He threw her a smile over his shoulder. “I promise you will like it.”
Jamie disappeared into the crowd and returned wearing his riding coat. It was ridiculously clean where everything else about him was blackened and dusty.
He stopped before her and, to her surprise, dropped onto one knee.
“This is what my important business was.” He opened a small box and held it up. The most beautiful sapphire ring she’d ever seen lay nestled inside.
“Marry me again, Catherine Meredith Carthwick Raybourne. I want to renew my vows to you. I made promises to you that I broke. I promised to love and cherish you, and I fear I did not do very well.”
Cat blinked through the tears in her eyes. She hugged her arms around her chest as if she could contain the joy bursting through her. Everything within was singing, soaring, spinning with hope. “Well, I promised to obey you. And I admit I didn’t really mean it.”
He laughed, his teeth a flash of white against his soot-covered skin. “So you will marry me, again? You will be the wife of my heart?”
“Yes, Jamie.” Yes, yes. Of course yes! “Always.”
She twisted her hands together as he came to standing, resisting the urge to throw her arms around him. He had more to say and she wanted to hear what it was.
“I found the sapphire in Kashmir. Let me see how I did.” He took the ring from the box and held it next to her eyes. “Yes. I remembered your eyes exactly.”
Cat held out her hand, and he slid the ring onto her finger. The band was designed with elaborate scrolls and perfectly matched her previous engagement ring. “Where did you have it made?”
“The Jewelry Quarter in Birmingham.”
“It’s perfect, Jamie.”
“No, it’s not.” He brushed her hair back from her face. “But it doesn’t need to be perfect. It just needs to be true.”
LEAVES RUSTLED OVERHEAD as Jamie took her hand beneath the old oak tree. They stood before the heart he had carved into its trunk nine years prior.
“I promise to love you, Catherine, for all my days. To write you notes whenever I must leave, to tell you about my worries as much as my celebrations.” No humor showed on his face, no amusement. Only deep intention. Integrity. And love. “And to trust you, even if I do not understand or agree with your actions. I pledge my heart to you until death shall us part.”
Cat squeezed his hands. They were shaking in hers. “I pledge to love and honor you, Jamie, as my husband, my lover, and my friend. I promise to hold you foremost in my heart, even when we do not agree. I will share my life with you, my laughter and my tears, and cherish you always. I pledge my heart to you until death shall us part.”
He lifted her hand and slid the sapphire ring onto her finger. “With this ring, I thee wed. Again.”
Cat looked up and smiled into his eyes. Her husband tilted his lips into that lopsided half smile that never failed to melt her heart.
“Now kiss your bride,” she teased.
Never did he have to be asked twice. He leaned down and claimed her mouth in a searing kiss.
Wind sang through the trees. The crisp scent of autumn lingered in the sunlight. Winter was coming and the world was alive with joy.
Cat slipped her hands down around Jamie’s hips.
“Hmm,” he murmured against her mouth. “I like this.”
“We’ve work to do, husband.”
“Work?” He pulled back and studied her face.
“Yes,” she tilted her head to the side. “Didn’t you say something about needing an heir?”
“So I did.” She laughed as he picked her up and laid her down in the grass.
The future looked very bright indeed.
Leigh LaValle recently released her Golden Heart? nominated novel, The Runaway Countess, to high acclaim. When she is not writing, mommying, or reading, she is rarely seen cleaning, and more often found hiking or, when she is really lucky, in the white powder of the ski slopes. Leigh is also a devoted yoga practitioner and instructor. She currently lives in the Pacific Northwest with her family, and is hard at work on her next novel.
Follow Leigh LaValle on twitter at @Leigh_LaValle, friend her on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/leigh.lavalle, or visit her website at http://www.LeighLaValle.com.
More about Leigh’s other works, and an excerpt from her latest release, The Runaway Countess, can be found at the back of this book. Click here for a shortcut.
For OuiOui. With a kiss on the cheek, perhaps a little too close to the ear.
Thanks to Carey (my Carey), Silvs, and the Dog of the Week?, for emotional support and not complaining about all the paper everywhere. Robin Harders and Martha Trachtenberg, thanks for the editing. And Leigh, Tessa, and Carey (Bill’s Carey)—for everything.
A small village in Kent, spring, 1845.
SIMON DAVENANT HAD JUST three days to woo and marry a woman.