own.’
He tipped her chin up so that her eyes met his, direct and hard, no denial in the movement, no gentle easy ask.
‘I would never hurt you, Lillian. Never. I would only ever love you.’
The words were not soft either, tumbling from nothing into everything.
Love.
You.
Overwhelming need and fear mixed with waiting.
Only them in this fire-filled cold winter’s evening, three nights before Christmas, bound in troth for ever, the silence of the house wrapped around them.
Waiting for just one movement.
Towards him.
She simply stepped into his arms, her tears wetting the front of his jacket, the buttons old and mismatched and the elbows patched with leather.
He was perfect for her, too.
They stood there for a long time, listening to the heartbeats between them and feeling the warmth, not daring to move towards the bed for fear her father would knock on the door and find them. No, not wanting anything to be ruined again by violence and hostility.
Finally her father came, the sound of his steps in the passage and then a knock on the door. He came through quietly, waiting as they parted though their hands were still joined.
‘I have been told what has happened.’ His glance caught Lillian’s. ‘You are all right?’
‘Yes.’
His face creased into a smile. ‘And he has given you his secrets.’
‘Not quite,’ Luc said and his fingers tightened around her own. ‘I am a wealthy man, Lilly. My estates are numerous in Virginia, for timber is a lucrative trade.’
‘Wealthier than my father?’
‘I am afraid so.’
‘Then the flowers did not break you?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Your bunch of flowers! I thought at the time they must have cost you a small fortune so I saved one and dried it to show you.’
He shook his head. ‘If you wanted a roomful, I could afford it.’
‘But I don’t,’ she said solemnly and walked in to his waiting arms. ‘All I want is you.’
The bells rang out from the village near Woodruff, tumbling Yuletide bells with joy on their edge, though they were muffled by the snow that had fallen all day, filling the windows with white and making ghosts of the trees in the garden.
They had eaten and danced and sang, and the sweet smells of cinnamon and spices hung in the air, the last of the visitors to Fairley finally gone and the big Bible in the front parlour closed from the many different readings. The whole day had been noisy and rushed and wonderful. None of the silent ease of Christmases past but all of a building excitement and joy, with the squeals of delight of Hope and Charity.
Goodness, she had changed completely in these few weeks, for she could not imagine again a pale and ordered Christmas, nor a home with as few guests as she had always cultivated.
Charity and Hope had made up games to play, Stephen had organised charades and Patrick had shadowed Lucas all day with questions of Virginia and its riches.
Her father had spent a quiet moment with her in the early afternoon, taking her aside to give her his present, the pearls that she knew had been her mother’s.
‘She was a person who made one wrong choice, Lillian. But before that she had made many right ones. You, for instance,’ he said and kissed the tip of her nose.
It was the first time she had heard him talk of Rebecca since her death, and that gift was as important to her as the double strand of matched pearls that were strong in her memory.
‘You told me once, Father, that I would thank you for this marriage and I do.’
‘Lucas has let Daniel leave the country, so his stupidity shall not be the ruin of the Davenport name after all. I think even Jean understands the generosity of Lucas’s gesture and has elected to go along with Daniel.’
She smiled at her father’s relief, the burden of the family reputation one he had always taken so very diligently to heart.
‘You look better than you have in a long while, Father.’
He smiled. ‘I believe I am well because you are happy, my love.’
And much later when the moon hung high she smiled again as Lucas placed a kiss on her stomach where candlelight played across her skin.
‘I want lots more children, Lilly. Sisters and brothers for Hope and Charity.’
The ruby caught in the light as she brushed the length of his hair from his face.
‘I wanted to ask you about the inscription inside the ring.’
‘I had it engraved in London for you.’
‘But you did not know then that I would even marry you!’
‘It was always just us then?’
‘Just us,’ he whispered back and, bringing a sprig of mistletoe from the cabinet beside the bed, held it above them, a wicked smile in his dancing amber eyes.
Sophia James
