Remember Love (Ravenswood #1)(103)

And she kissed him.

He relaxed his weight against her, pinning her to the tree. And he was aware of a greater darkness as a cloud must have moved across the face of the moon. But the darkness, he realized at the same moment, was out there. It was no longer in here. In here was all light and trust and eagerness to move forward with his life and his duties and responsibilities. Perhaps even with love.

“Say that phrase again,” he said. “That Welsh phrase.”

“Rwy’n dy garu di?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said. “That one.”

“Rwy’n dy garu di,” she said. I love you.





Chapter Twenty-Six





It very rarely snowed for Christmas. It might not happen this year, but it was certainly snowing on December 23. It was no major storm. The snow did not fall in such quantities that it blanketed the countryside and obliterated distinguishing features, including roads and ditches. It did not make travel impossible or even very dangerous provided one kept in mind that it could be a bit slippery underfoot if one was not paying attention to how one stepped.

It was, in fact, a white Christmas.

It turned bare branches to silver and white lace. It settled softly upon grass and rooftops. It looked, as it floated downward, like balls of cotton.

It was surely, Gwyneth thought as she gazed from the window of her bedchamber, every bride’s dream of a perfect wedding day.

And the snow had been kind enough to come at just the right time. During the past few days guests had been traveling. Some of the Wares who lived a considerable distance from Ravenswood Hall had come to stay there. Her uncle and aunt and cousins had come from Wales to stay here, as well as Idris’s Eluned with her parents and brother. Owen Ware had come home from Oxford yesterday, his first term at an end.

And Major Nicholas Ware had arrived at Ravenswood almost on his brother’s heels. He was home on a month’s leave.

The four brothers had come to Cartref last evening. It was not Devlin, however, who had swept Gwyneth off her feet and swung her in a full circle before setting her back down and grinning at her, his arms still about her.

“Gwyn!” Nicholas had said. “Just look at you. You are as lovely as ever. But no, that is not right. You are lovelier! But you are a faithless wench nonetheless. You could not wait any longer for me, could you, but had to go and betroth yourself to my own brother? You have shattered my heart.”

And just look at him! He was broad chested and solid with muscle about the arms and thighs. His hair was shorter and blonder than it had used to be, his face more weathered. There was a hardness to his jaw and a military set to his shoulders. He looked fit and dangerous—and had entered the room with a slight limp. He was ten times more gorgeous than he had been as a boy, if that was possible. Gwyneth suspected he had even grown an inch or two.

“It was like this, Nick,” she had said, patting the sides of his arms in an invitation to let her go. “I was twenty-four years old and a veritable spinster. When Devlin offered for me, I thought it might be my last chance, and I took it.”

She had met Devlin’s eyes beyond Nick’s shoulder and known they were both remembering that actually she was the one who had asked him.

“Shall I challenge him to pistols at dawn?” Nicholas had asked her, still grinning—still with all the old charm. The attention of everyone in the room was riveted upon him. What, heaven help them all, must he look like in his scarlet regimentals?

“Better not,” she had said, patting his arms a little more briskly. “I need him intact and in church at eleven tomorrow.”

“And I need my two younger brothers intact and in the pew behind me on either side of our mother,” Devlin had said. “Ben will be beside me, making sure I do not lose Gwyneth’s ring. Or drop it.”

“He does not trust us to do it, Nick,” Owen had said.

Gwyneth had proceeded to introduce Nicholas and Owen to the Welsh contingent, and both had shaken hands and made conversation with all the famed Ware charm. Ben had smiled at everyone—he had already met them all—and Devlin had taken Gwyneth’s hand in his, raised it to his lips, and looked at her with that smile no one else would see because it was in his eyes but not on the rest of his face.

Now it was their wedding day—at last! How could Idris and Eluned bear to wait until the spring? Their wedding was planned for March 1—St. David’s Day—in Wales. “Drowning in daffodils, Gwyn,” Idris had explained when she had asked why that particular date. “And reaffirming my Welsh identity. I was born there, remember. And once a Welshman, always a Welshman, as Dad is fond of saying.”

It was her wedding day and there was snow coming down and it was Christmas. Almost Christmas, anyway. There would be a wedding breakfast at Ravenswood after the nuptials, and the children’s party tomorrow afternoon, at which she would perform her first official duty as Countess of Stratton, helping organize games and hand out gifts. She would host the event with Devlin. Christmas Day would be celebrated with both families here at Cartref. And on Boxing Day there would be a grand Christmas ball at Ravenswood, the first in six years, at which she would perform her second official duty and stand with her husband in the receiving line to greet their guests.

Her husband!

Sometimes she still felt that she needed to pinch herself to be sure all this was real. But what if it was not? Would she want to know? She had not pinched herself yet.