Page 61 of Hold Me Fast
“That you are staying the night? Yes. I told her. She is my chaperone, after all.”
“And she did not offer to unman me?” Jowan shook his head.
Tamsyn found his discomfiture endearing, but she thought she should keep that sentiment to herself. “Shall I pour you another drink?”
“A port is not what I am thirsty for,” Jowan told her.
“Perhaps you would like one later,” she suggested. “After.” She was nervous, which was ridiculous. It was not as if she were a shy virgin. That was the problem, though. She was terrified that her obvious experience would put him off.
She was not going to pretend to be less knowledgeable than she was, though. Patricia was right about her motives, though she had not fully understood them herself until her friend outlined them. “Do you want to come up to bed?” she asked.
He shot to his feet as if released from a rubber band, and met her partway across the room, putting his arms around her.
Another compelling kiss removed all the starch in her knees, and she wilted against him. But only for a moment. The sooner they were up the stairs, the sooner he could keep the promise of those kisses.
An hour later, she lay in his arms, one hand idly stroking his chest, her mind slowly putting itself back together again after what the French called “the little death”. She had always considered the phrase a Gallic exaggeration. Apparently not.
The first time had been rushed, both of them impatiently rushing through the preliminaries. It had been lovely, though. The second time had been outside of—and way beyond and above—anything she had ever experienced. She and Jowan had been so united she could not have told who was feeling what as they soared to a peak well beyond the merely physical.
“I have a license,” Jowan murmured.
Tamsyn shifted so that she could see his face. “A marriage license?”
He nodded, his expression reminding her of the juvenile Jowan when he had been up to mischief, knew he had been caught, and was ready with an argument to convince the adults that he was in the right of it. A mixture of gleeful, apologetic, and determined.
She should object to his presumption, but she was too happy to bother. She settled herself back on his shoulder. “You were confident I would agree.”
“Not confident, no. You told me to hold fast. The license was part of it—my gesture of hope. I got it in Plymouth on that first trip. A wedding ring, too. The one I promised you when we were sixteen. I’ve had to renew the license twice because they only last for ninety days. This one is good for another four sennights. I sometimes wondered if either ring or license would ever be used.” He kissed the top of her head, and she moved again to stretch up and meet his lips.
His kisses were so sweet she could lose herself in them, but Jowan had not lost sight of his point. “Will you marry me, Tamsyn Roskilly?”
“I will.” Tamsyn still had her doubts, but none of them were about Jowan. She certainly did not doubt his love for her. Hadn’t he proved it, time after time? Hadn’t she seen it in action and felt it, too, in this last hour?
He, though, seemed surprised. “You will?” The arms he had wrapped around her squeezed her in a bear hug, and his voice rose in a joyful shout. “She will!”
“That’s right,” Tamsyn grumbled. “Let the whole village know.” She was laughing though. Not because Jowan’s delight was humorous, but because happiness was bubbling up from deep within and she had to let it out.
It had been a long hard road, full of steep patches, rocks, and pitfalls. But at last, she and Jowan could fulfill the promises they made to one another when they were sixteen. Jowan had held fast, and Tamsyn had come home.
Epilogue
Sixteen years later
Tamsyn had thewindow of the ladies’ parlor open to the sunlight, so that she, her daughter, and their visiting friends could enjoy it on this sweet spring afternoon. Patricia had come up from the village, and Evangeline and her daughters from the steward’s college.
They were sewing, the three girls with less enthusiasm than the adults, but the Easter festival was early this year, and they had all promised to support the school’s stall.
The older two boys had gone down to the village, but Evangeline’s Rick was somewhere about the estate with Bran and Jowan.
Being closest to the window, Tamsyn was the first to hear the ponies coming up the lane, and the boys shouting encouragement to the ponies and insults to one another.
“Will those boys ever grow up?” sighed Tamara, despising the two twelve-year-olds from the lofty age of fifteen. She had recently persuaded her mother Evangeline and a reluctant Bran that she was old enough to let down her skirts and had immediately given up any pursuit that might be regarded as childish.
Janet, Tamsyn’s daughter, rushed to the window. “Joe is in the lead,” she reported. “He will win, for Tom has stopped to speak to Papa and Uncle Bran. Now he is off again, but too late, for Joe is already here. He is waiting for Tom, though.” Jowan and Tamsyn had named their children after the hero and heroine of the folk tale that had given them one another.
Eva, who was only a year older than Janet’s seven and was Janet’s dearest friend, joined Janet at the window. “Now they are both waiting for Da, Uncle Jowan, and Rick.”
“The boys must have heard some news in the village,” Evangeline said. “I do hope it is not the king.”
