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“But you never grew up here,” I observe, and he agrees.
“I know, it’s like what’s behind that door… almost two hundred years of everything that’s not me. It’s not what I want. Not for me and-”
But he stops short.
“You and your family?” I ask, sounding hopeful.
“Exactly,” he murmurs, pulling me close and kissing me again.
“Tell me about what you want, Carol. Do you want a family?” he asks, and I stop in my tracks, thinking.
Wanting to tell him if it’s with him I could have a dozen children.
But I don’t know if that’s what he really means.
Until he runs his hand over my belly, and I remember that he’s just filled me with a billion potential babies.
“I think… I know I do,” I promise him, standing on tippy toes to peck his cheek and gripping his robe.
“Please show me the rest of the house,” I beg him, feeling so drawn to the door he said was locked.
“Alright, I guess,” he says, laughing to himself, taking me by the hand to a desk in the hallway, a drawer filled with ancient looking keys.
“This… should be it,” he murmurs, holding it up to the light and shrugging.
We reach the end of the corridor near the stairs, the only door visible that shows any signs of age.
Lucian inserts the heavy key and turns the lock, pushing the door wide enough for us to fit through.
“I’ll close it,” he whispers. “It’s cold,” and I nod.
But it isn’t that cold on the other side.
The same design of the house is still there, but just more of that old wood paneling I love so much.
I can see another staircase, but we’re in a giant hallway.
“What’s in here,” I ask, suddenly shivering and making Lucian grunt.
“The original drawing room, I think,” he says, pushing the door open and making me gasp.
There’s just enough light from outside to show the setting sun over a gray mist and snow filled view of what must be a gorgeous garden in spring.
“I love it. I absolutely adore it,” I shriek, rushing to the old timber framed French windows, clawing at the freezing glass, trying to hold onto the misty light before it’s gone.
“You do, eh?” I hear Lucian deliberate behind me.
Turning, I see him donning a set of leather gloves, pulling cut logs set beside a fireplace.
“A lot of people don’t like old things, old places… I thought I was one of them. But seeing this place now, with you in it. Maybe I just…”
He grunts as he heaves a huge log over to the fireplace, and I make a worried sound until I realize the man’s an Adonis.
“If you go back the way we came,” he says. “Go get a basket of kindling from any of the other rooms we can see if this chimney still works,” he says with renewed enthusiasm.
“But don’t take long,” he adds over his shoulder, stacking the fireplace and moving everything around.
I find a brass scuttle filled with splintered wood by a fir in the other end of the house, and figure this is what Lucian means.
“Perfect,” he cries, taking it from me, and wiping a dusty line across his brow he sets to work making the quickest and most perfect log fire I’ve seen.
The huge room is filled with white sheets over furniture, which he starts to unveil one by one.
The largest is a huge leather sofa which he moves across the wooden floor before he reaches for the heavy wool rug in front of the new blaze.
“Boy scout?” I ask him, amazed at his skills with the fire, but he shoots me a look that says it all.
“A two hundred year old house? You learn to keep warm, there’s so much tinder around here I sometimes worry about the fire risk,” he adds, nodding to the oak paneling but patting the space next to him on the couch.
There’s a little dust in the air, but the balsamic scent from the wood burning soon cancels that out.
“A great idea,” he says, stretching his huge arm around me.
“A visit to the past I’d almost forgot.”
We sit in silence for some time, the fire crackling to life. The scent of Lucian and old pine filling the air with a big hint of smokiness and all the warmth of a campfire.
I snuggle up to him, tucking my feet under my wooly robe, asking him if we can do this every night.
“So you’ll stay?” he asks, gripping me tighter, a look of supreme satisfaction in his dark eyes as they glow in the firelight.
“Forever,” I whisper, clutching him closer.
“Forever.”Chapter EighteenLucianHearing her say she’ll stay.
I know she said she’s mine, but actually hearing her say it so matter of fact…
I know why I put up with so much for so long. This whole estate, the endless meetings, and all the other crap my whole life that drives me nuts.
