Chapter 25 #2
“For which I’m often using an understudy on short notice.”
She smiled. “I’m not an actor.”
“Nay, but you could become a real-deal LARPer.”
She felt herself become very still. “As in, put on Regency clothes and come on your adventures with you?”
He nodded slowly.
“Do I get to carry a sword?”
He gaped at her for a moment, then his eyes narrowed. “Not you, too,” he said reprovingly.
“You’re just so easy to tease and the results are so adorable.”
“I would hope that at least you might take me seriously.”
She reached up and pushed a few strands of hair out of his eyes, then smiled at him. “Will I be your second?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Tea parties only?”
“Those are even worse,” he muttered.
“Then just little rambles through the woods where we won’t encounter any thugs?”
“Aye, and perhaps the occasional tea party,” he conceded. “Can you dance?”
“I’ll learn.”
“We might need to venture into exclusive salons,” he added. “Now and again.”
“My cursive is outstanding,” she assured him, “and I’ve spent hours discussing the beauties of 1750 with my father in his study. I’ve also mastered my mother’s look that warns students that their questions are not only unwelcome but ill-conceived.”
He smiled. “Does she use that in regard to her greenhouse at home?”
“Yes, and I’ve been the recipient of it more than once. She might not use it on you, though, given that she’s already divulged secret contents.”
He shrugged and smiled. “That, and I assured her that I do love a good romance.”
She didn’t doubt it. She also suspected that one of the reasons he acted was not just because he liked Shakespeare and the applause and the fangirls fainting over his golden locks, but because taking on different roles was another way to try to figure out how to settle all the parts of himself into one place.
Where all the matchmaking fit into it, she couldn’t have said, but she suspected it was all wrapped up in some rather lovely medieval chivalric ideals.
“You know what your life sounds like?” she mused.
“What?”
“It sounds like a very noble, perfectly medieval guy bringing all the lovely things from his very romantic upbringing into a modern world to make that as lovely a place as he left behind.”
He looked at her in surprise for a moment or two, then put her hand back in her lap. He patted it absently before he stood up and walked five paces away.
She wondered if she might have said too much. No, she knew she’d said too much. She was torn between going and throwing her arms around him to apologize and getting up and running away.
And then Sam turned around.
There were tears in his eyes.
He walked over to her and went down on his knees right there in the dirt in front of her. He said nothing, just looked at her silent and grave.
“I’m so sorry,” she stammered. “I didn’t mean to—”
“Nay,” he said hoarsely, “don’t apologize for that.” He reached for her hands and looked at her seriously. “I think you’ve said it perfectly. The only question that remains for me is could you live a medieval sort of existence in the modern world?”
“How does that look?” she asked, her mouth rather dry.
He bent his head and kissed her hands, then looked at her. His eyes weren’t any less red, but he was smiling slightly. “Well, I would be involved, of course.”
“I would probably enjoy that.”
He shot her a look, then smiled. “Not you, too.”
She leaned over and kissed him. It was becoming a terrible habit, but she liked the way he caught his breath a little when she caught him off guard. She looked into his very lovely gray eyes and smiled.
“I like the way you blush,” she said with a smile.
“Well, I suppose you needn’t stop,” he grumbled. “I wouldn’t want to rob you of such a spectacular view.”
She smiled and hugged him, then pulled back, though he caught her before she went very far. he reached up and smoothed her hair back from her face, then looked at her seriously.
“Do you think, Harriet my love, that a glorious fairy from the realms of myth and a medieval lord’s son with spurs on his heels could find a place to meet in the middle?”
“Do you have any suggestions on location?” she managed.
“London?”
“Any year in particular?”
“That’s negotiable, I suppose.” He smiled briefly. “The important thing is that we’re in the same year together.”
“What are you saying?” she asked, finding his chin to be a fairly decent place to look for the moment.
“Perhaps I should be a bit more specific about the hour I spent last night with your father in my father’s solar, drinking French wine and complaining about taxes.”
“And light bulbs.”
“Torches,” he conceded, then he shot her a quick smile. “Best keep things era appropriate, wouldn’t you agree?”
“I would,” she agreed, then she hesitated. “And what did else did you discuss?”
