“No. Promise me.” She held his gaze. “I did not marry you just to become a widow.”
“I have every intention of coming back,” Patrick said. “Besides, I’ve already played the hero enough for one lifetime.” He tried to laugh at that, to keep his spirits up. He needed to be brave enough for the both of them. Brave enough to walk away from her and get on that ship, and to do what was right for his home and his country, even if Linley could not understand it.
“You’re going to be late,” she said, pulling on his lapel. “Time and tide won’t wait, not even for a marquess.”
“Why don’t you go to Kyre?” Patrick asked, covering her hand with his. “Wolford Abbey needs its marchioness.”
Linley shook her head. “You know I can’t leave Papa,” she said. “Not with Schoville gone, and Reginald and Archie leaving for Cairo any day now.”
“But Malta is too close to the fighting. I would feel better about it if I knew you were somewhere safe. And with the war on, there won’t be any more expeditions.”
“It’s no use, Patrick. He will never agree to go to Kyre, and I will never leave him.”
Patrick admired her determination, even if he wanted to strangle her for it sometimes. But he was certain that very same stubbornness had kept her alive through the typhoid, and he was certain that, if anything happened to him, she would be all right in the end.
He checked his watch one last time. “I have to go.”
Goodbye could not be put off any longer. Linley reached up and took his face in her hands. “I love you more than anything.”
She leaned up and kissed him. She pressed herself against the rough fabric of his Army uniform as he wrapped his arms around her waist. It seemed they were always saying goodbye, only this time it felt like she would truly never see him again.
Linley pulled back, trying to wipe the tears away before he saw them. “Do you have the picture I gave you?”
“Right here.” Patrick patted his breast pocket, just over his heart. “Do you have yours?”
She smiled, thinking about the photograph of him that saw her through so many lonely nights. “You know I never go anywhere without it.”
“Will you walk down to the docks with me?” he asked.
Linley shook her head. “I couldn’t bear it.”
Patrick took her in his arms and kissed her one last time.
“Be careful, won’t you?” she asked.
He smiled and straightened his cap against the sea breeze. “I’ll be the most careful man in France.”
With that, Patrick turned and walked down the garden path. Linley watched him go until she could not see him anymore. She wanted to run after him, to throw herself at his feet and beg him not to go, but she knew he had to do this. Her husband was just as stubborn as she was, in his own way.
And in the year and a half that she’d known Patrick, Linley had come to understand one thing: Real love wasn’t about happy endings. It was about the moments spent together, and what you made of them.