Season's Feather

Chapter Seventy

Walking around outside. Delilah felt a wave of calm fall over her. The end. The end of the season. The end of a very long and grievous season. How interesting the puzzle pieces fell. How different they were as well.

"Well, I came here to collect a wife and instead fell in love."

Delilah looked at Williamson, "So you finally admit it."

"I fell in love with her the day she rode away from me on her horse. I just recognized it on all the different floors where I danced with her."

Delilah shook her head. She looked up at Williamson who looked down at her and she grabbed her hand with a smile, "You are my brother. You and Felicity and Thomas are my family. Next season we will still have each other and you will wish I never graced your home again."

"It is not my home-"

"The Aevery estate in Mayfair, Williamson. My wedding is two weeks after the end of this season. I will not push it back again and by then I will claim my room at the Bridgerton home. It is yours now, because I have a feeling you won't act daft for much longer."

Williamson brought her in for a hug. Delilah returned it. Two siblings who never thought they would have found each other. Arranged marriage turned into a friendship and then into family. Williamson let go of the lady before him and squeezed her hand before setting off to find a certain Sharma.

It turned out she was away in the bushes. Alone. He stilled. She was beautiful. She was beautiful and she knew and he knew it and he was in love. Williamson was in love.

Love was such a peculiar thing too. It wraps around you from the edges and you don't even know it has you until you have no choice but to accept it. Until you have no choice but to recognize that there is no one you would rather be with. Williamson didn't want to be with anyone else.

"Are you still planning to leave for India?" Williamson asked.

Kate looked at him, "I have my sister's blessing, as well as my mothers. And the queen herself has apparently saved our families from utter ruin."

Williamson walked towards her, "You love your family dearly."

"As much as you love yours." She responded.

"I was fearful of losing you," Williamson stated, "It is why I could not visit you after your accident. And because that is how my mother died. Heartbroken. She went to the big willow in the southern fields and sat there during a storm under a branch all of us were cautioned to. It broke, and fell on her. Felicity found her after the storm. She could have survived, if she had help. But she didn't. I could not bring myself to lose you. I couldn't-"

He took a breath to still himself. Petty speeches. He wasn't a man of words. He wasn't a man to woo a woman. He didn't know how to capture poetry like his sister did, but he did have what his father gave him. What Delilah damned him for. And that was his bluntness.

Williamson faced her and cut himself open, "I love you. I have loved you since that moment in the park when we raced. Every dance I fell more in love with you and with the help of three nosy siblings wasn't stupid enough to lose you. I loved you on every walk, every moment together or apart. Knowing you, you probably won't accept this. But that's okay. You must at least know it. You must at least, in your heart, know it because I do. I love you."

Kate looked at him with glassy eyes, "I do not know what to say."

Williamson shook his head, "You do not have to say anything."

"I do not think there is anything left to say..." Kate whispered, "Other then I love you too."

"Marry me. Because I am imperfect but I have a heart that will always be yours whether you love or destroy it. I will take care of you and I will be damned if I live without you. Marry me, Kate Sharma."

"You do know that there will never be a day when you do not vex me." Kate laughed.

"Is that a promise, Kathani Sharma?" Williamson asked.

Then a boom went off. Both of them looked at the fireworks that had illuminated the light sky. Williamson looked back at the woman he loved.

"Yes, yes it is a promise." She whispered.

"Finally you do not argue with me." Williamson smiled, "I don't know how to feel."

"I suppose so."

Then he kissed her. Like his life dependent on her air. He was starved. Starved and when there was nothing else but Kate before him he was full of life. Damn his father, but also to thank him. He had met Delilah, who had fixed his family. But, he also met Kate, who fixed him.

"It has been said that silence can wield more power than words. No one knows that better than me. It is in silence where one may find truth. All one has to do, I suppose, is listen for it. I know there will always be times when silence is necessary. And, of course, times when it is not.

"Gentle reader, you thought I was silenced, but you thought wrong. And if there is one thing you should know by now, it is that this author cannot be kept quiet for long.

"Yours truly, Lady Whistledown."