As soon as the door opened and Edith was mere inches from her former fiancé, she didn't even wait for him to utter the words forming in his mouth before unleashing all that she felt. It seemed that it had been brewing since their wedding; what she discovered in the garden was only the catalyst.

"You!" she shouted so loudly that it was quite possible that the whole of London had heard her.

As he realized that the woman he had been pining over for two years was standing on his doorstep, Anthony went white, as if he had seen a ghost. "L—Lady Edith, what a pleasant surprise," Anthony stammered ineloquently, clutching the doorknob until his knuckles went as white as the rest of him. He had a feeling about what brought her to his doorstep today of all days, but he sincerely hoped he was mistaken.

"No!" she spat. "Do not add my title as if we weren't once minutes away from becoming husband and wife. Do not add my title when you've been calling me your darling in those wretched, intimate, beautiful letters for almost a year."

There was rage seething in her dark eyes, and twigs and leaves all over her skirt and blouse. She looked feral, and it unnerved him. He had never seen her like this.

"I'm sorry, truly, for causing you any embarrassment. But—ah—would you allow me the chance to explain?" he pleaded with her, daring to take a step forward. He counted it as a small victory when she did not back away.

Edith stared at him and wanted to hate him. There was still so much unspoken about their wedding and why he left the way he did. But most of all, Edith hated that even after humiliating her, after giving her no explanation for his actions on that fateful day, even after keeping her in silence for almost two years, he still loved her. Perhaps more now than he did before.

She wanted to hate him. She had every right to; no one would think less of her for it. And yet, as she watched the way a nervous tremor ran through him and the way his bright blue eyes begged her not to go, she realized that she didn't hate him. Not even a little bit.

"Fine," she muttered as the rage in her eyes receded.

Anthony held in a relieved sigh. Gathering his wits, he stepped aside from the door and motioned for her to enter his home. "The—uh—the library is the second door on the right," he mumbled as he followed behind her, smelling her perfume, watching her navy, pleated skirt flow around her legs. How many times had he imagined her gracing the floors of his home? How many times had he imagined taking her in the library, too enamored with her to make it back to their bedroom? She was so close now, and still so far…

"How did you manage to find me?" he wondered aloud as he watched her walking around his home. He was mesmerized by her.

Edith stepped inside the library and inspected it. "Courier service," she said without looking up at him, her gaze and her hand fixated on the large, weathered globe in the corner of the room. "For someone who spent time in the clandestine service during the War, you're terrible at covering tracks, Anthony."

He couldn't take his eyes off of her. "Perhaps, this time, I wanted my tracks to be uncovered…"

Her eyes darted to him, but they didn't stay there long; the way he stood in the middle of the room, staring at her with that adoring gaze she had last seen two years ago, unnerved her. She hastily changed the subject.

"This looks an awful lot like your library in Locksley." There was a hint of nostalgia in her voice, as if she were stuck in a memory with him, spending days reading and debating and falling in love with him in that old, gingerbread estate of his.

"I had a lot of things brought down from Yorkshire," he explained, "when I moved back to London about a year ago."

She had been forcing herself to stare at his bookshelves, running her fingers absentmindedly along the spines, but her gaze snapped to him when he said this. That was when the letters began arriving on her desk. "What made you move to London?"

He stepped closer to her; they were mere yards away. "You," he murmured, his good hand almost reaching for her. When her mouth dropped in shock, he continued. "I was here on business and saw you one afternoon. You were at that tea shop near Regent's Park. I saw you through the window, sipping some tea and delighting in something you were reading. I almost went inside. I wish I had. It was the first time I had seen you since I…well…in a year. I hadn't known you were in London, but after seeing you there and discovering your magazine, I realized that, even if it meant that I might run into you just once, I wanted that chance. I never dreamed that I'd see you as often as I did. Our circles are apparently very small and very close."

Edith's mind hearkened back to the Admirer's first letter: I saw you yesterday, drinking tea and looking lovelier than I remember. Every ounce of my being urged me to step into that café, to fall at your feet, to atone for what I have done. But that smile on your face as you read the newspaper…it was a happy smile. You were happy. And who was I to plague you with my darkness yet again?

She sat down on the sofa; she wasn't sure what else she should do or say. "Anthony…your letters, the wedding, all of it," Edith whimpered, tears burning in her eyes. She looked up at him and demanded honesty. "You wrote those impossibly beautiful letters…"

The baronet stiffened and he pulled at his collar. "I—I did. The first one…it was a mistake. After I saw you at that café, I took to this room and…indulged in some of my father's old scotch. I couldn't stop myself from writing what I wrote at that point."

Edith turned her gaze towards the window to peer into the garden she had just recently trespassed; she gnawed at her lower lip. "And the ones after that? Were you drunk when you wrote those, too?"

"No. Absolutely not. I meant every word of them. I wanted to talk to you so badly. You were my best friend, Edith, and I missed you more than I ever thought it possible to miss another human being. Those letters…they were my only way of talking to you, of pretending that you were still in my life, even when you weren't."

There was something about his sincerity that set her off. She was on her feet then, pacing wildly around the library.

"You mean to tell me that the same man who left me humiliated at the altar has fantasized about our children running through a field around our home, about flirting with me during an opera, about making love to me until the morning?" she shrieked. The tears had won the battle and were now rolling down her cheeks, leaving dark stains along her skin. "Because the man who left me certainly wouldn't continue to love me or fantasize about me or write me bloody anonymous letters that he knew I'd print in my own magazine!"

