Page 79 of A Problem Princess

But there was something else that bothered her about all this, something else he wasn’t admitting.

She ventured softly, “All the years you’ve pushed yourself, the way you’ve sacrificed everything for your promotions and recognition, how you’re risking your life even now—” She held her breath. “That wasn’t done to access court records. There’s far more behind all that, isn’t there?”

The deep flicker in his green eyes told her she was right.

Her mind put together all the pieces of what she knew about him, what she’d been told by the aunties and her cousins, what she’d witnessed herself of his behavior that was always both selfless yet somehow also always drawing recognition—

And sheknew.

“Dear God…you’re still putting him on trial.” Her voice was little more than a breath. “After all these years, you’re still weighing the evidence and trying to decide whether to find him guilty or innocent in your own heart.”

He scoffed and shoved away from the hearth. “Nonsense.” But his reply lacked conviction. “He’s been dead for years. I can’t try him.”

“You can’t save him either.”

He froze, the bottle halfway to his lips. For a moment, the world seemed to crash to a stop, all except her pounding heart.

Then, instead of bringing the bottle the rest of the way to his lips, he set it down on the mantel with a loud thud and stepped back. “I’m not trying to do that.”

“But you are,” she argued. “Without the information to decide one way or the other, you’re doing it the only way you can—by showing the world exactly how patriotic you are, how loyal to English law and rule.” She remembered the aunties’ words and repeated them. “After all, how could a murderer raise a man whose life is so clearly dedicated to crown and country? To helping people rather than harming them?”

“Or perhaps I simply wanted to be successful, with a good career and fortune.” As he stared at her, she could see the agitation rising inside him, the frustration and pain that had most likely plagued him since he was a helpless boy. “You’d fault a man for chasing money and position?”

“No.”

A smile began to pull at his lips at her answer. “Then you can’t—”

“But you’re not just any man.”

His smile faded, and he stilled, his expression stony as he returned her gaze. Silence surrounded them, broken only by the crackling of the fire at their feet.

She continued quietly, “Every promotion, every success, every daring risk of life and limb only work to prove the court—no, to proveallof England—was wrong about your father.” There was no anger in her, no judgment—only grief for the pain he carried. “You’re risking your life to redeem his, but you never can. You’ll never be able to save him, no matter how much you try.”

His eyes narrowed. “You don’t know what you—”

“I know.” She closed the distance between them and placed her hand to his cheek. “I know because I’ve been attempting to do the same for my father. I would give anything to save his reputation, including my own future. So would you for yours.” She tenderly brushed her thumb along his jaw to his lips. “But you can’t—Ican’t. We can never change what others have done in the past, and we shouldn’t sacrifice our own lives for their redemption when it will never come. When itcannever come.” She choked back sobs, both for their fathers and for Clayton. “We cannot change the past.”

“Cordelia, if I give up—”

Rising up on tiptoes, she silenced him with a kiss of absolution to his lips. “We have to stop fighting wars we canneverwin.”

He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. “You’re asking me to surrender.”

“I’m asking you to choose the future over the past.” A tear slipped down her cheek. “I’m asking you to pardon that little boy who lost his father all those years ago and could do nothing to stop it.” She cupped his face between her hands. “And I’m asking you to forgive the man he’s become.”

He didn’t speak, didn’t move, but the look of anguish on his face undid her.

“And if you can’t do it for yourself,” she urged, barely louder than a trembling breath, “then do it for me…because I want you just as you are.”

She buried her face in his chest as the dam of emotion broke, and sobs tore from her. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her tightly against him. Only after her cries subsided did she hear his soft, deep voice whispering words of reassurance to her. The same words he needed to hear himself.

Their shared pain over their fathers would never go away completely, she knew that, just as she knew they would need strength and resolve to exorcise the ghosts that haunted them and find peace with the past.

But for now, they could at least find acceptance. Together.

He tenderly kissed her, and the pain-filled kiss tasted of hope for the future.

She melted against him as the kiss grew in intensity and need. He lifted her into his arms and gently laid her down on the rug in front of the fire, then followed down next to her. This time when they made love, they weren’t driven by the desperate need for possession and release that had consumed them before. This time, it was a joining of hearts and souls, and she came not with a fierce cry but a healing sigh.