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“But I was not protecting you yesterday,” he continued. “I was hurting you. I told you to take Emma away because I could not bear the thought of failing either of you, and I did not stop to consider that I was taking away the very thing you had asked me for.”

“A family,” Marina whispered.

“Yes.” His voice was rough. “A family. And I am sorry, Marina. I was wrong to make that decision for you, and I was wrong to disappear without sending word. I have been a very foolish man.”

“An extraordinarily foolish man,” she corrected, though her voice had softened.

The corner of his mouth lifted. “I suspected you might say so.”

Marina studied him for a long moment before reaching for his hand. His fingers closed around hers at once, with a tenderness that made her heart ache. “I do not expect you never to be afraid, Ambrose. I only ask that you stop making decisions for both of us whenever you are. Whatever happens with Douglas, whatever difficulties lie ahead, we must face them together.”

“I shall,” he promised. “I cannot claim I shall always know the right thing to do, but I shall never again mistake shutting you out for keeping you safe.”

She searched his face, looking for any sign that he was merely saying what he believed she wished to hear. There was none. The man before her was still the same stubborn, guarded duke she had married, but something had changed. He was no longer asking her to accept the distance between them. He was asking her to help him close it.

“You seem to have learned a great many things at the vicarage,” she said at last. “Perhaps I ought to send you there more often.”

Ambrose laughed, a low, startled sound that she was beginning to treasure. “I should prefer to remain at home, if it is all the same to you.”

“Then you must endeavor to behave yourself.”

“I fear I can make no such promise. You have already made me quite reckless.”

“Have I?” Marina asked, lifting her brows.

“Entirely.” He raised her hand and pressed his lips to her knuckles, though he did not release it afterwards. Instead, he stood looking at her with an intensity that made the room seem suddenly very quiet. “There is something I ought to have told you long before now.”

Her breath caught. She thought of the way he had looked at her as they danced beneath the chandeliers on Christmas Day, as though she were the only woman in the room. She had scarcely dared believe it meant anything, even when her own heart had been so full that she feared he must surely hear it beating.

“Then tell me now,” she whispered.

“I have been a coward in more ways than one,” he said. “I thought I was protecting myself by refusing to acknowledge what I felt for you. Then I thought I was protecting you by refusing to act upon it. But the truth is that I was afraid of wanting something I might lose.”

Marina’s eyes stung. She wanted to tell him that he need not explain, that she already understood, but she sensed that these were words he had held inside himself for far too long. He needed to say them, and she needed to hear them.

“You have turned my whole world upside down, Marina,” he continued, his thumb moving gently over her knuckles. “You brought light into a life I had arranged around darkness. You challenged me, defied me, argued with me, and refused to accept the worst things I believed about myself. I had become so accustomed to being feared that I scarcely knew what to do with a woman who insisted upon knowing me.”

A tear slipped down Marina’s cheek, though she was smiling now. “I cannot imagine I made it particularly easy for you.”

“You made it impossible,” he said, and the warmth in his voice left no doubt that he meant it as praise. “And I loved every moment of it. I love you, Marina. I have loved you for longer than I was brave enough to admit.”

For a moment, she could only stare at him. She had imagined hearing those words so often that the reality of them seemed almost too wonderful to believe. Then a laugh escaped her, mingling with the tears she could no longer contain.

“You impossible man. I have been trying to tell you the same thing for days.”

“That I am impossible?”

“That I love you.”

His face changed so completely that she almost wept anew. The uncertainty vanished from his expression, leaving behind something so open and joyful that she wondered how she could ever have thought him cold.

“I love you, Ambrose,” she said, stepping closer. “Not your title, not Griffin Manor, and not the comfortable life you imagine you must provide. You. I want to raise Emma with you, and whatever children may come to us, or may not, I want us to face it together.”

He closed his eyes for a moment, and then he kissed her. And when she kissed him back, he lifted her up into his arms.

“I think I should like to finish celebrating Christmas in a more quiet fashion, if you do not mind. Your family can certainly entertain themselves for a little while.”

She agreed, and then, he carried her out of the room and up the stairs once more.