Chapter 26 #2
“First things first.” He drew back and went down on one knee, heedless of his cream trousers.
Pulling out a velvet-covered box, he opened it, and revealed the most beautiful jewel Thorn had ever seen.
“Will you marry me, Lilythorn? Will you take this ring as a promise of my love and commitment? Will you be my bride?”
Her thoughts had screeched to a stop, then whirled into frantic flight like bluebirds scattered by a hawk. “Marry you?” she echoed in disbelief.
His face fell. “Yes. Do you not want to? I thought…”
“I want to!” she burst out, afraid she’d already ruined everything. “It’s just that—” She broke off, uncertain what she could say to explain her tumult of emotion.
He stood, expression full of concern. “Too fast? I didn’t mean to rush you. I was just so … excited.”
“No, it’s not that.” She laid her palm on his chest. “I still can’t leave here.
I have to meet my mother and there’s Jada and my father and some plot of his that Rose is going to explain, but I don’t know anything yet.
I don’t know if I … can marry you?” She finished on a question, feeling foolish.
“I want to do the right thing,” she added more firmly. “For once in my life.”
“You haven’t done that many wrong things,” he told her with a quirk of a smile, then laid his hand over hers on his chest, pressing it against his heart.
“But I understand what you’re saying and I’m realizing I skipped over the important parts.
Rose said I could tell you what she discovered.
She wants us to get married, if you want to. It’s her gift to us.”
She had worried about that since her last conversation with Rose, who’d been so righteously furious with her—and who hadn’t been back since. “Is Rose … angry with me?”
“No, no, not at all. She’s having a hard time and—”
“Why, is she hurt? Did something happen?”
“Oh, no, sweetheart,” Sebastien said fervently, curling his fingers around their joined hands.
“Rose is upset, yes. She was … close to her father, to your father, and discovering she’s been lied to all her life has her upended in a way I’ve never seen her be.
I know it’s nothing compared to what you suffered, but it’s hard for her and she needs time to sort things out in her mind.
She also has requirements to finish for graduation.
I can promise you that she’s actually happy to be free to choose what to do next.
And she will come see you. I just … I asked to be the one to tell you all of this. Maybe that was selfish.”
“Lied to.” She fastened on to that part. “About me—or is there more?”
He raked his golden locks back with one hand and glanced at Bunny in exasperation. “Yes, I know I’m bungling this. Less advice and more silence while I order my thoughts. Oh, ha ha.” He gave Thorn—Lily now—a sheepish grin. “Bunny just questioned whether I have any thoughts to order.”
“Bunny,” she scolded. “How unkind. Just tell me the story from the beginning, please, Sebastien. Let’s sit.”
She led him to her spot by the pond under the weeping willow and listened as he related the tale of her birth and Rose’s, and what their father had done.
She would ask Rose to repeat it, as some of the details seemed fuzzy, but as the story wound on, a new, tingling and buoyant hope filled her heart.
She could marry Sebastien. She only had to pretend to be Rose.
She didn’t much like that and worried that Rose might be more hurt than Sebastien realized.
If Thorn became Rose, then who would Rose be?
She would be usurping everything that belonged to Rose, her sister’s entire future that she’d worked so hard for.
Rose was sacrificing her own happiness for theirs. “Is this what Rose wants?”
“Yes,” Sebastien assured her. “I felt I could speak for you when I promised Rose that, whatever she decides to do from here—whatever you decide together—you and I will support her in every way. She’ll talk with you soon about how you two want to handle your father’s plans and this subterfuge.”
Handle it. Thorn had no idea, but she trusted that Rose would.
She felt guilty that she’d be getting everything and Rose possibly …
nothing? “Is there any other way out of this?” she asked, not of anyone in particular.
We’re apparently the same person, Rose had said.
A joke, Thorn now realized, but there was truth in jest. Only one of them could truly live, just as with Witch Gornicka and her copy.
“You don’t have to marry me,” Sebastien reminded her with a questioning lilt to his voice. “We can find another path through this. This is Clotaire’s plot, not ours.”
“But I want to marry you,” she protested, almost plaintive. “I want all of it. It just seems like I’m taking everything from Rose to have that.”
Sebastien looked thoughtful, taking her hand in both of his.
“You have such a compassionate heart, my Lilythorn. Amazing after all you’ve been through.
