“Is that still how ye feel?”
The smile changed, became a sensual invitation. “If you kiss me again, I might answer that.”
He smiled back. “Not yet, mo chridhe. I intend to do things right this time around. On the previous occasion when I tried this, I made an utter shambles of it.” He dropped to one knee on the wooden floor beneath him.
“Brody…” she whispered, clutching at his hand. Her eyes rounded, and color tinged her slanted cheekbones as she stared down at him.
He struggled to shift the emotion damming his throat. This shouldn’t be difficult. After all, she loved him and he loved her. But the words were too important to emerge easily. “Elspeth Douglas, I love ye with all my heart, and while I’m nowhere near good enough for you…”
She shifted as if to disagree, but he went on before she could interrupt. “While I’m nowhere near good enough for you, my sole hope of happiness is to have you by my side for the rest of our lives together. Through good times and bad. Through the years, when I’ll strive with all my power to be a fine husband. Say you’ll marry me, Elspeth, because I’m lost without ye.”
Tears brightened her lovely eyes, even as delight illuminated her delicate features. She looked a different creature from the woebegone girl at breakfast.
When she didn’t respond straightaway, he tightened his hold on her hand. “This is my third proposal, my darling. Please say yes this time.”
Her throat moved as she swallowed, and her voice emerged in a husky whisper. “Oh, Brody, you make me so happy. This morning, I thought I’d never be happy again.”
He stared into her face, recognizing her as his destiny. “I’ll do my best to make ye happy for the rest of your life.”
Her lips curled in a smile that expressed a universe of joy. For the first time, he genuinely believed that she did love him. “I’d love that.”
“I love you.”
“And I love you.”
“So?”
She laughed, and the warm sound rippled down his backbone and settled in his heart. “Of course I’ll marry you, Brody.”
Once she’d declared her love, he’d known she’d have him, but hearing the words shifted the final traces of uncertainty that had weighed on his heart like an anvil.
“Oh, my beloved,” he sighed and brought her hands to his lips. “Thank you. I’ll never let ye down. I swear it.”
“Now I’m convinced you should kiss me, Brody.”
Overwhelming emotion making him clumsy, he struggled to his feet. He lashed his arms around her and drew her against him, glorying in the soft lushness of her body and how she welcomed his touch. “Aye, I recall last time we were rudely interrupted.”
“We might be rudely interrupted this time, too,” she said, so incandescent with elation, she shone like a thousand stars.
As Brody stared down into her vivid face, he didn’t feel triumphant. Instead he felt blessed.
He’d never imagined having the power to make anyone feel like this. It was a responsibility, and one he intended to live up to as long as he drew breath. His grip on her waist tightened. “When you’re my wife, I’ll have ye to myself.”
“I’d marry you tomorrow.” A spark of the delicious humor he’d discovered in the last few days lit her eyes. “Well, perhaps not tomorrow. It’s Christmas Day.”
“What a rare Christmas gift fate has delivered into my hands.” He smiled back at her. “And we’re in luck, sweetheart. Marina has hung that unimpressive Sassenach weed all over the castle. So as long as we’re standing under it, I can kiss ye whenever I like.”
Elspeth gave a cracked laugh and buried her fingers in his hair. “Stop talking, Brody.”
He stared down at her, dazzled with elation, dazzled with her. “But don’t ye—”
His shy wee beloved gave his hair a sharp tug. Even as he winced, she rose on her toes and dragged his head down for a kiss that wasn’t shy at all.
Epilogue
Elspeth rested in Brody’s powerful arms as Perseus ambled toward the small building under the brow of the hill, picking his way across the firm snow on his neat black hooves.
“Are you tired?” Brody murmured, guiding the bay into the shadowy stables at the back of the isolated hunting lodge, deep in the hills behind Achnasheen Castle.