Damien broke off, and Alissende finally tore her gaze away from the body to look at him again. The muscle in his jaw twitched, and a telltale sheen clouded his beautiful eyes, but he shook his head, pausing for a moment before he continued, “I would have done anything to save you, lady. Anything.”
“Why?” she asked softly. A feeling similar to the one that had rocked through her when he’d burst into the chapel swept again from her toes to the top of her head, but after all that had happened, she wasn’t going to content herself with it alone. She wanted to hear him say it. She needed to hear him say the words aloud to her, so that she would know they were real.
He smiled, the expression somehow gentle and yet wicked, tender but compelling, sending another icy-hot sensation up her spine—a feeling compounded by the delicious, shiver-inducing sweep of his fingers along her cheek as they threaded into her hair to cup the back of her head. He gazed intently into her eyes, murmuring, “I would do anything to keep you safe, Lady Alissende of Surrey, because I love you. More than any man has a right to love a woman, perhaps, but it is true, and I will fight it no longer.”
Her eyes welled with tears, then, all that they’d been through together making her realize now more than ever the truth of what she felt inside for him. “I love you just as much, Damien. I will never stop loving you. I never have, through all these years.”
He looked humbled by her words, but something was troubling him still, and she brushed her fingers over his brow, trying to smooth the lines of worry there as he glanced away. “What is it?” she asked quietly.
His eyes were dark with uncertainty when he met her gaze again. “I will need to travel to Scotland, you know,” he said, “to live there at least for a while, and perhaps for good. Can you still feel the same about me, knowing that, Alissende?”
Ah, this was an easy one. Her breath caught with the happy tears that kept threatening to overpower her, but she smiled tremulously up at him, lifting her face so that she might brush her lips over his in a kiss. Pressing her brow to his, then, she looked up at him from beneath her lashes, whispering, “My sweet Damien, do you not know that I love you past all boundary of place or time? It does not matter where we must go, as long as I am with you. Only you—for you alone are all that I need for perfect happiness.”
“Truly, Alissende?”
“Aye, Damien, truly. With my whole heart and soul, I swear it.”
He heaved a grateful sigh and tipped his head up for a moment, but when he looked at her his eyes twinkled mischievously. “You know when you take such a vow it is your sacred duty to see it through?”
“Aye, well, the last one you made to me cut too closely for my comfort.”
“What?” He feigned dismay. “I promised to see you within a sennight, didn’t I?” He looked up as if calculating. “And that was exactly—”
“—one sennight ago today,” she finished for him, arching her brow at him in wicked response. “Almost to the hour.”
“Well, I arrived in time, didn’t I?”
“Just barely.”
Reaching up, she wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him close to whisper in his ear, “Pray don’t ever make me worry so again, love, for there is naught that could harm me more swiftly than to be parted from you forever.”
“You will never have to fear again, then, Alissende,” he answered, the warmth of his breath tickling her ear, “for I will always find my way back to you, to love you and cherish you, from now until the end of eternity.”
“But how can we know, Damien? There is so much darkness at work around us, and so many—”
He gently put his finger to her lips and pulled back enough to look at her, cupping her face again in the tender warmth of his hands. “I know, Alissende,” he murmured, pausing, just before he kissed her thoroughly, passionately, and with a depth of feeling so great that it nearly swept her away, to smile as he gazed into her eyes, “because I swear it.”
Epilogue
Musselburgh, Scotland
May 1309
When the time had come, it had come swiftly, and there had been no possibility of delay.
Margery Joan de Ashby had made her arrival into the world with a lusty wail, startling her father, who’d come bursting into the birthing chamber, convinced that something was amiss, and bringing her mother to happy, laughing tears with the thought that this little, squirming miracle possessed the voice of an angel, no matter how loud.
It had been the culmination of a series of miracles, Alissende had thought, beginning with their escape from England. The happiest of miracles, in the form of a child who was part of her and Damien together.
“Shall I take her for a while,chérie?Michael is eager to see what she looks like when she is not crying.” Lady Blanche said, at Alissende’s nod, lifting the warm bundle from her daughter’s arms.
“Aye,Mère;she has eaten—again,” Alissende said, leaning back on her bolster with a relieved sigh. “She should be peaceful for another hour or so, at least,” she added, smiling. “But if she begins to fuss, bring her back to me, for I never tire of looking into her tiny face, even if she is howling in demand.”
Smiling, too, Lady Blanche started to leave the room, but she looked back over her shoulder at the last moment to say, “Ah, I almost forgot. You should know that your husband has just returned home.”
Alissende made a sound of bemused exasperation at the idea that her mother could have kept such news from her for even an instant, but before she could say aught, Damien swept into the room, looking windblown, and so very, very handsome; Alissende’s eyes welled with love for him, and she reached out as he came to her side and pulled her into his warm embrace.
“Ah, how I have missed you, my Alissende,” he murmured into her hair, pressing soft kisses along her brow and temple before taking her mouth in a hungry kiss. “How fared you and our sweet babe while I was away this time?”
