“Yes?” His voice was a rumble against her cheek.
“I wondered...” She swallowed.
“Yes?”
“If you would consider staying here in London.”
He lifted his cheek from her head to gaze down at her. “Oh? Why would you like me to stay?” His tone was so gentle. But it was an absolutely brutal question.
His hand trembled as he lifted a strand of hair from her now wet cheek.
She shook her head. “Tell me.” Her voice was a rasp. “I want to hear it in your voice. In your words. Tell me.”
His shoulders moved as he took on air for courage. Knowing what she now knew about him, she understood laying himself thusly bare required take-a-bullet-for-General-Blackmore bravery.
“I love you, Alexandra.”
Oh, it broke her open completely. And inside she was made of nothing but light. Blazing light.
“I love you, too.”
Her voice had gone small and cracked and he was at once a beautiful blur made of light, too: it shone from him. He radiated through her tears.
That she could make someone so happy withthose three words seemed miraculous, a gift she hardly deserved.
He groaned softly, a sound of profound joy and relief.
And heedless of the milling crowds, he kissed her. Softly, lingeringly.
“Magnus, don’t go to America. Please don’t go. I’m sorry I hurt you. If I could undo it all... if I had only known... I want to stay here with you.”
“Oh, my love.” His lips brushed her wet cheek. “My sweetheart. I’m sorry, too. But it’s all right now. We’ll go together one day, if you’d like. But never again will I go anywhere without you if you don’t want me to. I am yours, however, wherever, whenever you want me.”
“I want you now, I want you here, Magnus, and I want you forever. You were right from the beginning. Wedosuit.”
His smile was slow and brilliant. “Very well, then. Forever starts today, Mrs. Brightwall.”
He linked his arm through hers, and at long last, the Beast took his bride home.
Epilogue
“Fwog!”
With a delighted squeal, two-year-old Magdalena made a lunge for an amphibian friend she’d spotted lounging in their many-tiered fountain in their garden. She’d managed to get a foot all the way in before Magnus swooped in and snatched his daughter up.
Paradoxically, Magdalena was enchanted by every living creature, from cats and dogs to (alas) flies and spiders, and pursued their friendship with gleeful abandon, but she was outraged when she got her clothes dirty or wet, which nevertheless never stopped her from crawling into shrubbery, or rolling in the hay with the stable cats, for instance. This mystifying toddler logic was just one of the millions of things Magnus found enchanting about being a father.
He passed Magdalena to Alexandra so he could settle the picnic hamper he was carrying down on the grass.
“Magdalena, sweetie, frogs live in fountains. Little girls live in houses. It’s not polite to go into the frog’s house uninvited,” Alexandra told her, and gave her a kiss on her round pink cheek, because her cheeks were irresistible and impossible not to kiss.
Magnus and Alexandra exchanged laughing glances over this unique etiquette lesson. They seized opportunities to teach whenever they could.
“Foot wet!” Magdalena extended her leg with playful imperiousness to her father, who dutifully removed her slipper.
“Wet feet are the natural consequences of invading a frog home,” he said in the growly voice she loved when he read to her the story ofGoldilocks and the Three Bearsat bedtime. Then he tickled her foot.
She squealed, and laughed, and her laugh was like that fountain: joyburbledout of that child.