“There is.” He guided her a few steps farther, until the path bent toward a flowering espaliered pear tree, a sheltered corner where the afternoon sun warmed the stone wall. “The magistrate held the hearing at first light. Townsend presented the evidence. It was decisive.”
Lilianna swallowed. “What will become of him?”
Marcus turned to face her fully, his expression steady, not triumphant, not cruel, simply resolute.
“He has been sentenced to transportation. Australia. For life.”
A soft breath escaped her lips, more release than sound. The wind stirred a wisp of hair against her cheek. Marcus reached out, gently smoothing it back behind her ear.
“He claimed he did not know who you were,” Marcus continued. “Even so, he kidnapped a gentlewoman, restrained her, and threatened her. The law does not look kindly on such things. Nor do I.”
Her eyes shimmered, not with fear now, but with the quiet collapse of a weight she had carried too long.
“So I am safe,” she whispered.
“You are safe,” he said, voice low and certain. “He will never touch your life again.”
A tear slipped free. She blinked hard, embarrassed, but Marcus caught it with his thumb before it fell.
“Lilianna,” he murmured. “You have nothing to fear. Not from him. Not from the past.”
Something inside her loosened, opened, breathed.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “For seeing it finished.”
He stepped closer, the soft-crushed gravel catching beneath his boots.
“For you,” he said quietly, “I would see anything finished.”
Her breath hitched.
His hand lingered at her cheek a heartbeat too long.
He stood close, close enough that she could feel the warmth of his breath, close enough that stepping away would have felt like betrayal. But today, he did not step back.
“Lilianna,” he said softly.
She lifted her chin. “Yes?”
“I have something else to ask you.”
His tone shifted, deeper, warmer, with a glimmer of mischief beneath it.
Her brows lifted. “Does it involve danger?”
“No.”
“Impropriety?”
“A little.”
Her mouth curved. “Then I suppose I should hear it.”
Marcus’s answering smile was slow and wicked in the gentlest possible way.
He took her hand, without caution, the certainty of it made her pulse flutter, and guided her beneath the low arch of the espaliered pear tree. Sunlight dappling them both in gold.
He did not release her hand.