“Your father believed it was. We shook on it,” Drystan said. “You’re mine now.”
She shook her head as primly and firmly as possible. “You said you wanted me more than any Christmas pudding, and you like mince pies more.”
“You noticed that did you?” He snaked out his arm with full intent to wrap her up in his arms. She wanted that, too, but not yet.
“You’re not getting me this Christmas!” Sidestepping his reach, she brushed away from him. “I refuse to marry a man who puts me somewhere between a Christmas pudding and a mince pie.”
His eyes gleamed. “There’s only one place I want you in between. That’s me and a bed.”
“Say it,” she demanded. Oh, she knew the words were superfluous. The want he expressed had been in every action he’d done since they were children.
“I want you more than minced pies, Christmas pudding, every Christmas we’ve shared, and all the ones in our future. Is that what you want?”
What she wanted was this man as her husband, but they weren’t there yet. “You went to speak to my father alone!”
“I asked you to trust me,” he said.
“You meant to go in there alone? I do trust you, but I believed we agreed to talk to him together. So why did you do it?”
He tugged at his hair, released it. “When I’ve talked to him in the past, he always refused. I realized it was because I was too earnest…he’d shut me out. Thus, I believed if I went in and then you—”
“Me?”
“I knew you’d be behind me because I’m the one who told the chamber maid to inform you.”
“I still don’t quite understand why you did it”’ she said. “If you wanted to talk to him alone, why have the chamber maid notify me?”
“Because I knew you’d be cross with me.”
“I was cross with both of you having any conversation without me when I absolutely said never again!”
“As a result, you gave an impassioned argument for our being together.”
That was…exactly what happened. She’d never talked to her father that way before. She’d simply been so angry, hurt. And her being cross was what Drystan wanted? “Such a chance!”
She had doubts and barged in too early, then had doubts because her father wasn’t listening to Drystan’s argument. Yet, Drystan had no doubt at all? “How did you know I’d argue it rightly?”
“Because you make everything right, Elizabeth.”
His words were like a balm to her very soul. Still. “Don’t do it again.”
“Can’t I have games and mischief of my own?” At her glaring expression, he added, “There’s no need to. I can wed you now. What more do I have for games?”
He grabbed her hands. “Please tell me you understand, please tell me you trust me. If we’d gone in there together, he would have dismissed us because he would have dismissed me…as he always has done. You would be angry at him as you always are, but would you have spoken as you did?”
She shook her head.
He nodded. “He needed to see me in a different light, but no matter what I said, it wouldn’t change him. Only you could do that, and you did so brilliantly. You saved me.”
She had. “I saved us.”
“Us.” Grinning widely, he grabbed for her again, and she let him catch her. In his arms was where she always wanted to be.
“So, no more games?” she asked. “Because I may have…done something.”
He groaned.
“Well, I was angry at you and father. Although now that I know he was like me, I feel a bit troubled by it”’ Only a bit. The mud had been cleared from the kitchens, but there was flour, so she had a chance to write those words after all.
