Rexanne Becnel (29 page)

She turned and they faced one another across the vast old hall. Dust motes danced in a stray beam of sunlight. He wasn’t smiling.

“How is Olivia?” Her voice was shaking. “You did tell her who you are?”

“I told her I was Cameron Byrde’s son and her half-brother.”

She compressed her lips and nodded. “And?”

“And…she seems very happy to have me for a brother.” He seemed a little amazed by it all. But she could see also the vulnerability he fought to hide. He’d been prepared for rejection, but Livvie—generous, fair-minded Livvie, who was kind enough to love her husband’s bastard nephew and any other stray, whether four-legged or two-legged—had accepted him.

She smiled, genuinely happy for him. “So you have a sister now? Despite the change in her own fortunes, she accepts you?”

“She accepts me. But…”

“But?”

“But there will be no change in her fortunes.”

Their eyes held a long, telling moment. “But you said you told her you were Cameron Byrde’s son—”

“But not about his previous marriage.”

Sarah’s heart began to pound. “Why? Why didn’t you tell her that part?”

He spread his arms wide, then let them fall, all the time shaking his head. “There’s no point in telling her that now.”

“But…but…”

“I don’t want to hurt her, Sarah. I’ll never hurt her. And I’ll never hurt you.”

The sincere emotion in those few words sailed like a loving arrow straight into Sarah’s heart. And they evoked an equally emotional response. “I love you.” The words came out of her mouth of their own volition. Though softly said, they seemed to echo across the hall as profoundly as if she’d shouted them.

I love you
.

He looked just as stunned as if she had shouted them at the top of her voice. “You do?”

Sarah could hardly catch her breath.
Of course I do. How could I not?
But she could do no more than nod.

He walked toward her, slow steady steps that seemed to take forever.

“You love me? After everything I have put you through?”

Again she nodded. He started to smile. “You love me.” He chuckled. Then he threw back his head and laughed out loud. “She loves me!” he shouted up to the rafters.

From somewhere behind her Sarah heard a giggle that was quickly shushed. But her attention remained focused on Marsh.

He stopped before her, just an arm’s length away. “If you love me as much as I love you, there can be no impediment to us marrying.”

“No,” she whispered through a throat gone suddenly tight with emotion. He loved her too?

Then he caught her knotted hands in his own and pulled her close. As if he knew it was not the proposal that had affected her, but rather those few words which had preceded it, he repeated them. “I love you, Sarah. As much as I have fought it, as much as I wanted to hate your entire family, I find I cannot. I love you.”

They were the most glorious words she’d ever heard. Yet she was beset by doubt. “Do you…do you feel this way because of, you know, the baby?”

“The baby?” Again he laughed, then gathered her in a smothering embrace. “No. I wanted to marry you because of the baby—or so I told myself. But I love you, baby or no. I love
you
.”

Sarah pressed the side of her face against his chest, conscious of the steady pounding of his heart and the dampness on her cheeks and now on his shirtfront. A smile began to form on her mouth. “And it’s not because of Livvie? Because you discovered you wanted to be a part of her lovely family?”

He tilted her chin up so that they were face to face, eye to eye. Lip nearly to lip. “I am already a part of her family, willing or no—though I confess to being very willing. What I want now, more than anything, is to be a part of
your
family. To make a family with you. You first, Sarah. Then all the other little MacDougals to come.”

“But you’re really a Byrde,” she said, gazing up into his smiling eyes.

“I think I’m going to like being a MacDougal much better. Do you think you’ll like being a MacDougal?” He finished the question with a kiss, soft and questing. Intimate as no other kiss between them ever had been.

Sarah rose into the kiss, answering him, loving him so much it hurt.

“Yes,” she said, breathless, when they finally broke apart. “I think I shall love being a MacDougal.”

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS
SEPTEMBER
1828

S
ARAH
waved her handkerchief up at the tall ship as it eased from its moorings and farther out into Boston Harbor. Through eyes blurred by tears she saw Olivia’s answering wave, and that of Neville, Catherine, and Philip. They looked so small on the departing ship, she could hardly make out their features. But still she would not look away. Not until they were completely out of sight.

How she wished they could stay!

As if he understood the silent wish in her heart, Marsh slid one arm around her waist and pulled her close against his side. “We’ll see them again. Perhaps we can go next year, when Patrick is old enough to travel.”

She nodded, blinking back tears and sniffling despite her best effort not to. “I shall miss them so much.”

He handed her his handkerchief. “As will I.”

