Rachel’s mouth went dry. She’d written those very words. One week ago.
Impossible.
Yet here they were, printed in black and white, on a scrap carried by a cat with far too much attitude.
The edges of her vision prickled.If my words are showing up in the future, does that mean time is cracking? Am I going to be sent back?
“Bah.” Hugo plucked the paper from her limp hand, squinted at it, then tossed it aside with the disdain of a man unimpressed by omens.
“Nonsense. Cats bring all manner of rubbish. Likely stolen from the kitchens.”
But she couldn’t laugh it off. Her chest was too tight, her mind spinning with possibilities she wasn’t ready to face. She threw another knife, harder than before, the blade burying itself so deep Hugo had to wrench it free for her.
“Your hands are shaking, mistress,” he said, softer now. “Storm’s long past. Whatever that scrap says, it can’t touch you here.”
She wanted to believe him. Shealmostdid.
Then the sound of bootsteps on stone made her turn, and everything inside her went still.
Tristan was striding toward them, winter-blue eyes fixed on her with a determination that left no room for doubts or museum scraps or impossible fears. In his hands he carried something small, wrapped in linen.
“Rachel.” His voice carried across the lists like a vow. “A word, if you please.”
Hugo’s brows shot up, but he had the good sense to retreat to the sidelines, muttering something about saints and fools.
She wiped her palms on her skirts. “If this is about me accidentally denting the target with my frustration, I swear it was therapeutic, not destructive.”
Tristan went down on one knee in the mud, linen bundle balanced carefully in his palm.
Rachel blinked. “Uh. Sir Broodypants? What?—”
He unwrapped the cloth. Inside lay an orange and a lemon, their skins bright as sunlight, perfuming the damp air with Mediterranean promise.
Her breath caught. Citrus. In Yorkshire.
“I traded half my dignity with Venetian merchants,” he said quietly, offering the fruit like treasure, “to bring you these tokens of the life I would build with you. A hothouse, warmed by glass and stone, so that even in the dead of winter you will have the flavors you miss. Lemons for your sauces. Oranges for your cakes. A garden that answers your longing, rooted here, in this soil.”
So that’s where he’d been for the past few days on his mysterious errand.
Her eyes stung. Not with fear now, but with something fiercer, deeper.
“I thought knights gave rings,” she whispered, voice wobbling.
“I give what you love,” he said simply. “Because that is how I love. By deed. By provision. By building you the future you deserve. Marry me, Rachel.”
Her laugh broke on a sob as she went down in the mud to face him. “Honey,” she said, cupping his face, “that’s the most swoony, ridiculous, perfect proposal I’ve ever heard. But you’re forgetting something.”
His brows drew together, wary. “Forgetting?”
“You,” she said firmly. “Spices, cookware, citrus—and you, Mr. Broodypants. That’s all I want.”
The storm inside her broke then, fear scattering like clouds in sunlight. Because even if time itself came clawing, she would choose him. Again and again and again.
Tristan’s smile was slow, devastating. He pressed the citrus into her hands, then rose and pulled her up with him, his forehead resting against hers.
“Then it is settled,” he murmured. “You, me, and a future sweetened with oranges.”
“And salted with sass,” she added, grinning through her tears.
