“I love you, Anne. God, I love you so much.”
Anne froze, unsure how to respond. After a moment, Michael gave her a gentle squeeze. “Is everything all right?”
She swallowed. Should she say it back? Because she loved Michael. Of course she did, he was her best friend. It was just that she wasn’t sure if she was in love with him. Which wasn’t to say that she wasn’t, it was just that… her world had been turned upside down in the past twenty-four hours, then flipped around and shaken for good measure. She was still trying to wrap her head around the fact that Michael loved her, to say nothing of the news that her former husband had deceived her. Then there was the fact that Michael was going back to Canada.
Anne couldn’t move to Canada. It was impossible. And it seemed that her brain was balking at even considering whether Michael, who held the distinction of being both her favorite person on the face of this earth, and the man who was going to leave her, might also be the love of her life.
Some things were too terrifying even to contemplate.
Michael was still waiting for an answer. “It is, Michael. I just… I can’t quite believe you feel that way. About me. It’s… a bit overwhelming, truth be told.”
He propped his head on one elbow so he could look at her. “I know I bombarded you with it this afternoon. With that, and with everything else. I hope it doesn’t make you uncomfortable to hear me say it. I’ve been longing to say those words to you for almost a decade, and I can’t bear to hold them in anymore. I want to tell you that I love you a thousand times a day.”
He reached out and tucked an escaping curl behind her ear. “If it makes you feel better, I don’t expect you to say it back. I can see the uncertainty on your face. And honestly, I would rather you not say anything just yet. Because when you tell me that you love me,” he said with a pointed look, a very Michael look, “because I know you will one day, I don’t want it to be because you know how much I want to hear it. I don’t want it to mean that you love me like your best friend in the whole wide world. I want to know that you mean it without a single doubt in your mind. That you mean it in the exact same way I mean it when I say it to you.”
Anne sighed. How like him to have read her so well. “You’re talking as if we’re going to have the rest of our lives together. But I still cannot go to Canada. After everything you saw today, surely you understand that. I have hundreds of people relying upon me for the roof over their head and the bread on their table. Orphans and widows and children, Michael! I cannot abandon, them, I—”
“I do understand that.”
Something that felt distinctly like hope bubbled up in the center of Anne’s chest. “Then… have you changed your mind? About going back?”
He sighed, and lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. “No. I still mean to go back.”
Anne ducked her head as she settled onto his shoulder, trying to conceal her disappointment. “Then it’s impossible.”
They lapsed into silence for a moment, then Michael said, “Do you remember the famine three years ago?”
Anne shuddered. “The Ladies’ Society was overrun with applications. It was terrible, Michael—snow on the fields in May, frosts in June and flooding in July. The fields were so waterlogged, nothing would grow. People were literally starving by the thousands.”
“I’m the one who broke it,” Michael said quietly.
Anne startled in his arms. “You… you what?”
“Not entirely, of course,” Michael said, still staring at the ceiling. “From everything I’ve heard, it was still awful. But it would have been ten times worse had I not been running all over Canada at William Pitt’s behest, buying up as much wheat as I could and arranging to have it shipped here.”
Anne swallowed. It was jarring how much she had missed, how little she knew of Michael’s life over the last four years. “I-I didn’t know that.”
“There were also commissions from the army and the Royal Navy.” He grinned ruefully. “I got a letter of thanks from Lord Nelson the first time I sent the Royal Navy a shipload of mast poles. But breaking the famine, that’s the assignment I’m most proud of.” Michael looked at her then, his eyes urgent. “I know you’re doing important work here, Anne. I’ve seen for myself what a difference you’re making. But please don’t imagine that going back to Canada is some lark for me. I’m doing important work there, too. It’s why Lord Hobart wants me to be Governor General one day.”
“Gov-Governor General!” Anne exclaimed, sitting up. “Of Canada?”
He nodded. “It wouldn’t be for some years, but I’m already on the Legislative Council of Upper Canada. And I’m to begin formally training so that whenever Sir Robert Milnes steps down, I’ll be ready.”
“Oh, my goodness, Michael. I… I had no idea.” Suddenly she was blinking back tears. “I’m so very proud of you.”
He pulled her back down to rest upon his shoulder. “That is why it’s important for me to go back to Canada. Not just so I can have some frontier adventure.”
Anne brushed at a tear that was threatening to slip loose. “I understand, Michael. But surely you must see that however much we might wish to marry, our futures are incompatible. You need to find someone else, someone who can go with you to Canada.”
He shook his head. “No, Anne. There’s no one else for me. I’ve loved you since I was fourteen years old. And that will never change. I didn’t stop loving you when you married someone else. I didn’t stop loving you when you were on the other side of the world. I didn’t stop loving you when I couldn’t bear to open your letters because I was terrified they would be filled with tales of how happy another man was making you. I still loved you with every fiber of my miserable, wretched, broken heart.” He gave her a sad smile. “I don’t think we Cranfield men have it in us to love more than one woman in a lifetime. Just look at my father—fourteen years since my mother’s death, and she’s still the only woman in the world for him. And that’s exactly how I feel about you. So please, don’t suggest I find someone else. There’s no one else for me but you. And there never will be.”
Anne’s heart was pounding from the force of Michael’s declaration, the sincerity in his eyes. “But Michael, what are we going to do? It’s impossible,” she said, unable to conceal a note of despair in her voice.
“I refuse to accept that. I won’t be parted from you. Ever.” He lay back to stare at the ceiling again. “There is a solution. And I’m going to find it.”
“You mean you’re going to try to wear me down,” Anne said, a trifle annoyed, “until I give up my dream, and you get everything you want?”
“No.” He huffed. “As if that would even work.”
“Then what?”
“I don’t know.” He yawned, pulling the duvet up to cover them. “But I’ll figure it out.”
Anne wasn’t convinced, but she was exhausted and comfortable enough snuggled up with Michael that she didn’t have long to dwell on their problems, because she found herself drifting into a dreamless sleep.