“After I what?”
“Leave.”
“Leave?”
She turned away and shivered. “I do not blame you, Felton. There is too much hurt for you here. There are too many whispers, and you must escape them. I am not so selfish as to wish you to remain in a place where there is nothing left for y—”
“There is something left for me.” He was next to her again, pulling her back around. The shawl billowed around them. “And I have no intention of leaving.”
She sucked in air. “But Minney—”
“With the morn, I am taking my father to Cambridge to live with Aaron. I shall be gone only as long as the trip.” His gaze moved from her eyes to her lips, back to her eyes again. “If Minney would have eavesdropped a moment longer, she might have spared you such a tale.”
Her pulse went mad, as his hands eased up her cheeks. Heat burned her face. “I should not have spoken such things.”
“Which of them do you regret?”
She looked away.
“That you would never cease to love me?” His thumbs worked up and down. Soft, gentle, undoing. “I must remember to praise Minney for her folly.”
“Felton—”
“Marry me.” Deep, raw, a command so soft she could have died for the glory of the words. He pulled her face closer, nose against hers, then his mouth sought her own.
A thousand emotions jarred her, thrilled her, left her breathless when he pulled away.
“Marry me, Eliza Gillingham, and never listen to silly maids who might say I would leave you…because I will not.” Another kiss. Deeper, stirring. “I shall never leave you, and I shall never stop loving you.”
“Felton.” She cried into yet another kiss. “Felton—”
“Do not speak. Do not do anything.” He pushed back her bonnet, until the wisps of hair fluttered around her face. “Except kiss me. And love me. And go on loving me until the day we die.”
Her mouth met his again in an order she would obey the rest of her life.
Balfour Forest
Weltworth, Northumberland
May 1813
Eliza tramped through ferns and growth, Merrylad two steps ahead, and took off her half boots before she climbed atop the Lady’s Throne.
The stream had not changed.
Merrylad splashed through it, tongue wagging, as the water rushed through his legs and carried on to some unknown place. Captain had always told her it ended at the ocean. How many times, with a dull and lonely ache, had she wished it might take her to such a faraway sea?
She didn’t wish for such things anymore. She didn’t imagine she was a fairy as big as her finger, who would climb into a leaf and float away. She didn’t imagine anything. She didn’t have to.
Because she was happy.
Captain would have smiled to see her so happy.
From behind, footsteps crunched the forest floor, then Felton scooted next to her on the moss-covered rock. He tipped back his beaver hat. “This is where I found you.”
Merrylad climbed back to the bank, shook off the water, and then came to Eliza for a rub of his ears. “Would you have been angry to know then that such a girl would be your wife?”
“No angrier than you, I imagine.” His arm came around her. “Or Merrylad, I daresay.”
