The Rose Garden

I held my breath and lay there watching him, and waiting.

He was studying my hair, now loosely spiralled in his fingers. ‘I have only loved but twice,’ he said again. ‘The first I took for granted, and now she is in her grave and gone. I would not wish …’ His hand closed briefly, tightening. ‘I would not wish to make the same mistake with you.’

I’d held my breath too long and had forgotten how to let it out, and when I did my head felt light. ‘Did you just say you loved me?’

‘Ay.’ His eyes were back on mine again. ‘And I would have you marry me.’ He must have thought that sounded too imperious, because he caught the words and phrased them differently. ‘I’m asking,’ he said, gently, ‘will you marry me?’

I felt my eyes fill hotly with the unexpected depth of my emotions, and I tried to blink the wetness back, to hold to that last ragged edge of reason. ‘I love you, too,’ I said. ‘But …’

Daniel waited through the moment’s silence, finally prompting, ‘But?’

‘I’m hardly ever here. I come and go, I can’t control it. You can’t want to have a life like that.’

His face relaxed. ‘’Tis you I want.’ He trailed his fingers warmly down my cheek and brushed away the single tear that had escaped my lashes. ‘I care not on what terms.’

He didn’t try to catch the next tear, or the one that followed after that. His gaze stayed steady on my own.

‘Say yes,’ he said so quietly it might have been a whisper. He moved his hand against my face so that his thumb could brush across my trembling lips as lightly as a kiss. ‘Say yes.’

As if there were another answer I could ever give him. ‘Yes.’

I’d never seen him smile like that. I knew that for my whole life I’d remember it, as I’d remember everything about this moment – the angle of the sunlight spilling through the bedroom window and the even warmer light in Daniel’s eyes.

And how his touch felt, gentle on my face.

‘Whatever time we have,’ he said, ‘it will be time enough.’

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Fergal stood behind me in the shadows of the church.

We hadn’t needed any witnesses. Apparently the laws had not been written yet that made them a requirement. In fact, according to Daniel, we could simply have exchanged vows on our own, there in the bedroom at Trelowarth with no priest around to hear us, and then sealed the deal by making love – which had, I admitted, seemed rather appealing to me at the time.

But he’d laughed then and gathered me close and said we had in essence already done all of that. ‘The promise is the same no matter where we choose to say it, yet it seems to me more meaningful to say it in a church.’

‘We’ll have to wait, then.’

‘Why?’

‘Well, because we’ll need a licence, or they’ll have to read the banns, or …’ I had paused, because I’d noticed he was looking at me strangely.

‘All we’ll need,’ he’d said, quite certain, ‘is a payment that will satisfy the vicar.’

He’d been right, of course.

Finding the vicar himself had been more of a challenge, but eventually he had been traced to the house of some friends in the neighbouring parish, and Fergal, returning from Lostwithiel, had headed back out to go fetch him. And that was how I came to be here, with an hour to go till sunrise, standing in the aisle of St Petroc’s church by candlelight with Fergal at my shoulder and the vicar off discussing terms with Daniel in the vestry.

I felt a surge of nervousness again and smoothed the skirts of my green gown till Fergal told me, ‘Quit your fussing. You look fine.’

Obedient, I stilled my hands and then, not knowing what else I should do with them, I clasped them both behind me. I whispered, ‘They’ve been in there a long time.’

‘You’re meant to be my sister, and a Catholic. I’d imagine that’s what’s keeping them.’

‘Oh.’

‘You’ve no call to worry. For the price that Danny’s offering, the vicar will be sure to keep his disapproval to himself.’

I looked away again. ‘Like you.’

‘What’s that?’

I shook my head and murmured, ‘Nothing.’

Fergal took a step around to stand where I could see him. ‘Do you think I disapprove?’

‘I think you care about your friend,’ I told him with a shrug, ‘and you don’t want to see him hurt again.’

‘I want,’ he answered carefully, ‘to see him with a woman who will love him in the way that he deserves, and know the value of the man whose heart she carries.’ In his voice I heard that same fierce challenge I remembered from the first time we had met, when we’d squared off across the corner bedroom with me in my borrowed gown and him as mad as blazes. ‘Has he found that?’

Looking up, I met his eyes and saw that underneath the challenge lay what looked to be affection, and not sure that I could speak around the lump of pure emotion in my throat, I gave a nod.

‘Well, then,’ he said. ‘Why the devil would you think I’d disapprove?’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘So you should be. Leaping into judgement.’ There was humour in the dark glance angled down at me. ‘If I truly disapproved, you’d not be here.’

‘Where would I be, then? At the bottom of the well?’