The Lord's Inconvenient Vow

‘You can’t help defending me, even when you don’t know from what.’

‘Defend first, reason later, that is my motto.’ She smiled back. He looked so beautiful, leaning against the pillows in the dark. ‘Are you glad you accepted my proposal?’ she blurted out.

His fingers threaded through her hair, tucking it behind her ear and coming back to cup her face. It was like the way he’d touched her in the darkened square, but different. She had no idea what to make of all this.

‘I was just congratulating myself on my good sense.’ His hands tightened, his smile faltering. She almost cried out her objection—don’t go away yet. Stay with me.

‘Are you glad I accepted your proposal?’ His voice was turning tentative, losing its dreamy warmth. ‘I know these weeks haven’t been easy. I haven’t been easy...’

‘Yes, yes, I am... I think proposing to you is quite the smartest thing I have done.’

He wrapped his arms around her and she sank into them. Not that it was easy to sink into rock, even warm rock. He was so tense. She kneaded the arm closest to her and it softened just a little. She breathed him in, deep, so deep a whole world came to life in her mind—that forest cocooning her, the wood warmed by the sun, and him all around her, as though she’d come to live inside him. Safe, alive, happy.

Home.

Edge.

In her mind her arms opened wide because the truth was too enormous to hold.

I love you, Edge. Love you. I always have. You were always mine and never were.

She lost the image, surfacing because her eyes and face were burning with knowledge and hurt.

‘Sam?’ The whisper fluttered the hair at her temple and she shook her head, burrowing against him. His arms softened as they gathered her closer, his breath warm against her hair, his hand caressing her back in that way that made her want to purr.

It should be enough, she told herself. This. He does care. Maybe not the way she wanted him to, but perhaps as much as he can right now. Maybe with time it would grow. Or not.

She needed it to grow.

She touched her mouth to the soft skin below his ear, letting the words swirl inside her, but keeping them close so they didn’t escape. Patience. She needed patience. It was little more than a month and a half since he’d scared the devil out of her on the Howling Cliffs and already he’d changed...no, not changed, just opened the door for her a little, each time a little more.

Patience.

‘It feels like you are about to grab someone by the throat and throttle them, Sam. Out with it.’

‘I’m happy.’

He tensed, his hand stilling between her shoulder blades, and she closed her eyes and teeth tight. She’d hoped that was mild enough, but evidently it was still too much.

His hand resumed the slow sweep downwards, just feathering over her bottom, his leg shifting to bring her closer.

‘Good. That is good, isn’t it?’

‘Yes. Very good. And that is very good, too. Don’t stop.’

* * *

‘Do you like it?’ Edge’s words bounced off the uncarpeted floor and empty walls, amplifying the worry in his voice.

Sam stood in the open garden doors, her hands clasped to her chest, looking across the sloping lawn to the willow trees scratching the green water with their spiky hair. The full view of the river was blocked by an elongated tree-covered island, shielding them from the world. This green cocoon was only broken by a blue rowboat with a yellow rim attached to a wooden jetty and a great shade tree with branches that rose out of each other like a drunk candelabra standing in the middle of the lawn. She imagined them sitting beneath it in the golden light of late afternoon; reaching out to touch him.

Their home.

She was in love. Again.

‘I... Edge... This is... Oh.’

‘If you can’t find words, I assume you like it.’

‘I shan’t move from here. I shall hold the fort and ward off all other potential purchasers while you battle with the lawyers. Just leave me a sword. Oh, I wish I had Inky with me. She could be my dragon.’

‘I’ll be your dragon,’ Edge growled, wrapping his arms around her and she leaned into their warmth, their strength. For the past hour they’d behaved like utterly civilised man and wife, but with each room they’d entered and stair they climbed she’d imagined him as anything but civilised—in her mind he’d touched her, pressed her against the wall, his mouth warm and insistent on hers, on her neck, under her clothes... Making this house theirs, utterly theirs...

He could not know what she was thinking, but his hands tightened around her and she could feel that quivering tension, like a drawn bowstring, that came before he unravelled her.