They had to come up for air eventually, however, and the magic of the kiss retreated.
Actions might speak a whole lot louder than words, but words were important, too.
Charles was the first to use some.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s been crazy...but when Kylie told me this morning that you were thinking of leaving, I got enough of a shock to realise just how much I’d messed this up.’
‘You didn’t even answer my text message,’ Grace whispered, her voice cracking. ‘The morning after we’d...we’d...’
‘I know. I’m sorry. I woke up that morning and realised how I felt about you and...and it was huge. My head was all over the place and then my mother rang. She’d seen something in the paper that suggested we were a couple. That photo of us all in the park.’
Grace nodded. ‘Helena showed it to me. She said that there’d been a reporter in the department pretending to be a patient. That you’d told her we were just colleagues. Friends. That it would never be anything more than that.’
She looked away from Charles. A long, pristine stretch of the wide pathway lay ahead of them, the string of lamps shining to illuminate the bare, snow-laden branches of the huge, old trees guarding this passage. The snow was still falling but it was gentle now. Slow enough to be seen as separate stars beneath the glow of the lamps.
‘I’d thought I would be able to find you as soon as I got to work. That I could warn you of the media interest. I thought...that I was protecting you from having your privacy invaded by putting them off the scent. And...and it didn’t seem that long. It was only a day...’
Grace squeezed her eyes shut. ‘It felt like a month...’
‘I’m sorry...’
The silence continued on and then she heard Charles take a deep breath.
‘I can’t believe I made the same mistake. For the same reasons.’
‘It’s who you are, Charles.’ Grace opened her eyes but she didn’t turn to meet his gaze. ‘You’re always going to try and protect your family above everything else.’
She was looking at the fountain they were approaching. She’d seen it in the daytime—an angel with one hand held out over a pond. The angel looked weighed down now, her wings encrusted with a thick layer of snow.
Their carriage driver was doing a slow circuit around the fountain. Grace felt Charles shift slightly and looked up to see him staring at the angel.
‘She’s the Angel of the Waters, did you know that?’
‘No.’
‘The statue was commissioned to commemorate the first fresh water system for New York. It came after a cholera outbreak. She’s blessing the water, to give it healing powers.’
He turned to meet her gaze directly and there was something very serious in his own. A plea, almost.
For healing?
‘I do understand,’ Grace said softly. ‘And I don’t blame you for ignoring me that first time. But it hurt, you know? I really didn’t think you would do it again...’
‘I didn’t realise I was. I went into the pattern that I’d learned back then, to focus on protecting the people that mattered. My mother was upset. It was Thanksgiving and the family was gathering. The worst thing that could happen was to have everything out there and being raked up all over again.’
Grace was silent. Confused. He had gone to goodness only knew how much trouble to create this dream sleigh ride for her and he’d kissed her as if she was the only person who mattered. And yet he had made that same mistake. Maybe it hadn’t seemed like very much time to him but it had felt like an eternity to her.
‘What I said to that reporter was intended to protect you, Grace, as much as to try and keep the spotlight off my family. I had the feeling that you never talk about what you’ve been through. That maybe I was the only person who knew your story. I didn’t want someone digging through your past and making something private public. You’d told me that that was the worst thing you could imagine happening. Especially something that was perhaps private between just us—that made it even more important to protect.’
He sighed as the carriage turned away from the fountain and continued its journey.
‘I needed to talk to you somewhere private and it just wasn’t happening. I couldn’t get near you at work. There was the family Thanksgiving dinner and I was running late. I knocked on your door but you weren’t home.’
‘I was Skyping my dad. I couldn’t answer the door.’ And she could have made it easier for him, couldn’t she? If she’d only had a little more confidence. She could have texted him again. Or made an effort to find him at work instead of waiting for him to come and find her.
He hadn’t been put off by her scarred body. He’d been trying to protect her from others finding out about it. It made it a secret. One that didn’t matter but was just between them. A private bond.
‘I know that you don’t actually need my protection,’ Charles said slowly. ‘That you’re strong enough to survive anything on your own, but there’s a part of me that would like you to need it, I guess. Because I want to be able to give it to you.’
They were passing the carousel now, the brightly coloured horses rising and falling under bright lights. There were children riding the horses and they could hear shrieks of glee.
‘The boys are missing you,’ Charles added quietly. ‘They were drawing pictures for you this morning and I said that you’d love them and probably put them in a frame and Max said...he asked if you’d come back then.’
‘Oh...’ Grace had a huge lump in her throat.
‘We need you, Grace. The boys need you. I need you.’
He took his hands from beneath the warmth of the blankets to cradle her face between them.
‘I love you, Grace Forbes. I think I always have...
The lump was painful to swallow. It was too hard to find more than a single word.
‘Same...’
‘You were right in what you said—I will always protect my family above everything else. But you’re part of my family now. The part we need the most.’
They didn’t notice they had left the carousel behind them as they sank into another slow, heartbreakingly tender kiss.
When Grace opened her eyes again, she found they were going past the Wollman skating rink. Dozens of people were on the ice, with the lights of the Manhattan skyline a dramatic backdrop.
‘I thought I had to ignore how I felt in order to protect the people around me,’ Charles told her. ‘But now I know how wrong I was.’
He kissed her again.
‘I want everybody to know how much I love you. And I’m going to protect that love before everything else because that’s what’s going to keep us all safe. You. Me. The boys...’ He caught Grace’s hand in his own and brought it up to his lips. ‘I can’t go down on one knee, and I don’t have a ring because I’d want you to choose what’s perfect just for you, but...will you let me love you and protect you for the rest of our lives—even if you don’t need it and even if I don’t get it quite right sometimes? Will you...will you marry me, Grace?
‘Yes...’ The word came out in no more than a whisper but it felt like the loudest thing Grace had ever said in her life.
This sleigh ride might have been a dream come true but it was nothing more than a stage set for her real dream. One that she’d thought she’d lost for ever. To love and be loved in equal measure.
To