Despite the turbulent emotion vibrating in the air between them, she gave a choked laugh, weighted with unshed tears. “After last night, you can never accuse me of being lukewarm.” She drew herself up to her full height, as the last of her shyness fell away forever.
Of course she’d tell him she loved him. Very soon. But first she had a puzzle to solve. “So tell me about the letters.”
He ran his hand through his hair. “It’s no great mystery. Above Vittoria, we got hit by a French cannonade, and everything in the camp caught fire in a flash. I ran back through the flames to save your letters. I couldn’t let them burn. They were all I had of the woman I love.”
Felicity caught his hands, as her heart dipped with an overpowering mixture of distress and astounded joy. She wanted to berate him for risking his life over something as trivial as a letter. Yet how could she chastise him, when he loved her enough to face that danger? “That’s why your hands are scarred.”
“Yes.” His fingers curled hard around hers.
“I should have guessed it was something like that.” Her voice shook, as she remembered her shock when she found the charred letters. The tears she’d struggled to hold back trickled down her cheeks.
Blazing gray eyes focused on her face. “Flick, could you love me?”
“Could I? I already do. So much.” Her tears threatened to turn into a flood. With a tenderness she no longer needed to rein in, she touched his scarred cheek. “I loved you the moment I saw you.”
Elation dawned over his features, making him strikingly handsome. “You love me?”
“I always have.” This time, the admission came more easily.
“And I love you.”
Her laugh contained a crack. “Which makes me very happy.”
His laugh was just as shaky. “Oh, my love, what a Christmas.”
“Yes, what a Christmas,” she whispered, and stepped into his arms under the kissing bough.
Through the thunderous rejoicing in her heart, Felicity felt Digby pressing into her hip. As the kiss heated up, she became vaguely aware that Biddy had come in, probably to announce Christmas dinner.
“Well, Lord above, all my wishes have come true.” Biddy’s jubilant voice rang out from the other side of the room. “This is the best Christmas present an old woman could ask for. Welcome home, Master Edmund. Welcome home. You’re safe and loved, and you never need to stray from home again.”
Edmund drew away from Felicity and smiled down into her eyes with such adoration, she felt the winter day turn to midsummer. She wondered how she could ever have doubted that he loved her, even as she marveled that such a wealth of love could exist in the world and belong to her.
“Amen to that, Biddy,” Edmund said, without looking away from his wife.
“Amen indeed,” Felicity murmured, stretching up to steal another kiss under the mistletoe.
A Match Made in Mistletoe
A Regency Novella
By
Anna Campbell
Copyright © 2016, 2018 by Anna Campbell
annacampbell.com
Cover art by Hang Le
E-book Formatting by Web Crafters
www.webcraftersdesign.com
Dedication:
To my dear friend Sharon Arkell