Chapter Twenty-Nine

 

 

 

Confessing one’s love was never an easy task. Confessing one’s love to a woman who had a penchant for knives and a tendency to bolt was particularly difficult. Thankfully, in her current state of recovery Juliet was not capable of either one.

Or so Grant hoped.

The last time she’d been on the other side of a door he’d broken it down without a second thought. Now he hesitated in the hall, his mind whirling with all the bits and pieces of the carefully prepared speech he’d been crafting for the better part of a week.

What if he forgot something? Or said too much? What if she looked at him with absolute loathing? Or, worse yet, ordered him out of the room before he could say anything at all?    

His mouth settling into a grim line of determination, he raised his fist and rapped his knuckles against the door. No matter what she did or said, he owed her the truth. He owed both of them the truth. And the truth was that sometime between all of the kissing and the chasing and the stabbing and the kissing he’d bloody well fallen in love with her.

He just hadn’t realized it until she’d almost been taken away from him.

“Come in,” she said softly.

Bracing himself for whatever was to come, he walked into the sunlit room and closed the door quietly behind him. Juliet sat up in the middle of the bed, her small body dwarfed by a mountain of pillows. There was still a white bandage wrapped around her temple, but otherwise she looked far better than she had just two days ago when the dowager had permitted him to sit by her side and read from one of his mother’s favorite Jane Austen novels. Her cheeks were rosy and one of the maid’s must have washed her hair while she slept, for it had a bright gleam to it that brought out the faint dusting of freckles across her nose.

“May I?” he said gruffly, nodding at the chair beside her bed.

“Please.”

Feeling awkward and stilted, he sat down. “You look well.”

“Thank you. Aside from a pounding headache, I feel much better. Not that I know how I felt before given I’ve been unconscious for four days.” A wry smile flitted across her mouth. “But I can only assume it was much worse than how I feel now.” She hesitated. “Do you mind if I ask you a question?”

“No,” he said immediately. “Of course not.”

She blinked her big green eyes right at him. “Do I know you?”

Grant’s heart sank like a stone. The doctor had warned him that Juliet might have difficulty with her memory – head wounds can be unpredictable, he’d said – but he didn’t think that meant she would forget who he was. What the hell was he supposed to do now?

“You…I…We…”

“I’m only joking, runner.” With a peal of laughter she collapsed back onto the pillows.

“That’s not funny,” he said darkly.

“It would be if you could have seen your face! Oh,” she gasped, wiping at the tears that had gathered in the corners of her eyes. “That was good. And no less than you deserved for coming here to arrest me.”

Impertinent woman.

“I did not come here to arrest you,” he scowled.

She rolled her eyes. “But of course you did. Why else would you be here?” 

Feeling rather put out that nothing was going according plan, he leaned forward and half growled/half shouted, “To tell you that I’ve fallen in love with you!”

Juliet’s mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. “You – you what?” she whispered.

“That wasn’t how I meant to say it.” Gnashing his teeth together, he stood up with so much force his chair toppled over. Ignoring it, he began to pace back and forth in front of the windows. “I had a damn speech prepared.”

“You had – you had a speech?”

“Yes. I had things I wanted to say. Important things.” He whirled to face her. “Things about my past and my sense of responsibility and how you ruined everything.”

“How I ruined everything,” she repeated slowly.

“Yes. No.” He raked a hand through his hair. “I don’t bloody know!”

“It was your speech,” she pointed out.

Did she think he didn’t know that? That he didn’t know how he was bungling the entire thing up? For once, why couldn’t something go right between them? “For as long as I can remember, I’ve always seen things as right or wrong. Black or white. Then you came into my life, and it was like I was seeing color for the very first time.”

“Oh,” she whispered as tears that had nothing to do with laughter glistened in her eyes.

“I thought I was chasing you because it was my duty, and I suppose it was. But somewhere along the way it became more than that.” He walked to the edge of the bed. When she held out her hand, he took it, and this time when he squeezed her fingers she squeezed back. “I believed that if I turned you over to the magistrate, it would end the game between us and any feelings I had for you. But I was wrong. What we had between us – what I hope we still have between us – was never a game. And I never want it to end.”

