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Until now

She couldn’t tear her eyes fro her only his profile He was staring at some distant spot on the horizon, some tree or some bush that he probably couldn’t even identify

“Do you knohat itat her “Not for an hour, not for an evening, but just to know, to absolutely know that in a few years, you will have no one”

She opened her mouth to say no, of course not, but then she realized that there had been no question mark at the end of his statement

She waited, because she did not knohat to say And then because she recognized that if she said so, if she tried to imply that she did understand, the moment would be lost, and she would never knohat he’d been thinking

And as she stood there, staring at his face as he lost hihts, she realized that she desperately wanted to knohat he was thinking

“Mr St Clair?” she finally whispered, after a full minute had ticked away “Gareth?”

She saw his lips move before she heard his voice One corner tilted up in a est sense that he’d accepted his own bad luck, that he was ready to embrace it and revel in it, because if he tried to s to have his heart broken

“I would give the world to have one more person for whom I would lay down my life,” he said

And then Hyacinth realized that sos one si the ability to explain them

Because in thatto marry this man

No one else would do

Gareth St Clair kneas iantly , but he kneas important

And Hyacinth had never realized before just how important that was to her

Her lips parted as she watched hi She’d finally realized just what it was she wanted in life, and it felt like she ought to leap in with both feet, work toward her goal and ot it