Fixed in place, her trowel still in her hand, she came to her senses. “Yes!” she exclaimed joyfully. “Yes, on both counts. Come and look.”
He came so close she could feel the warmth radiating from him as he leaned to see where she pointed with her trowel.
He breathed in slowly. “That rose is—”
“—striped. Red-and-white striped,” she said, grinning with delight. “Exactly what I set out to do a year ago. With a little help from Roseleigh’s roses.”
“It looks like a gift wrapped for a lover,” he murmured. “Red ribbon on white paper. The perfect blend of our families’ passions.”
He lifted his head, and his eyes bore into hers. A smile began in the corners of his mouth and, she suspected, deep in his soul. It bloomed into an expression of joy so great it filled the glasshouse as well as her heart. When he opened his arms, she went into them without hesitation. He kissed the side of her head and whispered in her ear, “You did it.”
She wiggled a bit to peer up at him. “Do you think it will motivate the council?”
“Perhaps. It will most certainly send our families the message we mean to give them. A joining of red and white.” He dropped to the dirt floor, sliding down her front and sending waves of longing through her. “Will you marry me, Margaret? That’s the best end of the feud. Marry me and join our families. We’ll take your roses and announce our betrothal in York and—”
“Yes, yes, yes. Of course I’ll marry you,” she cried, pulling him to his feet and giving him a great smacking kiss.
“You’ll come with me to the council meeting in York? We’ll ambush them with striped flowers and our love, taking family and observers alike off guard. We’ll have their attention, and they’ll have to listen then!”
She pulled off her smock. “We will rock York rose society to its foundation,” she murmured, “but first kiss me, Henry. I can’t get enough of them.”
Long moments later, when the scarf he’d pulled from her head lay on the ground and she was breathless with passion, he tickled her ear with his tongue before asking, “What did you mean about help from Roseleigh’s roses?”
“Ah.” She pulled away. “I stole your rose hips. And a cutting.”
“But I saw Jones give you hips from Blood Red,” he said, adorably puzzled.
“He gave them so freely I suspected the seeds wouldn’t breed true. They didn’t; it was too hybridized. I did get a lovely peach damask from them though. No, on our way past the heritage rose at the end, I made cuttings behind his back.”
He wrinkled his brow, confused.
“The scrubby, dense little bush at the end with simple deep-red flowers. I suspected it was Roseleigh’s foundational red. I was right.”
“Devious as well as clever. I’m a lucky man,” he said.
She poked his arm for that.
He ducked on his way out of her little workshop, her hand in his. “If you hadn’t said yes so quickly, I was prepared to bring out my big weaponry.”
“And what is that?” she asked as they made their way to the house.
“Marry me and you’ll have the Roseleigh glasshouse,” he said.
She grinned at him. “What makes you think I wasn’t aware of that? Your library too, Your Grace, compelling attractions both.”
He stopped right there on the path and took her in his arms to kiss her, pouring passion on her so strong it curled her toes in her half boots.
“Oh yes,” she sighed. “And that too.”
He leaned in and kissed her again.
They made it to breakfast eventually, entering hand in hand. Ellen looked from one to the other. “Are congratulations in order?” she asked.
“Oh yes. For what you see and much else.”
“Joy, Miss Mullens. Joy now and always,” Henry added.
They described Margaret’s triumph and explained their plans.