 

Juliet could not believe what she was hearing. If not for the deep sincerity in Grant’s gaze and the desperate tightness with which he was holding her hand, she would have thought he was playing a joke on her as she had on him. But he wasn’t joking. He really did love her.

Lord Grant Hargrave, the third son of a duke and second-in-command of the Bow Street Runners, loved her. A common born thief. If she hadn’t heard it with her own ears she never would have believed it. And for the second time in only a matter of minutes, she didn’t know what to say.

“I….” She trailed off, shaking her head in disbelief. “I love you too?”

“Is that a question?”

“I don’t know,” she said honestly. “What about all of the crimes I’ve committed? All of the jewelry I’ve stolen?”

“I don’t suppose you’ve kept any pieces that could be returned.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Not a one.”

“Juliet…”

“Oh, all right,” she said sulkily. “I may have a few tucked away.”

“Then you’ll give those back, and I’ll make sure the captain pardons you for the rest.”

Her eyes widened. “You would do that for me?”

“You said yourself that you never stole from anyone who couldn’t afford it. While I cannot condone your actions…” He brushed his thumb across her knuckles. “I finally understand them. And if the captain can pardon Felix Spencer, then he can damn well do the same for you.”

“But you’re not going to stop being a runner.” And if he remained a runner, and if she remained a thief, any type of future between them was over before it ever had a chance to begin. If they had any chance at all, one of them was going to have to give up what they loved most.

“I could. If you asked me to, I could leave Bow Street tomorrow and fulfill my duties as a lord.”

“You could do that,” she said, studying him closely. “But you don’t want to.”

“No,” he admitted. “I don’t. It’s something I’ve been struggling with for a very long time, but if given the choice between being a lord and a runner I would rather be the latter. I was never meant to live a life of leisure.”

No, he wasn’t. A warmth started to spread throughout Juliet’s body. It started in her heart and then rushed outwards, filling her with a glow so bright it rivaled the sun. If this was love, then she wanted more of it. If this was love, then she wanted a lifetime.

“If you could stop being a runner for me…I guess I could stop being a thief for you.”

He gazed down at her intently. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” And to her surprise, she was. “It’s not as if I could be a thief forever. Eventually I’ll be caught, or killed, and then where would I be? Better to stop now and go out on top. Don’t you think?”

“I think you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” he said achingly before he lowered his head and took her lips in a kiss that endearingly gentle.

“But,” she warned, holding her finger up between them when he drew back. “If you are somehow under the impression that I am going to sit idly by and spend my time wandering through the park and attending luncheons and balls, you’re sorely mistaken.”

“You’re welcome to pursue whatever venture you like. Money is not an issue. You could be a patroness of the local hospital, or join a committee for the arts, or–”

“I want to work on Bow Street.”

“Bow Street?” he said incredulously. “You can’t work on Bow Street.”

“Why not? Felix works on Bow Street.”

“That’s because Felix is a–”

Her eyes narrowed.

“–older,” he corrected quickly. “Felix is older than you.”

Smart man.

“I know more about St Giles than half the runners combined. I can help you catch the really bad criminals. The ones who actually deserve to be in Newgate.”  

Grant looked at her with equal parts aggravation and affection. “I will speak to the captain tomorrow and see what I can do.”

“Good. Then I only have one more condition.”

He sighed. “I figured as much.”

“I want you to always chase me. Even if we become an old boring married couple – which we never will – I want you to keep chasing me. Can you do that?”

His eyes darkened with lust, and need, and a love so deep it filled her soul. “I told you once that I’d chase you to the ends of the earth. I meant it then, and I mean it now.”

“Then that’s it?” she said, hardly able to believe their happily-ever-after could be as easy as that after all the obstacles that had separated them for long. Yes, there had been some compromises. A few sacrifices. And she was sure there would be more before all was said and done. But for the first time in her life, she’d gotten exactly what she desired...and she hadn’t even had to steal it.  

“No,” Grant murmured before he kissed her again, his mouth lingering on her lips until she moaned his name and clutched his shirt. “That’s only the beginning.”