Chapter Twenty

Ruth scrambled off him. He caught a glimpse of her face and saw a horrified expression. Not what a man wants to see when he's just proposed marriage to the woman he loves.

"What did you just say?" she asked, her voice hoarse and cracking.

Harry's heart plummeted. He felt his blood turn to ice as all his hopes felt dashed. He made his appearance as respectable as he could, particularly given the vast change in the mood. "I…I asked if you'd marry me," he told her, as though repeating it might somehow make it better.

"No, Harry, you can't do that!" she cried.

"Why not?" he asked in return.

Her face was growing red from frustration and tears pooled in her eyes. "Harry, I…" She trailed off. "Christ, I can't think. Why would you do this now? Why would you…" A sob escaped the back of her throat.

"Ruth, please, can we talk about this?" Harry moved towards her on the sofa, hoping to comfort her or at least figure out what the hell had been so supremely awful about asking her to marry him.

But she recoiled from his touch. She stood up from the sofa. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. Her arms were hanging tensely at her sides with her fists balled. "You cannot ask me to marry you less than two weeks after we've gotten back together without any thought or preparation or anything, and it is unfair of you to hurt us both like that." As rattled off her words, she kept her eyes shut tight. With a huff, she opened her eyes and said, "And now I think you should leave."

She did not wait for his response before turning on her heel and running up the stairs.

Harry did not appreciate that response one bit. And he would not let her close this conversation. Not just yet. In fact, they'd not even had a proper conversation! He'd been a bit impulsive in asking her, yes, but that did not mean she could just throw him out.

Though he was still mildly stunned by the course of events for the evening, Harry stood up from the sofa and followed her up the stairs to her bedroom. He found the door closed, and he would not insult her further by ignoring that barrier. "Ruth, I'm not leaving till we settle this," he called through the door.

"Please just go!" she shouted back.

He could hear in her voice that she was crying, and he did not like that one bit. "I will not go. Not like this. Now, may I come in, please?"

There was a pregnant pause of silence left in the air as he waited. Finally, he heard a slightly muffled response. "The door's not locked."

Taking that as an invitation, Harry opened the door slowly. Inside, he found that marvelous burgundy dress in a heap on the floor and Ruth curled up in the middle of her bed wearing her dressing gown. He sat down beside her on the edge of the bed. "Can we talk, please?" he asked softly. "We were having a wonderful time and I know I ruined it, but I'd like to try and fix it, if we can."

"You can't take back what you said," she answered, wiping a stray tear from her cheek that was rolling down the side of her nose, the way her head was resting.

Harry gently brushed her hair back. "I don't want to take it back. I may not have had the best timing…"

"Terrible timing," she interjected.

"But I won't take it back," he finished.

Ruth sat up, moving somewhat clumsily as she tried to keep her robe closed. "Why not? You can't possibly want to marry me."

"Of course I do. I love you and I want to be with you," Harry said. And really, that shouldn't have been a surprise. What else did she think they were doing together? Why did she think he'd introduced her to his children? He'd not really realized before tonight that he did want to marry her, but that didn't mean it wasn't an earnest feeling. He'd have reached the conclusion sooner or later. It just happened to have been sooner.

She shook her head in disbelief. "You're not thinking, Harry," she said. "I know we had a very nice time on the sofa and of course the sex is always very good, but you're not thinking!"

"So that's you saying no, is it?" he grumbled. His was starting to feel just as he had when she'd broken up with him. She was giving him excuses instead of telling him the truth. And the excusess on his behalf were starting to hurt more than if she just told him she didn't want to marry him.

Ruth put her hand on his arm. "You never should have asked me, Harry. You and I…it's not just about the two of us."

"Yes it is," he protested.

"No it isn't!" she insisted. "Have you talked to Graham and Catherine? I know they don't dislike me, but I can't imagine they're ready for me to be their new mother. And have you asked permission to marry me? You know that all members of the royal family must receive the consent of the crown to marry. And I'm sure you haven't even thought about that! Harry, I am a bloody princess, and I know you don't think much of that and we don't worry about it between us, but it doesn't mean I don't have responsibilities and limitations in my life, and whoever marries me will be tied to that forever. As much as I try bloody hard to just be Ruth and to work hard and to be normal, the fact remains that I am not normal, and my life is not my own. There is so much more than you could ever imagine, and it's not fair for you to pretend like you and I are the only ones who matter!"

Harry was not sure he'd ever heard Ruth be so eloquent in the two years he'd known her. She did not trip over her words, she did not stammer or falter or go back and forth between different points she was trying to make. And though she was obviously upset still, she seemed so calm. For the first time, he saw that regal elegance that lived inside her. Princess Louisa was speaking to him for the first time. But it was Ruth he'd asked to marry him. Maybe that was the problem.

Another tear escaped down her cheek and she wiped it away. Harry looked down at his hands in his lap. She spoke softly to him, "I do love you, Harry. More than anything. But I don't want you to ask me to marry you without understanding what that means. I don't want to say yes and have us both be trapped in that decision."

"So you're saying no."

"I'm saying no," she confirmed. "And if that's all there is, maybe that's for the best. But if you ever do ask me again, after you've made sure you really want to ask me, I don't want to say no."

He looked up sharply, seeing her pale blue eyes rimmed with red from her crying, her bottom lip trembling as she tried to hold back her emotions. One of her hands was still on his arm but the other was fidgeting the tie on her robe. It was Ruth again, nervously admitting that she did not want to reject him, that she did, in so many words, want to marry him if all was done properly. Princess Louisa had to be satisfied for Ruth to be able to say yes. And in a strange way, he could not begrudge her that. Harry took both her hands in his and shifted to face her straight on. "I love you," he said quietly, for those were the only words that he could manage to find inside his head in that moment. "And I'm sorry."

Ruth tried to hold back a sob and just nodded. Harry pulled her into his arms and held her tight. They didn't say anything else, for what else was thereto say? He knew he was lucky that he had not ruined things between them completely, knew he was lucky that she would let him hold her like this still. And that was all he wanted to do. Just hold her tight and love her as best he could.