“I assured him that I will do everything in my power to see you safe, adored, and supplied with notebooks and pens.” He paused. “For the rest of our lives.”
She felt a little faint. “That sounds serious.”
He nodded. “I asked him if he would give me your hand in marriage. I thought I should ask him first, then see what I could do about convincing you of the same.”
She was rather glad she was sitting down. “And what did he say?”
“He said yes, but that I would need to do some fairly creative talking to persuade you to agree to my plan.”
“Hmmm,” she said thoughtfully. “Proceed with the particulars and I’ll see what I think.”
He laughed a little, leaned up and kissed her very briefly, then smiled. “You know I’m going to ask you to come to the chapel with me, don’t you?”
“Before you take me to dinner?”
“I brought you to medieval England.” He nodded knowingly. “Find another lad to top that.”
“I’m not sure I could,” she said with a smile, “and I wouldn’t want one who wasn’t you.”
“Forgive me if I take a moment to look a bit overcome by relief.”
She smiled at him affectionately. “I’m very sure you don’t need it. And what is this chapel business? Are you going to simply take me inside, look around, then walk me back outside?”
“I thought we could get married whilst we were there.”
“Interesting idea,” she managed. She looked at her hand in his for a bit, then at him. “And then what? You do seem to jump around a lot.”
His smile faded. “A bit. Actually, a lot. And I’m afraid that it also involves my brother quite a bit of the time.”
“Are we all going to be sleeping in the same room together?”
He looked appropriately horrified which made her laugh.
She realized that she did that more often than not. Maybe even a short time in medieval England had changed something in her. She felt a bit as if she were sitting next to a fountain that endlessly bubbled up with mirth that called to her to laugh in delight right along with it.
Or maybe that was just Sam.
She leaned over and kissed him again because she couldn’t help herself.
“You keep laughing at me,” he murmured against her mouth.
She pulled back, looked into his lovely eyes, and smiled. “I can’t help it. You’re my sunlight and that makes me happy.”
His breath caught for apparently a different reason. She decided that noting that his eyes had again become slightly red would have been too blunt, so she kept her notings to herself.
“I won’t come between you and your brother.”
“I was more worried about having to slay him for distracting you from paying heed to me.”
She smiled and brushed his hair out of his eyes. “You don’t need to worry about that.” She took a deep breath. “So, Greek god and a little wood sprite?”
“Regular bloke and gloriously gorgeous fairy who leaves him running into things when he sees her.”
“You don’t.”
“Why do you think I keep tripping over things?”
“Because you’re distracted.”
He looked at her pointedly. “A comfortable bower,” he repeated. “Perhaps a decently large house with an attached cellar on the other side for Theo so he doesn’t become sad from missing us. A fireplace. Overstuffed chair. Tasty snacks. That sort of thing.”
“Won’t Theo be mad if he isn’t your best man here?”
He considered. “We could do it in both centuries, just to satisfy the king.”
“Queen.”
“Depends on the year.”
She smiled. “I suppose so.”
“You could wed me twice,” he said thoughtfully. “Call the first one a test run.”
“Do you want to have a test run?”
He took a deep breath, then shook his head. “What of you?”
She shook her head as well.
He stood up, then went down on one knee and took her hands.
He froze, then dug around in his boot. Harriet watched him pop up to sit down next to her, take off his boot, and shake out a ring.
He smiled, then resumed his position. She would have thrown her arms around him and kissed him, but she supposed she could do that later.
“Harriet Delphinium Brewster, I would like to take you wandering with me through magical glens, under pale spring sunlight, and through all the days and months and years that will go by as we make a life together, in whatever century we find ourselves.” He took a deep breath. “Will you marry me?”
She couldn’t see him for her tears, and she was fairly sure that wasn’t because of the sunlight. “I will, Samuel de Piaget, light of my heart and my most genteel, gallant knight.”
He slipped a simple band onto her finger, then looked at her. “I know the way to the chapel.”
“I thought you might.”
Several hours later, Harriet sat at the lord’s table with her newly made husband and wondered how in the world it was that Nicholas and Jennifer fed so many people all in one go without a decent grocery store down the road.
She supposed it was their fault for having so many kids, but those children were wonderful, the grandchildren were a delight, and she was personally very grateful they’d had Sam and his brother.