Page 83 of House of Roots and Ruin
We sat together in the dark, heads full but lips still.
I certainly understoodwhereheirs came from. I’d helped Camille through all her pregnancies and had to assist in Annaleigh’s delivery just last year when she went into labor early during one of my visits to Hesperus.
“Do you…do you know if…” Words utterly failed me, turning me into a stammering, rosy mess.
“It’s not as though I’ve ever had cause to try,” he admitted. “I…I think everything works as it should, but…” He exhaled sharply. “This is absurd. You’re the one person in the world I ought to be able to speak with about this without feeling embarrassed or ashamed but I—” A small sob cut off his words. “I’m so scared I’ve failed you already.”
“Alex.”
I covered his hands with mine, trying to offer him some little bit of soothing comfort, but he jerked them away, crossing his arms over his chest.
“You’ve not failed me. You’ve not failed your family. We…we’ll find out soon enough if…”
“If,” he agreed sadly.
I sighed myself. “We’ll make it work, however it goes.”
“But I don’t want you to have to make it work. I don’t want you to deal with disappointment. I want,I so badly want,to be the man who can give you everything. Who can give you the world. But I can’t. And this”—he gestured broadly across the darkened dome—“this just shows it. I can’t even propose to you without mucking it up.”
I glanced about the dome. The water at the base, churned up brown and murky by the carp, had begun to settle back into adark green. The verdigris tint lightened the farther up along the glass windows, and I as studied the top of the dome, where the water was only a few inches deep, I caught sight of something I’d never expected to see.
“Alex, look at that,” I said, pointing.
He tilted his head, craning his neck uncomfortably.
“No, like this.” I helped him lie down on the thick wool carpet to peer up at the zenith. I joined him, nestling my body against his long, rigid frame.
“What are we supposed to be looking at?”
“Up there. Up where the water is the brightest. Do you see that? The little sparkles?”
His eyebrows furrowed. “The raindrops?”
I nodded. “I’ve spent my entire life by the water. I know how to swim in it, how to sail on it, how to read the weather by it. It has dictated every part of my life—how I traveled, what I ate. Ifeelthe changing of the tides in my blood. I thought I’d seen every possible version of water—waves and ice, storms and steam—Salann has it all. But I have never,never,” I repeated with emphasis, “seen the rain fall like this.”
He made a soft noise of consideration, studying the inverse drops with fresh eyes.
“And I never would have either, had it not been for you.” I kissed his cheek, then settled against him, resting my head on his chest so we could watch the raindrops hitting the lake. “Thank you. This…this is a wonder.”
I felt him open his mouth to say something but then he changed his mind with a shake of his head. He pressed his lips to the crown of my hair, his kiss impossibly tender andsweet. “You,” he murmured and kissed me again. “You are my wonder.”
The entire lake lit up as a bolt of lightning danced across the sky, high above our little hideaway.
“I know what I want to do with this room, when the time comes,” Alex said, wrapping his arm around my back, drawing me closer.
I shifted to look up at him. “What’s that?”
“I want to put a giant bed right here, in the middle of the room, and fill it with the softest pillows and blankets, and every time there’s a rainstorm, you and I can come down here and watch it, just the two of us.”
“And all the carp,” I reasoned.
“Of course.”
I leaned up to kiss him. “That. That, Alexander Laurent, sounds nothing short of extraordinary.”
“And then Alexander’s attendant burst through the door and found the two of them, soaked to the bone and chilled to near death, huddling for warmth in Gerard’s conservatory! Can you believe such a harrowing ordeal? Poor brave Verity had faced down the storm, trying to save them both, but what was she to do?” Dauphine took another sip of her wine and shook her head. “But now, look. Look at my stunning and radiant daughter-to-be. I couldn’t be more proud of either of them.”
All the guests turned to stare openly at us. Alex and I had been positioned at the center of the banquet table, Alex at my left so he was able to pick up my hand and show off the diamond ring whenever anyone asked. And so many had asked.
