Prince of Magic Page 29
“I’m counting on it. I love you with all my heart and body and soul. You can spend the rest of your days tormenting me.”
She walked across the clearing, the sunlight dappling around her, came up to him in the woods. He was even taller than she remembered, and then she realized she was barefoot, as always. He dropped the shoes and reached out for her, cupping her face with beautiful hands. “Marry me, Lizzie. Let me love you.”
“Yes,” she said, kissing his hands, kissing his mouth. “Yes.”
Epilogue
Yorkshire, 1837
IT WAS THE FIRST truly warm day in spring, and Gabriela Durham went into the woods to dance.
She should have outgrown her love of the forest, and she knew it. After all, she was a mature young lady of eighteen and a half, with a London Season already behind her, and two perfectly desirable gentlemen vying for her favors. She could marry either one of them, and she supposed she ought to. After all, it was what was expected of her. After the scandalous behavior of her grandparents it had taken her more conventional parents a great deal of effort to reestablish the name of Durham in society, and Gabriela was ready to reap the benefits of all that hard work. She would make a suitable, wealthy marriage, even though money was in abundance, and she would be a suitable, well-bred wife.
If only she didn’t take after her grandmother Lizzie.
Her own mother, a warmhearted, easily exasperated woman of steady temperament, had often despaired of her impossibly fey mother-in-law, known by one and all, servant and landholder alike, as Lizzie, and while she seldom showed it, she was terrified of her father-in-law, the notorious Gabriel Durham.
Gabriela had never been afraid of her grandfather. After all, she’d been named for him, despite her mother’s objections, and she knew perfectly well he was as devoted to her as he was to his entire family. Even her uneasy and ungrateful mother.
And Gabriela’s mother had learned to tolerate her in-laws’ eccentricity, their predilection for pagan religions, and their embarrassingly obvious affection for each other. Since they stayed out of society, preferring their own motley assortment of friends, Richard and Mary Durham could only pretend they didn’t exist.
But Gabriel and Lizzie were gone now, having lived happily and well into their eighties. Their prodigious offspring had scattered across the world, leaving their eldest, Richard, to manage the vast estate and marry well.
And now it was Gabriela’s turn. When she went back to the house she knew what awaited her. Adrian Grant had written to her father, and Paul Taylor had sought an interview that very morning. There was no way she could come up with any more excuses.
She came to the circle of oaks and slipped off her shoes and stockings. There were whispered tales of Druids in these parts, but Gabriela had always ignored them. She knew the woods, better than she knew her own heart. There was no danger to her here.
She was humming beneath her breath, an old, old song, about faithless love and found love, and she danced barefoot in the circle of trees. Until she saw him watching her.
He could have been standing there since she arrived, so still was he. He blended with the woods, his skin dusky from the sun, his mop of curly hair streaked with brown and gold. He wore rough clothes, and he was tall, motionless, his eyes alive in his quiet face as he watched her.
“Who are you?” She asked the question abruptly, embarrassed at being caught, wondering where her shoes were. “What are you doing on my father’s land? Are you a poacher?”
“I’m no poacher,” he said, his voice low and beguiling, faintly touched with a northern burr. “I stopped to watch a faery dance in the woods.”
“I’m no faery,” she said. She knew him, in her heart if not in her mind. “You’re Patrick Brownington.”
“I’m Patrick,” he agreed. He lifted his head to look at her more clearly, and she felt a sudden tug, sharp and sweet, inside her. He had brown eyes and a beautiful face, and years ago, when they were only children, he’d told her he would marry her and they would live in the woods. How could she have forgotten him?
“You’re a very grand lady now, Gabriela,” he said. He was some sort of distant cousin, though his lineage was a bit too shady for her mother, and he had every right to call her by her name in that soft, easy voice of his. “Are you married?”
“Would a married woman go running off into the woods?” she countered.
“If she was looking for what she lacked at home, she would. If she had any sense. Have you forgotten your promise?”
“What promise is that?” She knew, and he did, that she hadn’t forgotten.
“You said you’d marry me and live in the woods when we were old enough. I think we were ten and twelve at the time.” The hint of laughter in his voice made it clear he wasn’t about to hold her to it. Just a distant relative, remembering an innocent time.
“Are you here to claim me, Patrick?” she asked. His family owned a tidy estate nearby, one that had prospered over the years, but he came from yeoman stock, and she could look much higher. And so her mother had often reminded her.
He tilted his head sideways. “I just might be,” he said softly.
Gabriela thought of Adrian Grant with his grand estates and his pale, elegant face. She thought of Paul Taylor and his dark beauty and fierce temper and his beautiful house in Sevenoaks.
She looked at Patrick Brownington and a weight lifted from her shoulders, and she flashed him a dazzling smile. “Good,” she said.
And once more, barefoot on the thick carpet of leaves, she began to dance.
The End
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Anne Stuart is currently celebrating forty years as a published novelist. She has won every major award in the romance field and appeared on the NYT Bestseller List, Publisher’s Weekly, and USA Today. Anne Stuart currently lives in northern Vermont.