“I promise to keep you warm in winter, but with you there I think it will always seem like spring.” He reached toward her, offering his hand. “Will you come back with me, as my wife?”
She could no longer keep still. She took the quick steps that brought her into his embrace. “I would be honored and proud to wed you, Zander.”
He enclosed her in his strong arms. His lips pressed her crown. A glorious joy filled her, one both thrilling and peaceful at the same time. The roses that she wore surrounded them with their scent.
He kissed her sweetly. “Let us marry in the morning, out on the field, with Angus and Harold and your father witnessing our vows.”
A stab of sorrow pierced her happiness. “My father. . .” The thought of him cast a shadow on her joy. She pictured her father alone in that cottage. Worse, she pictured him being lured again into the intrigues surrounding the crown.
“I already asked him for your hand, while we drank together this evening.”
“He agreed?”
“He said he came to the tourney to find you a husband, and I’d do as well as any other.”
“High praise.”
“At least it wasn’t another challenge.”
It helped to know that her father approved, but thinking of him still created a hollow spot low in her heart.
“It may have helped that I said he could come with us,” Zander added. “I even saved a second horse from the spoils, for him to ride with us. I think he is agreeable. And this way we can keep a watch on him, so he doesn’t do something that will worry you.”
She looked up at him, grateful that he understood that worry and sought to spare her. “I love you already, but all the more for being generous to him, after everything he did.”
“If you love me at all, I am more than repaid.”
She laid her head against his chest, savoring the embrace holding her close. Sounds of the music being played in the hall trickled on the breeze.
“Let us go and dance,” Zander said. “We can celebrate our betrothal, and our love, and the end of a wonderful tourney.”
Hand in hand, they strolled back through the garden.
Thanks for reading my contribution to the
Midsummer Knights
series.
I really enjoyed returning to the medieval period with this romance, and joining other authors in creating a tournament setting with jousts, knights, ladies, intrigues, and love.
If you enjoyed Never If Not Now, please spread the word by leaving a review on the site where you purchased your copy, or on another reader site. Thanks so much!
If you are interested in reading another of my medieval romances, or one of my Regency-set books, links to all of my books can be found on the Booklist down below. More information, excerpts, and vendor links are available on the website pages that the Booklist takes you to.
Perhaps you would like to try another book in the multi-author Midsummer Knights Tournament World series, such at that by Terri Brisbin. (The stories do not have to be read in any designated order. They all take place during the same week, concurrently.)
An Outlaw's Honor by Terri Brisbin
Thomas Brisbois of Kelso has only one goal when he arrives at the tournament--to defeat the only knight who ever bested him in battle. If he succeeds, the Scottish king will return to him his lands, his honor and his life. He has little interest in other prizes, and even less when he learns that the lord for whom his rival fights has included a daughter among the spoils at stake in their contest-- a lovely daughter with no desire to play the pawn, or to see her father's champion win. She is a distraction, all the more after she explainsher own ideas about which knight shall have her, and how and when.
Lady Annora de Umfraville may be a pawn in her father’s plans but she has no intention of letting that happen without a fight of her own. When she sees the frank desire in Thomas’ gaze for her, she makes her own offer—she’ll help him win if he’ll let her go. . . after he beds her. Her plans go awry when she discovers the truth of the man beneath the armor. The man who had lost everything and struggles to regain his life.
When the only man she can trust is known for his dishonorable past, what could go wrong?
Meet Madeline Hunter
Madeline Hunter is a critically acclaimed, bestselling author of more than thirty historical romances. She is a two-time RITA winner and seven-time finalist. Her books have been on the NYTimes and Publishers Weekly bestseller list, and 30 of them, including her first, made the USAToday bestseller list. She has received seven starred reviews in Publishers Weekly. Over six million of her books are in print, and her books have been translated into fourteen languages. Madeline is a Ph.D. in Art History, and for many years was a professor at an eastern university. Her most recent novel, Heiress for Hire, the first book in A Duke’s Heiress trilogy, was published in May of 2020. She lives in Pennsylvania.
You can contact Madeline through her website
madelinehunter.com
and follow her on social media:
Pinterest.
Also available from
Madeline Hunter
Medieval Romances
By Arrangement
By Possession
By Design
The Protector
Lord of a Thousand Nights
Stealing Heaven
Tapestry anthology
“An Interrupted Tapestry” novella
The Seducer Series
The Seducer
The Saint
The Charmer
The Sinner
The Romantic
Lord of Sin
Lady of Sin
The Rothwell Series
The Rules of Seduction
Lessons of Desire
Secrets of Surrender
The Sins of Lord Easterbrook
The Rarest Blooms
Ravishing in Red
Provocative in Pearls
Sinful in Satin
Dangerous in Diamonds
The Fairbourne Quartet
The Surrender of Miss Fairbourne
The Conquest of Lady Cassandra
The Counterfeit Mistress
The Accidental Duchess
The Wicked Trilogy
His Wicked Reputation
Tall, Dark and Wicked
The Wicked Duke
The Decadent Dukes Society Trilogy
The Most Dangerous Duke in London
A Devil of a Duke
Never Deny a Duke
A Duke’s Heiress Trilogy
Heiress for Hire
