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What if he knew how much she loved him, but still didn't know where to find her?
It spread like an overcast cloud. She'd run off to escape Martin, but if she'd left Liam behind as well? After all her protestations and refusals after yesterday, it was more than reasonable that he wouldn't think of Gretna Green at all.
The sun was sinking lower across the sky and her shoes were begging her to regret her decisions by the time she crested over a small stone bridge, and she wondered if the water it crossed was the River Sark, the border between England and Scotland here. It was as narrow as some less auspicious streams, and she wondered if perhaps she had terribly misjudged how far a few miles were to walk.
At least the road was not terribly hilly, until she saw the first house in Scotland, the blacksmith shop she had heard so much about. Its white walls and black trimmings might have been ordinary to anyone not an absconded bride, but its sight made Diane’s insides uneasy with hope and despair mixing like oil and water.
She stood still on the precipice, making fruitless attempts to shake the dried mud from her dress for a few moments, until the goat bleated loudly, as if complaining at her for dithering.
Diane took in a breath. Even if Liam wasn’t there, likely there would at least be somewhere dry to sit.
The black-tar door was open, when she started to knock, so she ducked inside.
She looked slowly around, the blacksmith’s tools hanging from the walls, the timber beams crossing the ceiling, the anvil in the center of an otherwise empty room.
Diane held her breath as it tightened in her chest. She stepped further in, letting the door fall shut behind her. After a moment, she let herself sit in a chair against the wall.
Perhaps if she held herself very still, it wouldn’t have to hurt yet.
It was so quiet, she could hear her breathing, her heartbeat in her throat, the little goat pacing and sniffing around the room. The fears she had held at bay had finally caught up to her.
The goat bleated again, and then there was the sound of it chewing on something, gnawing loudly on the corner of some piece of furniture. Diane looked over, about to chastise her little friend for eating the owner’s furniture, and froze.
Every little breath seemed to seize part of her throat, her heart.
It was her trousseau.
Diane fell to her knees before the box the baby goat was head-butting. She flipped open the locks, rifling through the trunk, one familiar item after another until she found the shawl wrapped up over her collection. She’d all but entirely forgotten this stack of papers, this little package of art that had once been the most important thing in the world to her. She hadn’t thought of it once in her whole walk over the Scottish border.
But it was here, not at the church she’d run from. That had to mean—
The sound of another door opening startled her to stand, turning around quickly to a different door than she had come in from, to see the most beautiful man in the world.
Diane stood still, staring, rooted to the spot, half convinced she had melted away just looking at him, seeing him again. Though they had been together just last night, she felt as though she hadn’t seen him in a year.
"You're here," she breathed. The words were barely a whisper, but they caught his attention, and he stopped in his tracks when he realized her presence.
He stood stock still as she for a moment, before he crossed directly to her. His arms were around her in a second. He held her like he would never let go of her again, carding his hands through her hair.
Diane stood for a minute on the cusp of elation, brimming with the want to kiss Liam, and holding that urge back only for all the things she needed to say to him first.
She put a hand to his cheek, nearly unable to believe it, even as he held her in his arms.
“You knew,” she murmured, a million things to say, apologies for how foolish she had been yesterday. “You knew to come here.”
His grip loosened on her just enough to look her in the eyes.
“I had to hope,” he said, voice quiet. She took in the look of him, his hair completely out of its tying, and she could just imagine the ways he had raked his hands through it while fretting.
“I want to give you more than hope, I want to give you unshakeable faith that I will always be there,” Diane promised, reaching up to tuck his hair behind an ear. “No more disappearing on the wind.”
She saw the muscles in his jaw relax as she said it, knowing she meant her words.
Diane barely noticed the door swing open again, until another man spoke.
“Oh, so she did show up,” the man said, and after a moment she realized from the heavy leather apron over his clothes that he must have been the smith, the owner of this house.
“This one nearly talked my ear off, ‘She’ll be here, just wait’, over and over again,” the man went on, a statement that made her giggle in disbelief. The thought of Liam, who could make a statue seem chatty some days, talking to excess was something she wished she’d been around for.
