The Lord's Inconvenient Vow

Another chance. At being a husband, a father. With Sam.

He’d set down that path with Dora in good faith eight years ago and ruined both their lives. He shouldn’t even consider it with Sam of all people. To be responsible for her future happiness. He shouldn’t consider it, but merely by asking she was changing the course of his life.

‘No,’ he answered. ‘There is nothing to return to.’

‘Then what shall you do when you find Rafe?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Where do you wish to go?’

Here. I want to stay here and let the world care for itself. I want to see if this ease I feel with you is real because it is unlike anything I’ve felt with anyone else. Even with Rafe—and I’ve trusted him with my life.

The words didn’t come anywhere near his lips.

‘I don’t know, Sam.’

‘Do you ever want to have a family again?’

‘Yes. Yes, I do.’ The words left him before he could stop them. Jacob’s face rose before him, clearer than it had been in a long while—smiling as he smeared a jam-covered hand down the page of Edge’s first copy of the Desert Boy book. It wasn’t the words that had caught his son’s attention, but Sam’s illustration of Gabriel being jostled between a camel, a donkey and a one-eyed jackal.

‘So will you at least consider what I proposed, Edge?’

‘Yes.’

Her laugh was shaky as she finally untangled her hands and stepped back.

‘Good. Thank you. Goodnight, Edge.’

She grasped the cloth door of the tent and the panther reached through him and sank its teeth into its prey.

‘I accept.’

‘You...what?’

‘Accept. Your proposal.’

‘But... I did not mean you had to give me an answer immediately...’

‘Shall I withdraw my acceptance?’

‘No! No, but...’

‘We will tell Poppy and Janet in the morning and discuss the particulars.’

‘Edge, I...thank...’

He stifled the words before she could speak them. He didn’t want her thanks. He wanted...this—his hands in her hair, his mind already unravelling it over her shoulders, her mouth softening under his... Like the night before shivering heat swamped him as every parcel of his body fought to embrace or escape this.

She was right, whatever else existed or didn’t exist in this world, he couldn’t deny this. In mere days it had become a certainty and that scared the hell out of him. He softened the kiss, pulling away.

‘It’s late. Time to go, Sam.’

‘But...’

‘Now. Before I change my mind.’

About saying yes and about letting you leave this tent before I ask you to stay.

For once she obeyed him without a word, whisking into the dark like the last tendril of smoke from a campfire. He followed until she was safe inside and then stood for a long time in the darkness, wondering whether all those years of exile and isolation had finally pushed him over some precipice of insanity.

Chapter Five

Gabriel gaped into the pit. ‘There is nothing there but darkness, Leila.’

‘I am there. I told you the day will come when you must choose to trust me, Gabriel. That is today.’

—Treasures of Siwa,

Desert Boy Book Five

‘With this ring I thee wed, with my body I thee worship...’

Edge’s deep voice had been as flat as a millpond, but the words kept playing in her mind, just as her fingers kept playing with the simple gold ring on her finger.

She had no idea where he found it or when. The three days since her proposal were a confusing blur. Both Poppy and Janet had surprised her by being delighted at Edge’s laconically delivered news of their betrothal, utterly unconcerned that their nephew was about to marry a woman he had not seen in eight years.

Once in Cairo, Edge disappeared, returning with the news that a man matching Rafe’s distinctive description had booked passage to England on a ship which had sailed from Alexandria that very day.

He didn’t look at Sam as he spoke and when he added he’d requested the consul general help him find passage on the first fast ship to England she steeled herself for the inevitable. Here was a perfect excuse for Edge to withdraw from her proposal, or at least postpone it long enough to come to his senses. Perhaps so would she.

But then he’d thoroughly stunned her. Apparently he’d done more at the consul general’s than arrange passage. She’d listened in shock as he’d informed her that the same vicar who performed Chase and Ellie’s wedding was still in Cairo and more than willing to perform the ceremony should they choose to marry before leaving Egypt.

If she chose.

If.

She’d searched his face for some indication of his wishes, but this was Edge. He’d put the pieces on the board—the move was hers.