Page 181 of A Very Bellamy Christmas

Chapter 38

Eight Days Later

Andrew was beginning to think his groomsman and his betrothed had eloped together.

He glanced at his watch and then at the doors to the narthex and then at the vicar—the Reverend…Something! Damn and blast, Andrew had forgotten the man’s name already—but the clergyman merely smiled, seemingly unconcerned, his confident smile assuring Andrew that nothing was amiss.

He glanced at his watch and found only a few seconds had passed. He resisted the urge to hurl the useless thing across the nave and, instead, clasped his hands behind his back so he was not tempted to look at it again.

The moment he linked his fingers he felt the ring on his thumb and his mouth pulled into a smile, some of the tension draining from his body as he absently turned the metal circle round and round, lightly tracing the Norse symbols with the pads of his fingers.

His cousin had paid a visit to Andrew’s chambers the evening before. “I have something for you,” Sylvester had said, looking uncharacteristically uncomfortable while holding out his hand.

Andrew had given him a look of suspicion that had only been partly mocking. “It had better not be keys.”

A few days before Sylvester had tried to make Andrew a wedding present of a house in London, his argument being that such a gift was really for him, rather than Andrew and Stacia.

Sylvester chuckled. “No, it is not a key. It is not a gift at all. It already belongs to you.” He dropped something cool and metallic into his palm.

It was the ring his cousin had given him when Andrew had saved his life, a twin of the one Chatham had never taken off.

Andrew had felt an alarming moistness in his eyes when he’d slipped the heavy ring onto his thumb. “Thank you. I am glad to have it back.”

“And I am glad to have my brother back,” Chatham had replied.

“If you are trying to make me weep like a schoolgirl, you are not going to be successful,” Andrew had warned, belying that promise when he’d needed to glare up at the ceiling for a full minute while his cousin had caught him in a rib-cracking embrace.

Andrew knew it wasn’t the ring itself which settled his jittery nerves. It was the meaning behind it. And the man who’d given it to him.

And where the hell was that man now? Andrew glanced around the church yet again, jittery. He reached for his watch but stopped himself just in time.

He had no idea why he was so agitated. He had been fine that morning when he’d’ woken up. Optimistic, even. Marriage had not been something he’d given serious thought to for as long as he could remember. The only reason he would have contemplated taking a wife was to manipulate Sylvester in his war of vengeance.

But now…

Now he was eager.

Indeed, waiting these past eight days had been agony. He constantly relived those nights in the priest hole and burned for her.

But he didn’t just want to bed Stacia. He was impatient to take her home to Rosewood and start a life with her.

Home.

When was the last time he’d thought of Rosewood that way? Had he ever?

The nine days might have been a hellish wait, but there was no denying that his feelings for her had grown exponentially as they’d come to know each other better.

For the first time in his life, he hadn’t wanted his solitary morning rides; he’d wanted Stacia with him. He’d wanted to tell her about Rosewood, about the stud farm—about everything—and he’d wanted to hear her opinions and ideas about everything.

It had struck Andrew—when he and Stacia had been discussing the possibility of resurrecting the long disused dairy at Rosewood—that a good marriage was also a partnership, two like-minded people pulling together in harness.

Who would have believed he would ever entertain such a domestic thought?

Was it possible that what he felt was not just sexual attraction and deep affection but…

Love?

Andrew stared without seeing, his already disordered thoughts now in utter disarray.