Yet this was no tame, gentle kiss.
Not here amongst the wilds of the Welsh hills.
They kissed as lovers, tempestuous and torrid, hands roving.
Her hat came loose, plummeted to the snow, and as his fingers prowled, her pins loosened too, hair tumbling, black as a moonless winter’s night.
He drew away, breath white and gusting, passion coursing…
“Later,” he drawled. “Or we’ll miss the sun.”
For although the western Tremadog Bay was still in shadow, the mountains to the east were tinged with gold, a nimbus along a dragon’s spine.
He grabbed various items from the saddle bags and they picked their way to the centre of the stone circle. The snow was thick up here but he spread a sheet of canvas, then a blanket atop and they sat upon it in their cloaks and greatcoats.
It was cold but wondrous as they waited, silent and still, until a curved slice of flaming gold edged over the inland mountains.
Gwen gasped, the filters of light glowing upon her skin and the magnificent sunrise nigh paled, but Tristan forced his eyes to turn. To witness the birth of a new dawn.
Christmas dawn with his beloved at his side.
The sun ascended faster than one would suppose, relentless in its climb, honeycomb-yellow showering the hills with its life. Half was now visible, a glowing medallion, and he reached a hand to his beloved’s cheek.
“You were my breath in that sea, you know, Gwen. My saviour in the night. My redeemer in that storm.”
She turned that beautiful face – the unseen face in his dreams, he now knew – and smiled. “And yours was the voice I would hear in the dead of night when I needed the confidence to follow my dreams.”
Tristan returned her smile and rummaged in his pocket. “I… I told you I’d found some hidden keepsakes in the boat shed, and well…amongst them was this. I’d bought it because I knew I loved you as soon as we’d kissed. But there was never the moment. That day of the storm, I placed it in a drawer within the desk, thinking I would see you later.” He held her hand. “But no more later. Later never comes.” And he lifted the leather box’s lid to reveal the ring of gold with its pearl, serene and elegant, and its blood-red garnets with their generous hearts and inner fire.
Gwen.
Her eyes widened, lips parting to gasp. “It’s exquisite.”
His heart thudded with anticipation. For the future. For a future that just a few weeks ago had appeared so bleak and obscure. “This ring has been waiting for you, Gwen. Bereft for sixteen months. Waiting for me to ask…” He cleared his throat. “Will you marry me, Gwenllian? Be my wife, my companion? And I shall be yours. I will never keep you from anything you wish to do. Anywhere you wish to go.” A tear trailed her cheek and he leaned forward to lap it from her skin. “I beg you.”
She looked up, eyes glistening like a lake of ice. “Yes,” she cried. “Yes, yes and yes.” Her lips curved to a grin and he grinned back and they must have seemed the veriest of young lovestruck fools, stuck on a hill in the middle of nowhere with snow all about them.
Yet this was also a magical place of legends and lore and nowhere could be better. After all, the dragons had seen to it that his every wish had been granted.
“I hope,” he whispered, removing the ring from the box, “we could marry soon. In Llanedwyn Church with our families and friends.” A touch on his chin and he glanced up.
“It sounds perfection.” She smiled, eyes roaming his face. “This moment is perfection. How the sun reflects in your eyes, how the stones of this circle cast their shadow behind you and… Listen….” The Llanedwyn church bells echoed up the valley for this special day. She gently kissed him. “I love you, Tristan.”
The ring slid onto her finger and he likewise felt the perfection of this moment. How her hair was tinged with gold, the mountains behind her in their cloak of ermine, the lavender scent upon her skin. He fiercely kissed her. “I love you, my Gwen.”
And bathed in the sunlight of Christmas Day, the lovers embraced and whispered and planned for their future.
Motionless and silent, the ancient circle stood as it always had done, yet if anyone stopped to listen, a light whisper of breeze seemed to flutter over the mystical stones like the beating of a dragon’s wings, the snow-clad ferns shifting and sighing below that whisper, while the sun shone with breath of fire.
A new day had begun.
A new moment of perfection.
Christmas Day.
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EPILOGUE
