Adam threw back his head and laughed. “You would not say so if you knew what she did near this very spot.”
Thomas’s eyes went wide as he likely imagined many awful or embarrassing scenarios. “Sir?”
Adam patted his shoulder with affection. “It is not what you think.” He pointed to a nearby scatter of trees. “It was just there where Jane rounded up a herd of goats and drove them into my house.”
“Miss Hancock did that?”
“Indeed, she did.” Adam relayed the story of how Jane had ruined his birthday party. He confessed how impressed he had been even then, and how much amusement the memory had brought him during the two years since. As he finished the telling, he could almost imagine a determined Jane slipping through the darkness with a contingent of goats to infiltrate his house. He could almost imagine how she’d laughed. In fact, he could almost hear her calling to him now.
“Adam! Adam!”
His head snapped up. Shewascalling! He spun sharply to find Jane hurrying toward him across the ruined ground, slipping and stumbling with her skirt lifted perilously above mud-covered shoes. Without pausing for breath, he lurched toward her at an unsteady pace. As they neared each other, both slowed to a halt, separated by five feet and a chasm of uncertainty.
“Adam,” she said, her face a mask of dismay, “How could you? How could you sacrifice your entire legacy just to free an adversary?”
He instinctively closed the gap and dropped to one knee in the mud before her feet, his head bowed and one hand planted in the soil for support.
“My dearest Jane,” he said, “I surrender. On behalf of House Ashford, I lay my sword at your feet now and for all time. Consider the war between our families ended, and you the victor.”
She gasped. “But why?”
“Why?” He lifted his eyes to lock with hers. “Why? Because I love you, Jane. I have loved you since the first day we met those many years ago. I tried to resist. I tried to please my family by disregarding you, by despising you. But I failed. Your beauty, your wit, your fire—they are too much for my meager defenses. And so, I have no choice but to surrender my house and pledge my devotion to you in whatever way I can.”
…
Jane’s knees nearly buckled from Adam’s declaration. His face grew blurry as tears obstructed her vision. Never had she expected such adoration from anyone, let alone from Adam Ashford, her former enemy.
“But, Adam, no woman is worth what you forfeited.”
He shook his head resolutely. “You are most definitely wrong about that. You are worth the price. You are worth any price. But I wonder…”
“What? Say it.”
He inhaled deeply. “I wonder if you feel the same about me. I wonder if you will have me, destitute as I now am.”
She blinked rapidly as astonishment rattled her senses. The prideful Adam Ashford kneeled before her, questioning his worthiness. He dared to question that he was worth more than a plot of land or a grand house. His vulnerable devotion stirred her soul and loosed the flame she had so carefully kept in check for years. She seized his collar and lifted him to his feet.
“Oh, Adam. You overcome me. You slay me with your undeserved ardor as surely as if you had lifted your sword against me. The broken pieces of what I once was lie scattered in this ruined field at your feet, at your mercy, in your care. In such a shattered state, only your love might reassemble me. I love you, and I will for all time.”
Without a word, he stepped into her embrace and ran his lips along the side of her neck, softly. Then he straightened. She lifted her face slowly from his shoulder to hover mere inches from his. His lips were moving. He was saying something terribly important. She pushed away the erupting chaos to listen.
“Jane Hancock, my great adversary. My most worthy opponent. My lifelong dream and aspiration. My everlasting love. I could live as a pauper if necessary, surviving on nothing more than the fruits of your affection. However, I would spend every moment of the rest of my life striving to earn that affection, to prove myself worthy of your love, if only you would agree to become my wife.”
There, he did it. He asked for her hand. The man whom she had hated most of her life had just asked for her hand in marriage. Now he stood before her, his face growing red, perhaps from embarrassment, or more likely from the fact that he had ceased to breathe. Only then did she remember that she had not responded to his proposal.
“Yes, my love! A thousand times, yes. My heart is yours, as it was always meant to be.”
He dropped his head to kiss her hands as one might greet a queen and remained frozen there for an alarming number of seconds. Then he gathered her again into an embrace and kissed her thoroughly in the middle of the mud and decaying wheat. When he finally allowed her to collect a breath, she leaned away from him with a smile.
“Adam, dear, did you not claim that you never grovel?”
“I appear to have been mistaken about that.”
She giggled. “Then you are a very inept enemy.”
He smiled broadly. “Am I?”
“Absolutely. If I might paraphrase Aunt Hester, the first rule of effective feuding is to never fall for the enemy. You have failed miserably on that account.”
