his life’s source.
“I’ll never understand your faith in my goodness or my worth, but I’m too selfish a man to want to turn my back on it,” he said.
“So why did you?” Despite the trembling of her hands, the question was strong and clear, cutting through the compartment. She feared his answer, yes, but she couldn’t move forward not knowing.
He blew out a long breath. “I want you, Caroline. I want every part of you, from your quick mind to the little sighs you make when I sink into you. I want to be the man who knows that you moan the same way when you eat s
omething delicious as when I kiss you on the spot just below your earlobe. I want to know your hopes and ambitions, your hurts and annoyances. I want to sit in bed with you on lazy mornings with newspapers spread all around, and to dance together at parties because it gives you pleasure.
“If I couldn’t have all of you of your own free will, I had to walk away. I convinced myself that day that if you agreed to marry me, you’d only be doing it to solve the very problem you came to Edinburgh to fix. I’d be a consolation prize at best and an anchor around your neck at the very worst.”
Tears pricked her eyes and her throat was thick with emotion when she asked, “How can two people who’ve shared such intimacy understand so little about each other?”
He turned his lips to her palm and kissed the hollow of it as though it were the most precious thing he’d ever held.
“It’s my fault,” he said. “I’ve been lying to myself and to you since that very first night. I should’ve known that I was falling in love with you, Caroline, but it took me a little while to understand what was happening. I have little to compare it to.”
“You’re falling in love with me?” she whispered.
“No.” He shook his head. “I’ve already fallen so deep my life will be darkness without you in it.”
A sob wrenched from her, and she threw her arms around his neck to bury her face in the soft wool of his jacket. His arms went around her immediately, and he held her like that, stroking the little hairs at the back of her neck while she cried.
It was absurd that she was crying—absolutely ridiculous—but she was overwhelmed. The man had just confessed that he loved her. He’d taken her cracked heart, broken it into pieces, and fitted it back together again until it was better than new. It was whole.
“Caroline,” he murmured when her sobs had slowed a little, “I don’t really know what to think here.”
She lifted her head, wiping away the messy tear tracks that streaked her face. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. I just . . . I just need to know if you might ever feel something for me.”
She took up his hands in hers, her thumb trailing over the callus on his middle finger where he’d held pen and pencil for years, making the marks and edits that would help him build his business up. They were good hands—strong ones—that spoke of an earnest, hardworking man. One of character. One who loved her.
She raised one of those hands to her lips and kissed his thumb. “I was yours when you first challenged me.”
She kissed the ridge of his middle knuckle. “I was yours when you sat next to me at Mrs. Sullivan’s dinner and antagonized me through the soup course simply because you could.”
Her lips brushed the space between his head and heart line, sending a tremor through his body she could feel straight to her core. “I was yours when you kissed me in the park.”
A kiss to the center of his other palm now. “When you danced with me.”
The tip of his thumb. “When you climbed through my bedroom window.”
His wrist. “I’ve been yours with every article you sent me, and I wanted nothing more than to be a part of you.”
“You wanted me?” He breathed the question as though he hardly believed it.
She nodded. “With all my soul. I love you, Jonathan. It’s as simple as that.”
All of his earlier restraint broke, and his lips were instantly on hers. This kiss was about more than lust. It was fueled by love—professed love. It was a fact, just as the sky was blue and the sun would rise tomorrow. She knew it to be true that Jonathan Moray loved her because it was a very part of her being.
He broke the kiss first, resting his forehead against hers. “Marry me.”
Joy swirled through her, light as the first falling flakes of snow.
“Marry me,” he said again. “I promise never to walk away from you again. You make me a braver man, Caroline. With you by my side I could slay every dragon.”
“And rebuild Mr. Ross’s old paper?” she asked with a smile.
He grinned. “Even that. Will you marry me?”
She closed her eyes, remembering back to her first engagement. The proposal had been everything proper—conducted in her mother’s drawing room with a betrothal ring and a pretty little speech—but then they’d agreed to keep it quiet because they knew a storm would break when it was announced.
This proposal was nothing like that one. Moray was crouched on the floor of a train. She was dressed in a plain traveling gown, her eyes no doubt puffy from crying. They were, in one word, a mess, and she wanted to shout it from the rooftops.
“I’ll marry you today if there’s a pastor who will do it,” she said fiercely.
He laughed. “We might have to wait until tomorrow. It appears that I’ve made myself a stowaway until the train stops at Newcastle. We might have to lock ourselves in here so the conductor doesn’t see.”
