‘I minded like hell,’ he said grimly. ‘But it was too late then. The die had been cast, the Cade curse had struck again. You were the one I’d been waiting for all my life and you loathed the very ground I walked on!’
‘Not really,’ she whispered against his chest. ‘I was fighting myself as much as you.’
‘Well, you went the full ten rounds, angel-face,’ he said wryly as he reached the bottom of the steps. ‘Is there anything there for me?’ He stopped again and looked down into her face. ‘Tell me, I want to hear it. I want to know this is not a dream, that it’s real. Tell me, Fabia.’
‘I love you, Alex.’ As she spoke the last black thread of bitterness was loosened and her heart broke out into the glorious light.
‘You love me?’ He clasped her to him again. ‘That was worth turning into a block of ice to hear. I thought I was going to have a hell of a fight on my hands before I’d hear you say that but I wasn’t going to give up. Weeks, months, years—I’d have waited. Not patiently, maybe, but I’d have waited.’
‘There are things you’ve got to know, Alex.’ As he put her down inside the hall he looked at her for a long moment and then touched her face gently.
‘Nothing would make any difference to the way I feel about you but let me get out of these wet things and then we’ll talk.’
‘Minor?’ She looked down at Major with a little start of guilt. ‘You didn’t find him? Oh, Alex—’
‘We found him.’ As Mary and John appeared in the hall, faces wreathed in smiles, he took the dry clothes from John’s hands with a little gesture of thanks. ‘He’d managed to fall down one of the pot-holes that damn wood is littered with and break his leg besides getting his other paw stuck in some tree roots. There was no way he could have freed himself. We took him to the vet’s in the next village before we came back; that’s where he is now. I tried to phone but the lines are down.’
She stood, just feasting her eyes on him as he spoke, and as he returned the look John and Mary glanced at each other and then retraced their steps, leaving the two of them alone.
‘Come in here.’ As he pulled her into his sitting-room she felt his shaking through the hand holding hers and pushed him towards the roaring fire with a little cry.
‘Get your things off, Alex.’
‘Music to my ears.’ He smiled wickedly at her blushes as he stripped down to nothing, donning his dry clothes with mocking reluctance and then drawing her into his arms as they sat in front of the fire. Mary had placed a flask of hot coffee liberally laced with brandy by his chair and Fabia made him drink two cupfuls before she would relax on his lap, snuggling against him as she did so.
He kissed her until she was breathless but as their ca-resses grew more feverish she pushed him away slightly, putting her finger on his lips as she did so. ‘I want to tell you something, to make you understand why I’m like I am.’
He listened silently while she told him about Robin, leaving nothing out, and his face was dark with rage when she finished. ‘I’d give the world for five minutes alone with him,’ he said grimly.
‘It’s over now,’ she said with an overwhelming sense of relief that she really was free at last, free to love again, free to live again. ‘I just wish I’d never met him, that’s all.’
‘The past is past,’ he said gently. ‘I don’t care about it as long as you love me now. Any other men—’
‘There haven’t been any others,’ she said quietly. ‘You will be the first, Alex, the first and the last.’
‘Oh, my love...’ As he gathered her close the look on his face made her want to cry again, but within a few minutes weeping was the last thing on her mind...
* * *
‘Kiss the bride, sir! We want a nice friendly wedding, now, don’t we!’ As titters o
f laughter greeted the photographer’s quip Alex leant towards her, moving the soft white silk of her veil aside as he bent to whisper in her ear.
‘What happened to the little lady who informed me she was going to wear black on her wedding-day?’
She smiled wickedly, content and gloriously fulfilled on this her special day, and as she caught Isabella’s eye in the background she lifted up her dress to reveal a saucy black garter on the top of one slim, beautifully shaped leg. ‘I was going to keep this till later, but if you insist...’
He laughed delightedly, his eyes devouring her as she stood beside him, exquisite in her wedding finery, and as the photographer called again he gathered her up into his arms, holding her aloft in triumphant victory before claiming her lips as the camera flashed.