Sarah turned to look up at her husband. It was still a wonder to her that they were wed. Even more so that they had a wonderful baby boy already six months old. But the most surprising aspect about her husband was his deep and abiding love for his sister. No one would think, to see them together, that they had not shared their entire lives with each other.

She leaned her head against his shoulder, comforted by his strong, unwavering presence in her life, and by the knowledge that he loved Livvie and her family just as much as she did. “I had thought you might tell Olivia the truth about your father’s first marriage before they left. Why didn’t you?”

He rubbed one hand up and down her arm. “I almost did. But then I decided I didn’t want to cast even one cloud over their visit. And what does it matter, anyway?” He smiled down into her eyes. “For all that I should hate the man, I find now that I cannot. In his own way, Cameron Byrde gave me everything I could ever want. My wife. My sister. My child. I have a family now. I don’t need anything more.”

He bent to kiss her, right there on the public docks where anyone might see them. A low whistle informed her that someone indeed had noticed.

“Hey, hey,” Adrian chided them. “Is that how gentlemen behave here in America? They just kiss whomever they want right in front of everyone?”

Sarah laughed, then turned in Marsh’s arms to face Adrian. He’d grown half a head taller in the year since they’d left Scotland. To see the lanky young fellow holding baby Patrick still amazed and delighted her. “Married men are allowed a little leeway in America. But not too much,” she informed him. “So don’t you be getting any troublesome ideas, Adrian Hawke.”

He shrugged and laughed. For a while longer they watched the ship’s departure, but then it was time to go. The house would seem empty without Livvie’s noisy crowd there. But at least they would have Adrian.

“Did you send a letter to your mother with Livvie?” she asked the boy as he helped her up into their carriage.

“Yes. Plus a silk scarf for her and a box of cigars for Duffy.”

Sarah chuckled as Adrian handed the baby up to her. “I can scarcely believe those two have married. But I’m very pleased,” she added.

Again Adrian shrugged, a wholly masculine gesture that Sarah suspected was going to garner him entirely too much feminine attention. “They seem to be well suited. I don’t think I could have left her if he was not there to keep her in line.”

“Yes,” Marsh said. “These women all seem to require a steady hand to keep them out of trouble.”

Though Sarah cuddled the sleeping Patrick to her chest, that did not prevent her from shooting Marsh a disbelieving look as he settled beside her. “That’s up for debate. You’ve always been far more troublesome than I.”

He laughed. “From what I hear from Olivia, you were born a troublemaker. Certainly you were not in your mother’s good graces when first we met.”

“Yes, but at least I wasn’t
looking
for trouble, like you were. In my case, trouble just seemed always to find me.”

Marsh gazed down at his beautiful wife.

There was no arguing the point that he had indeed been looking for trouble when he had found her. Looking for his father and for vengeance. Instead he’d collided with Sarah, opinionated, loyal, headstrong. As Marsh’s heart swelled with love he tightened his embrace around his wife and their slumbering child.

His Sarah was indeed a handful of trouble. But he wouldn’t have it any other way.

Shy Eliza Thoroughgood is traveling to Madeira with her frail young cousin Aubrey when they find themselves held captive on the ship of Cyprian Dare. Desperate to save herself and her innocent ward, Eliza will do anything.

Full of bitterness, Cyprian intends to wreak revenge on Aubrey’s father—the man who years before abandoned his mother and made him a bastard. And Cyprian is confident he can tame the lovely Eliza in the dark, seaswept night…until her heart challenges him to a choice he could never have foreseen.

A
SCINTILLATING NEW SERIES OF MEDIEVAL
W
ALES FROM AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR

R
EXANNE
B
ECNEL

The Bride of Rosecliffe

Randulf (Rand) Fitz Hugh, a loyal warrior and favorite of Henry I, is sent to Wales to colonize for his King. When he meets an English-speaking Welsh beauty, Josselyn ap Carreg Du, he hires her to teach him Welsh. The attraction between them is undeniable. But can love overcome the bitter enmity between their two worlds?

The Knight of Rosecliffe

Young Jasper Fitz Hugh is to guard his brother Rand’s family in the half-built Rosecliffe Castle. Attempting to keep rebels at bay, Jasper doesn’t expect his fiercest enemy to be a beautiful woman—or one who saved his life when they were children. Now the two are torn between their growing desire for one another and the many forces that could keep them apart forever.

The Mistress of Rosecliffe

Rogue Welsh knight Rhys ap Owain arrives at Rosecliffe Castle to reclaim his birthright and take vengeance on his hated enemy. Rhys plans to seize Rosecliffe and his enemy’s daughter. He has everything planned for his siege—yet he is unprepared for the desire his beautiful hostage will ignite in him…

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ECNEL

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