As You Are (26 page)
Authors: Sarah M. Eden
Tags: #emotion, #past, #Courage, #Love, #Historical, #truth, #Trials, #LDS, #transform, #villain, #Fiction, #Regency, #lies, #Walls, #Romance, #Marriage, #clean, #attract, #overcome, #widow
He closed his eyes once more. A feeling of peace like he’d never known before had settled over him and the house since Clara and the children had come to live there.
“Mister sleepy.”
Would Alice always call him Mister? he wondered. Maybe someday she would come to think of him as Papa. Corbin gently stroked her hair without opening his eyes. “Very sleepy,” he said. He allowed the briefest of moments to pass before producing an overly loud snore that set Alice to giggling. Thoroughly enjoying her reaction, he snored again.
“I happen to know that you do not snore.”
When had Clara entered the room? He opened his eyes on the instant. She knelt beside Edmund, very near Corbin’s head.
“I was . . . just—”
“Loving my children,” she finished for him.
“
Our
children,” he whispered back. Surely she knew he thought of them as his own.
She tenderly smiled at him before turning to look at the children. “Jenny is waiting to take you to the nursery to wash for dinner. Hurry along.”
Edmund obeyed more swiftly than Alice. She took a moment to pat Corbin’s cheek once more and say, “G’night, Mister.”
As she scrambled off of him and made her way to the door, where the nursemaid, Jenny, stood waiting for her, Corbin shifted upright. Clara still knelt beside the sofa, her gaze once more on him.
His heart dropped. “There are tears in your eyes.”
She shook her head. “It’s nothing.”
“No.” He held out his hand to her. “Your tears aren’t ever nothing.”
She took his hand and allowed him to help her to her feet and willingly sat on the sofa beside him.
He held her hands in his. “What has upset you?”
“I am not upset, really. Merely contemplative.”
He kept her hands in one of his, freeing the other to stroke her hair. He loved the silkiness of it, loved that he now had the right to that gesture of affection. “Are you . . . contemplating something . . . unpleasant, then?”
“The children are so happy.” More moisture gathered in her eyes. “Only a year ago we were living in misery and fear. I cannot think back on that without—” Her voice broke.
“My Clara.” Corbin took her face in his hands and pressed a kiss to her forehead, lingering over the caress. He hoped that time would someday lessen the pain of her past. He loved her too deeply to bear the pain he too often still saw in her eyes.
She leaned into his embrace, resting her head against his shoulder, her hands pressed to his chest. Corbin had discovered quickly how very much she needed the reassurance of being held, though at first she’d been reluctant to allow him to do so.
“You have said how . . . how happy the children are.” He rubbed her back as she lay silently in his arms. “Are you happy, my Clara?”
From within the circle of his arms, she answered quietly. “I used to think good men did not exist. But then I met you, Corbin Jonquil, and discovered I was wrong. All my life I kept hoping you were out there somewhere and that when I found you, you would love me.”
“You were . . . hoping for a . . . stuttering, awkward . . . ?”
She pulled back from him enough to give him the glare with which he’d become very swiftly acquainted over the preceding fortnight. Corbin stopped his teasing protest and kept his smile firmly tucked away. He ought not rib her as he did, but her fierce defense of her bumbling husband never failed to touch him. He felt unspeakably blessed that the lady he loved returned his regard despite his lack of polish.
Clara’s look remained severe. “You will not insult the man I’ve dreamed about all my life.”
He held back a grin. “These dreams of yours sound like nightmare—”
Her fingertips pressed to his lips cut off his words. “Do not, Corbin.” She slipped her fingers to his cheek. “You are wonderful, and I will not have anyone, including you, say otherwise.”
“I am the man of your dreams?” He smiled a little at the thought.
“Of every”—she pressed a kiss to his lips—“single”—she kissed him again—“dream.”
She’d so often seemed burdened and unhappy those months after she’d moved into the neighborhood. Her happiness had quickly become essential to him. She smiled more lately. The haunted look had left her eyes. Tension no longer pulled at her mouth or creased her forehead.
Corbin pulled her into his arms again. He kissed the top of her head, burying his face in her hair, breathing deep the fragrance she wore. “Will you promise . . . promise me something, Clara?”
“Anything at all.”
“Promise you will tell me all of your dreams, my love.”
She didn’t pull out of his embrace. “My dreams?”
“I intend to make them come true.” He kissed her forehead. “Every”—he shifted and kissed her cheek—“single”—he pressed a quick kiss to her lips—“dream.”
“And if I told you that you already have?”
He smiled. “Then you shall simply have to dream up more.”
“Perhaps we might think of some we could share,” she said.
Having her there in his home, in his life, in his arms, there did not seem to be a dream that was out of his reach. All his life he’d felt like the outsider, overlooked and unimportant. Then he’d found his Clara, and he now knew where he belonged. She had learned to love him, quiet and unobtrusive, stuttering and lacking in polish—she had come to love him exactly as he was.
Sarah M. Eden read her first Jane Austen novel in elementary school and has been an Austen addict ever since. Fascinated by the English Regency era, Eden became a regular in that section of the reference department at her local library, where she painstakingly researched this extraordinary chapter in history. Eden is an award-winning author of short stories and was a Whitney Award finalist for her novels
Seeking Persephone
and
Courting Miss Lancaster
. Visit her at www.sarahmeden.com.
