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This view showed her, not James, but Lord Blane, tall and broad, darkly handsome and impeccably tailored, the castle towers rising behind him. His bruised forehead and unshaven jaw gave him a slightly raffish aspect, the only hints that recent events had taken a less-than-lordly turn.

She averted her gaze.

“I used to stand here looking out at Dearnrigg,” he said. “Wondering what you were doing.”

“Hilling potatoes.” She studied her bedraggled shoes. “Herding sheep. One of your agronomy journals would tell you.”

“Tib,” he said softly, and his easy use of her nickname in that deep, serious voice made her tremble. “What’s wrong?”

She turned back to look at him. “I’m a coof, ye ken?”

He scrunched his brow in bewilderment. “Erm.”

“A fool.” She folded her arms and sighed. “You said you were a fool. Well, I’m a fool too. It was my suggestion. I shouldn’t feel . . .” She almost bit her tongue as pain sliced through her chest.

James looked more bewildered. “What was your suggestion?”

“Our sham engagement. To pressure your father. Let me speak!” She held up a hand, because he’d opened his mouth to interrupt, thunder forming on his brow.

“I don’t blame you for going through with it.” She tried to shrug but each shoulder weighed a thousand pounds. “I didn’t expect, though, to feel . . .”

She gulped. James had called her brave, but she’d lately learned a lot about her fears.

She was afraid of suffocating in close, cold, underwater caves.

And she was afraid, mortally afraid, of losing him. Of remembering that he was never hers.

The pain sliced down from heart to navel, and she bent over.

“I feel as though I’ve taken a knife to the belly.” The confession eased her anguish. She righted herself with effort and continued. “I also feel so bloody stupid. I’ve always known I shouldn’t let myself love you. But last night, when you said we did suit each other, that you held me dear—my imagination took over. I could see everything. I could see us in Edinburgh, curled up with Buckles and Puff, reading by the hearth while sooty rain streaked the windows. I could see us on Dearnrigg, in the Fairy Dale, lying on the moss on warm, clear, summer nights, watching the stars drop from the sky. I could see us landing a balloon on London Bridge. And teaching our children how to swim. And telling each other at seventy that we’re too old to climb trees, and climbing them anyway.”

The corners of her eyes began to leak.

Oh no.

He reached for her. His thumbs trapped the tears as they formed. He was gazing at her with rapt attention, adoration softening the planes of his face.

“It hurt to come back down to earth,” she whispered. “And recall that our attachment was a weapon, a source of embarrassment, an evil to your family. I should never have forgotten.” She took a deep breath. She was brave. And she did want the best for him.

“I hope some good came of it.” She lifted her chin. “I hope you shocked your father into ending his affair.”

“There is no affair.” James smiled. “I didn’t say I was going to marry you to bully my father. I said it because it’s true.”

She jammed her fists into her diaphragm. A new pain seared as the broken bits inside her fused back together.

They were staring at each other. Everything around them had faded away. No green lawn, no green hedges. She saw only the green of his eyes.

She licked her lips. Opened them, closed them, opened them again. “What?” She sounded completely daft. But she had the keenest desire to hear him say it again.

“I am going to marry you.” He gathered her to him and kissed her. “If you’ll have me.”

“That’s what you want?” She was feeling his chest, assessing his solidity, his reality. There. His heart was beating, beating fast. She pressed with her palm.

“I’ve never wanted anything more,” he said.

Her mind moved sluggishly.

“No affair?” She blinked as she sifted back through his words. “How can that be? I saw his mistress, with all the ribbons. She was very pretty and very young.”