There was a crack in Sebastian’s composure now, a wash of color that crept up from his collar. He raked both hands through his hair, further disheveling the glittering locks. “Lately I’ve become so damned distracted that I can’t make a decision about anything. I can’t think clearly. I’ve got knots in my stomach, and constant pains in my chest, and whenever I see you talking to any man, or smiling at anyone, I go insane with jealousy. I can’t live this way. I—” He broke off and stared at her incredulously. “Damn it, Evie, what is there for you to smile about?”

“Nothing,” she said, hastily tucking the sudden smile back into the corners of her mouth. “It’s just…it sounds as if you’re trying to say that you love me.”

The word seemed to shock Sebastian. “No,” he said forcefully, his color rising. “I don’t. I can’t. That’s not what I’m talking about. I just need to find a way to—” He broke off and inhaled sharply as she came to him. “Evie, no.” A shiver ran through him as she reached up to the sides of his face, her fingers gentle on his skin. “It’s not what you think,” he said unsteadily. She heard the trace of fear in his voice. The fear that a small boy must have felt when every woman he loved had disappeared from his life, swept away by a merciless fever. She didn’t know how to reassure him, or how to console his long-ago grief. Raising on her toes, she sought his mouth with her own. His hands came to her elbows, as if to push her away, but he couldn’t seem to make himself do it. His breath was rapid and hot as he turned his face away. Undeterred, she kissed his cheek, his jaw, his throat. A low curse escaped him. “Damn you,” he said desperately, “I’ve got to send you away.”

“You’re not trying to protect me. You’re trying to protect yourself.” She hugged herself to him tightly. “But you can force yourself to take the risk of loving someone, can’t you?”

“No,” he whispered.

“Yes. You must.” Evie closed her eyes and pressed her face against his. “Because I love you, Sebastian…and I need you to love me back. And not in h-half measures.”

She heard his breath hiss through his teeth. His hands came to her shoulders, then snatched back. “You’ll have to let me set my own limits, or—”

Evie reached his mouth and kissed him slowly, deliberately, until he succumbed with a groan, his arms clamping around her. He answered her kiss desperately, until every part of her had been set alight with tender fire. He took his mouth from hers, gasping savagely. “Half measures. My God. I love you so much that I’m drowning in it. I can’t defend against it. I don’t know who I am anymore. All I know is that if I give in to it entirely—” He tried to control the anarchy of his breath. “You mean too much to me,” he said raggedly.

Evie smoothed her palm over his hard chest in a soothing circle. She understood his desperation, the emotions that were so unfamiliar and powerful that they overwhelmed him. It reminded her of something Annabelle had confided to her, that at the beginning of their marriage, Mr. Hunt had been quite unnerved by the intensity of his feelings for her, and it had taken time for him to adjust to them. “Sebastian,” Evie ventured, “it won’t be like this all the time, you know. It…it will seem more natural, more comfortable, after a while.”

“No, it won’t.”

He sounded so passionate, so certain, that she had to hide a smile against his shoulder. “I love you,” she said once again, and felt a tremor of longing run through him. “You can s-send me away, but you can’t stop me from running back to you. I want to spend every day with you. I want to watch you shave in the morning. I want to drink champagne and dance with you. I want to mend the holes in your stockings. I want to share a bed with you every night, and to have your children.” She paused. “Don’t you think I have fears as well? Perhaps you’ll wake up one morning and say that you’ve tired of me. Perhaps all the things you tolerate so well now will become too exasperating to bear—my stammer, my freckles—”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Sebastian interrupted roughly. “Your stammer would never bother me. And I love your freckles. I love—” His voice cracked. He clutched her tightly. “Hell,” he muttered. And then, after a moment, with bitter vehemence, “I wish I were anyone other than me.”

“Why?” she asked, her voice muffled.

“Why? My past is a cesspool, Evie.”

“That’s hardly news.”

“I can’t ever atone for the things I’ve done. Christ, I wish I had it to do over again! I would try to be a better man for you. I would—”

“You don’t have to be anything other than what you are.” Lifting her head, Evie stared at him through the radiant shimmer of her tears. “Isn’t that what you told me earlier? If you can love me without conditions, Sebastian, can’t I love you the same way? I know who you are. I think we know each other better than we know ourselves. Don’t you dare send me away, you c-coward. Who else would love my freckles? Who else would care that my feet were cold? Who else would ravish me in the billiards room?”

Slowly his resistance ebbed. She felt the change in his body, the relaxing of tension, his shoulders curving around her as if he could draw her into himself. Murmuring her name, he brought her hand to his face and nuzzled ardently into her palm, his lips brushing the warm circlet of her gold wedding band. “My love is upon you,” he whispered…and she knew then that she had won. This imperfect, extraordinary, passionate man was hers, his heart given over completely to her safekeeping. It was a trust she would never betray. Overwhelmed with relief and tenderness, Evie clung to him while a teardrop slipped from the outside corner of one eye. Sebastian smoothed it away with his fingers, staring into her upturned face. And what she saw in his glittering gaze stole her breath away.