She wrapped her arms around him and drew him into another kiss. “I can wait until we return to Scotland to become your wife, but I can’t wait until then to taste you again.”
With a wicked grin, he pulled her into his lap, and she gave herself over to temptation.
Epilogue
It is with great pleasure that Mr. Michael Burkett announces the engagement of his sister, Miss Caroline Burkett, to Mr. Jonathan Moray, the proprietor of this newspaper. The couple shall be married June 20 at St. Vincent’s Chapel. A wedding breakfast hosted by the bride’s family is to follow.
—LOTHIAN HERALD-TIMES & SCOTTISH EVENING RECORD
It is with great pleasure that Mr. Michael Burkett announces the engagement of his sister, Miss Caroline Burkett, to Mr. Jonathan Moray, formerly the proprietor of this newspaper. The couple shall be married June 20 at St. Vincent’s Chapel. A wedding breakfast hosted by the bride’s family is to follow.
—NEW TOWN TATTLER
Caroline smiled at the snick of steel scissors cutting through paper. Before her sat a stack of newspapers, each of them containing a wedding announcement. Her wedding announcement.
She had fallen woefully behind in her correspondence since she’d been on her honeymoon in Switzerland. She had spent six blissful weeks there with Moray, lazing in bed for long mornings, walking and riding during the day, and racing back to bed at night. In all those days he’d hardly mentioned the paper he’d left in Eva’s capable hands or the Evening Record, his newly acquired paper, unless Caroline expressly asked about them, which she did frequently for she was as invested in his new enterprise as he was. In between, they learned about one another, falling a little more in love each day. It had been bliss.
Behind her the door to her own study opened, and her smile grew wider at the sound of her husband’s footfalls on the bare hardwood floor before hitting the carpet that her writing desk sat on. Then a strong pair of arms slipped around her chair, snaking around her waist and pulling her back.
“Hello, love,” Moray’s low voice rumbled through her entire body.
Her head fell back against his shoulder as she offered up her mouth to him. He kissed her long and deep.
“Hello, darling,” she murmured against his lips. “Back from work already?”
“I couldn’t stay away,” he said with a grin.
She pulled away and slapped him lightly on the chest. “Eva banned you from the office, didn’t she?”
“She did. We’re trying this novel system where we switch off and one of us can actually go home each night.”
“That sounds promising,” she said.
“I thought so,” he said, his voice gravelly. “What are you doing right now?”
“Clipping our wedding announcements,” she said.
“Ah,” he said.
“I have every article you sent me when we first met,” she said.
“When you thought I was a blaggard?”
“I think ‘cad’ is more accurate,” she said with a laugh.
He leaned down and brushed her lips with his again, his hand skating over her
skirts and rucking up the hem to touch stocking and garter all the way up to the slash in her drawers. She shuddered when his fingers brushed between her legs, and he growled, “Shall I remind you of why you changed your mind?”
Her hands twined around his neck. “I think you probably should, lest I forget.”
All at once, he scooped her up in his arms, clasping her to his chest. “I promise to spend the rest of my life reminding you.”
And, man of his word that he was, he took her up the stairs to make good on that promise.
Acknowledgments
ALWAYS, ALWAYS THANK you to the HBICs: Alexis Anne, Alexandra Haughton, Laura von Holt, Lindsay Emory, and Mary Chris Escobar. Your faith in my ability to Do The Work is what gets me in front of the laptop every day. Also Tamsen Parker, the best Tuesday accountability partner a girl could ask for.
To all of the incredible journalists who took the time to teach me and challenge me through elections, snowstorms, hurricanes, and everyday news in New York City: Sonia, Jenn, Jax, Nigel, Mike, Nicole, Rhoda, and all the others (of whom there are too many to name).
To my incredible agent, Emily Sylvan Kim.
To the entire team at Pocket, but especially my wonderful editor Marla Daniels, Lauren McKenna, Jean Anne Rose, Polly Watson, Laura Wise, Kathleen Rizzo, Min Luoi, and Alison Cnockaert.
But most of all, thank you to my family, who supported me while I was writing this book in the middle of moving from New York City to London. One apartment cleanout, more boxes of research books than one woman should admit to, several suitcases taken on two different planes, and many cups of tea. I couldn’t have done it without you.
Want even more sizzling historical romance? Don’t miss the rest of the Matchmaker of Edinburgh series!
Discover the first installment in the delightfully charming Scottish romance series where the matchmaker of Edinburgh uses her uncanny abilities to create the perfect matches—even if the couples are doubtful they’ll ever find love.