I think Rose would tell you that you’re not taking anything from her that she actually wants, but I understand if you want to wait and hear it from her. ”
Thorn considered that, immensely grateful that he’d listened and understood. “I won’t marry you until Rose and I have talked things through. I trust that she has a plan for all of this. But…” She trailed off, feeling shy. “I would like to marry you.”
“And I would like to marry you, my delightful Lilythorn, with petal-perfect skin and eyes dark as night. I plan to tell you every day for the rest of your life how astonishingly beautiful you are.”
“Even after I’m old and shriveled?” she teased, flustered.
“Especially then because you’re even more beautiful in your heart and you’ll have gained wisdom over your life that only adds to that.
And I will have had the privilege of being with you for every day of it,” he answered, solemn as a vow.
Sebastien stood close enough for her breasts to touch him if she took a deep breath. “I want to be there every day.”
“I want that, too,” she breathed, hardly able to believe the ardent perfection of the moment.
Sebastien smiled wide, pure joy lighting his eyes to a green lighter than new leaves. He pulled a box from his pocket, opened it, plucked the ring out, and held it for her to see. She surveyed it in wonder, watching the rainbow shift of colors.
“What is this jewel?”
“An opal, surrounded by diamonds,” he answered. “Like the moon and the stars.”
“It’s so beautiful.”
“And look.” He tilted the ring toward her, showing her an empty bracket in the ring of diamonds bordering the opal.
“One is missing?” she asked, confused.
“It’s awaiting the sapphire from my belt buckle,” he corrected. “The one you’ve carried all these years. We’ll have it cleaned and set in this ring, you’ll have that with you always. Unless you’d rather have it embedded in dirty wax,” he teased.
“No.” Amused and touched and a little weepy, but in a good way, she shook her head. “That’s perfect and thoughtful.”
He picked up her hand, the same one he’d been holding, the one he’d kissed the day he dropped her off at the cottage, and slipped the ring on her finger.
“Oh,” she gasped, catching her sister’s remanence vividly. “You offered this ring to Rose. In a tower room.”
He winced. “I forgot about your psychometry, that you would sense that.”
“It’s good,” she said, seeing and feeling the story of that night. “She was upset. You’re right. She didn’t want the ring or you.”
Shaking his head ruefully, Sebastien met her gaze. “No, she never really did. But she said I should give you the ring, that you wouldn’t mind that it was the same one.”
“No, that makes me happy, like it’s from her, too.” Thorn held out her hand, feeling Rose in it, the gift of Sebastien. There was goodness in it, too, the tracery of artisans and miners in the components. “No one suffered to make this ring,” she told him.
He raked a hand through his golden hair. “I didn’t think of that either.”
“It’s all right, Sebastien,” she told him firmly, so he’d believe it. “Most everything I touch has both pain and joy in it. That’s part of life.”
Eyeing her a long moment, he finally nodded. “You’re right. And very wise. Also, this gift of yours might be useful for our future together. Knowing the truth at court is sometimes difficult and always precious.”
Her heart fluttered at that. “I want to be useful.” She admired the ring again.
Most important, she felt Sebastien’s love in it, just as she’d traced in all those jewels over the years, the sincere passion, the heartfelt wish for them to join and be together forever after.
“This tells me everything I need to know.”
He framed her face in his hands. “Then you know how I feel about you, but let me say it. I love you, Lilythorn.”
She smiled at Moriah’s created name, now the new her, then lost all sense when Sebastien at last lowered his mouth to hers.
He brushed her lips with his lightly, a feathering of sensation, his breath warm and tasting of his sunshine.
Gradually, he deepened the kiss, nibbling and feeding on her mouth like a hummingbird coming to a flower.
She sighed in utter delight, feeling cherished and cared for as she never had.
“Sebastien,” she whispered against his mouth.
“My lovely Lilythorn,” he said, as if in answer.
Sliding his fingers into her hair, he pulled her closer, gathering up her hair and dropping light kisses on her face like a soft summer rain.
When she closed her eyes in utter bliss, he placed careful kisses there, too, then followed a trail down her cheek to the tender spot under her ear.
He inhaled deeply. “You smell like green leaves, sugar, and fresh bread.”
She giggled. “Because of all the gardening and baking, I’m sure.”