Thomas had heard those words before, but not when they came from someone who meant something to him. He pulled her into his embrace again, holding her tightly, kissing her ear, her temple, and finally her lips. They weren’t kisses of lust or passion, but those of true and deeper emotion.
Her kisses were imprinted into his very soul.
“Remember that,” he whispered. “Remember that when I return to Wark because my father has ordered me to marry Adelaide. I cannot tell you my devastation with this, but it cannot be helped. For now, my mother is going to keep you and the children here at Northwood until my father can travel. Then, she tells me that she is going to take you back to Castle Questing. She does not want you returning to Edenside until the walls can be reinforced and a proper gate built. I promise I will come and see you at Questing as soon as I am able, but know that it may take some time. I must return Edmund’s body back to Kyloe Castle and I must become familiar with my earldom.”
Maitland was holding to him tightly, but she was nodding her head. “I know, my love,” she said. “Take all the time you need. You know where I will be.”
His embrace tightened and he lifted her off the floor, holding her against his body and feeling her warmth. “God, I don’t wantto leave you,” he whispered. “Every day we are apart will feel like an eternity.”
“I know,” she said, squeezing him before loosening her grip and sliding down to the floor. “Things are not ideal. They are not even good. But I know you love me, and you know that I love you. There is hope in that, Thomas, whatever the future may bring us.”
He didn’t want to tell her what he hoped it would bring– an annulment of his marriage to Adelaide once Patrick arrested her for the murder of two young men. He didn’t want to dare give her hope because if it didn’t happen and he was forced to remain married to that horror of a woman, then he didn’t want Maitland to be disappointed. Already, he was planning the life he would live with her, marriage or no.
Cupping her face between his two big hands, he kissed her one last time.
“The future is bright as far as I am concerned,” he said. “I have never been this happy, in spite of everything, and it is all because of you. You and those seven little waifs and that goat cheese you make. It’s such a beautiful, simple life and I want to be part of it.”
Maitland smiled, holding up her hand and he saw the ring he’d given her. “You already are,” she whispered. “Now, I must return and help your mother before those children get that entire chamber wet. I like your mother, Thomas. She is a wonderful woman.”
He returned her smile. “And she likes you a great deal,” he said. Then, his smile faded somewhat. “I will try to say farewell before I leave for Wark on the morrow, but if I do not, then let this be my farewell for now. You have my love and my heart, Maitland de Ryes Bowlin. Never forget it.”
“I will not.”
He winked at her as he started to move away, but then he paused. “Just a mention,” he said, “but Des is not too happy about the situation.”
“You told him?”
“I had to.”
Maitland frowned. “I love my brother, but he worries like an old woman.”
Thomas grinned. “Do not tell him that. He will think I told you to.”
She started to laugh, blowing him a kiss as he moved down the corridor and reached the stairwell. He blew one in return before disappearing down the stairs.
Maitland stood there a moment, basking in the glow of their encounter, thinking on what they would both be facing from now on. She’d told Thomas when she met him that she would never carry on with a married man and until this moment, she’d kept that vow. As he’d pointed out, he wasn’t married, though they both knew that was a technicality. Once a man was betrothed, in the eyes of the church, he was indeed married, but neither one of them had brought that up. It was easier to pretend otherwise. But soon, they wouldn’t be able to pretend at all and she struggled against the sorrow that provoked. She knew very well it was a contract marriage and that Thomas hated the sight of Adelaide, but that didn’t change facts that the woman would be his wife. Maitland would have his love, but Adelaide would have his name.
She wondered how that would play out in the years to come.
Maitland wondered if she would have to defend herself from a jealous Lady de Wolfe in the days or years to come. Not that she cared. Or, at least, she didn’t at this moment. But only the future would tell if the love she and Thomas were building could withstand the test of time– and the pressures of their complex situation.
She fervently hoped so.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Two days later
It was hiswedding feast.
At least, it was a meal and it was taking place after the marriage mass to Adelaide, but that was all Thomas could say for it. It wasn’t a happy event, by any means.
It was hell.
His parents hadn’t come. William was still recovering from his head injury and Jordan remained with him at Northwood Castle because he needed constant tending. That was the excuse, anyway. Scott, Troy, and Patrick had come to Wark to observe the nuptials, but Blayth had returned to Castle Questing because William couldn’t travel and he wanted his second-in-command back at Questing. No one was happy about this wedding except the bride, who had been released after five days in the vault by Thomas, who stiffly informed her that he’d brought Lady Teviot’s priest from Northwood Castle to perform the mass immediately.
The man was Scots and spoke in a heavy Scots accent, completely insulting Adelaide, who looked down upon those from north of the border. She’d waited for this moment for so long, however, that she didn’t turn down the offer of Lady Teviot’s priest. She wanted to be married to the man who had locked her in the vault with her dead father and she wanted to be married to him now.
That was all she cared about.