When it was all laid out like that, so bluntly, Anthony Strallan realized what a fool he had been.

"I shouldn't have sent those letters," he mumbled as he inched closer to her; she had her back against one of his bookshelves, leaning against it for support, breath entering and leaving her body at a rapid pace. "I can see now that it has upset you. I'm so sorry, Edith."

He was close enough now that she could smell him, that light scent of sandalwood soap and paper that always seemed to linger on him. It had been so long since she had smelled it last. It was just as intoxicating as she had remembered.

"They didn't upset me," she whispered in spite of herself; the tears had abated and all that was left of them were streaks dried onto her cheeks. "I imagined you writing them, Anthony. All women seemed to imagine some long-lost lover writing them anonymous letters, and I was no different. I wanted it to be you. I wanted you to be the one writing me after all this time. It's ridiculous, I know."

"It's not ridiculous. And I will never be able to apologize enough. For the wedding, for the letters, for all of it. I truly believed that you deserved someone better than the crippled old codger I've become, but that doesn't mean that I love you any less." He inhaled a steeling breath and made sure to look her right in those dark eyes he had missed. "I will always love you, Edith."

Fresh tears blurred her vision and she blinked furiously to keep them at bay. Before she knew it, her hands were pounding on his chest, grabbing fistfuls of the loose tweed that hung from his shoulders, screaming at him as she wanted to two years ago.

"You don't get to love me! You left! You left! You left me there alone!" Edith sobbed, yanking on his shirt until it was too much, until she had no place else to go but his chest. She buried her face against him; her tears dripped down the cotton and soaked it.

Anthony's good arm instinctually wrapped itself around her and pulled her close. The dampness of his shirt, knowing that it was caused by her tears, broke his heart.

"I am forever sorry, Edith," he murmured into her hair, praying to god that she believed him. Soft whispers of his apologies were all she heard for some amount of time only heaven knew; perhaps he was saying it over and over until she believed that he meant it.

Her tears, eventually, were spent. She pulled away from the tight embrace of his good arm to get a better look at him.

"You wrote that you have wished that you could go back to that day and choose to stay."

He solemnly nodded. Leaving that church was the single greatest mistake of his entire life.

"Then stay."

It was all she said. Merely two words that would change everything.

Anthony backed away from her and immediately felt colder for it. "B—but look at the life you've made! You're the editor of a thriving magazine! You're independent and successful and far better off without being tied to some old man."

She stepped closer to him; this was becoming dance, one moving away, the other following. "You don't get to tell me what I want, Anthony Strallan. What you wrote in those letters…I know you aren't happy. You are just as unhappy as I am."

This hit a nerve. "You're unhappy?" he murmured in disbelief. In his mind, all evidence pointed to the contrary: she had blossomed since he left her. His jilting was the causal link between her and her newfound success. It was the only thing that made him feel that his decision was somehow justified.

"I am. There are moments of brief and fleeting happiness, but my life in the past two years has been filled with an ache that won't seem to go away. I thought that a new career and a new city and a new life would dull it, but it has only gotten worse. And you're the reason. I want a life with you. Everything else is just secondary."

Anthony could hardly believe what he was hearing. "Even with my arm the way it is and my age and your youthfulness and my homebody mannerisms and your—"

But Edith cut him off by stepping just millimeters from him and wrapping her arms around his neck. She was flush against him, pretending not to delight in the way he unconsciously licked his lips.

"Do you love me, Anthony?"

"Without question," he told her. Loving her had never been the problem.

"And I love you. Everything else ceases to matter."

Brown eyes stared into blue, and a hundred years passed by in a single moment. Whether she kissed him, or he kissed her, ceased to matter.

Three days later, Edith stretched out across the bed, burrowing her head into the pillow as the morning light woke her and reflected yellow light from the gold band on her left hand. She grinned to herself; seeing that piece of metal on her finger was still foreign, but no less thrilling. She loved every ounce of it and what it meant.

She rolled away from the window towards Anthony's side, hoping that in spite of her aching muscles, they might be able to repeat last night's activities. But his side of the bed was empty. In his place was an envelope. Tied to it, was a single red tulip and printed on its cover, it read: To Lady Edith Strallan.

It didn't take long for Edith to devour its contents, just as she had been doing with his letters for nearly a year.

My Darling Edith,

We have been married just shy of three days, and already, I feel happier than I have felt in years. I once told you that you had given me back my life. Those words are even truer now than they were when I first spoke them to you. You, my sweetest one, are pure goodness and light in this dreary world, a home for my soul.

For over a year, my letters have been accompanied by purple hyacinths. Their meaning could not have been more fitting. They represent sorrow, the deepest need for forgiveness, a plea and a prayer for pardon. Your forgiveness was offered freely and without hesitation, and for that, I ought to have fallen at your feet. I have never been more grateful for any act.

Now, as you have undoubtably noticed, a red tulip has taken the place of the hyacinth. Old-fashioned as I am, I wanted you to know that I love you. You deserve to hear that everyday and know that I mean it just as often. Red tulips, as you may know, signify love in its truest form.

It's the sort of love I feel for you.

Always,

Your Anthony

Author's Note: I'm so sorry for the delay (especially since I promised I would update sooner). Work got in the way, sadly. I hope that you enjoyed the conclusion in spite of its tardiness!

Thank you to all who read and reviewed this story. I love writing about these two, but your support makes it even more enjoyable :D