“Your mother?”
“Yea. That is the tree where she first laid eyes on my father. She loved that oak. It is where he buried her. My father carved their initials at the base. It is still there, I saw it tonight. It was so, in the afterlife, they would be able to find each other again.” Della blushed. “Methought Roldan would have told you and you would have concluded that, in being a trap, you would eventually find me if you went there. And you did.”
“Roldan said naught about it.” Brant shook his head. A look of amazement came over his features. “I didn’t show him the letter. I only asked him how to get there.”
“Wait,” Della furrowed her brow. “If Stuart sent the missive I wrote, then what words did I throw back at you?”
Brant smiled down at her, caressing his finger against the pulse at her neck. “That day, when you thought to have caught Serilda and I in the bath together—”
“I already know naught happened between you.” Della liked the way Brant’s fingers felt against her throat. “Gunther told me.”
“Yea, Gunther,” Brant mused, frowning a bit.
“Do not be harsh with him. I made him help me. And the others believe you to be under the spell of a witch. You didn’t look like yourself when you came back.”
“Hmm.” With a preoccupied smile, he continued on as if she hadn’t spoken. “The day you thought to have caught us, Serilda was applying healing draughts to me. I feared I had lice from Blackwell Manor and methought to be rid of them before I infested the whole of Strathfeld. Blackwell Manor was a sty and made me appreciate the cleanliness of your keep, wife. Or, let me amend, the keep of the cleaning spirit.”
Hope curled within her at his lighthearted banter. “Pray tell, what words did you think I threw back?”
“Now it is your turn to be quiet, wife,” Brant said. “I am coming to that.”
Della nodded.
“After Serilda left, I told you how I felt. You did not answer me. Why?”
“You did?” Della wondered what he’d said to her that day. “I was so tired and I fell asleep before you left. I had been ill every morn and night for several days, as you well witnessed. When I awoke, I found you feasting belowstairs with that harlot on your lap. Tell me, what did you say?”
“You didn’t hear me? It never occurred to me that you fell asleep and did not hear me. You rarely sleep.”
“What did you say?” she insisted, pleading for an answer.
“I said I love—”
Della sprung up, effectively cutting him off with her lips. She kissed him, unable to hold herself away a moment longer. Pressing into his warmth, she never wanted to let him go. He loved her. She could never have imagined such a wondrous feeling. He loved her.
Brant chuckled and lifted up, pulling her mouth unwillingly away. “I love you.”
“As I you,” Della said. “You believe me? You believe all that I have said?”
“Yea.” Brant’s voice was husky as he nodded and she could see in his eyes that he meant it. It was more than she had ever hoped for. “And do you know what else I believe, lady wife?”
“Hmm?” Della ran her hand over his whiskered cheek, only to move down over his neck. She loved the feel of his skin, wanted to feel the press of it against her for all time—that and his love.
“I believe we both are badly in need of a bath.” He kissed her nose.
Della’s chuckle joined his. “That is easily taken care of. But what of the lice? Are they gone?”
“Yea, I had Blackwell Manor burned to the ground soon after I left it. Methought it would be easier to build anew then to fix what was there.”
“Oh, no,” Della laughed harder, looking guiltily at the chamber door.
Brant raised his brow in question.
“I had to promise that I would talk you into giving Gunther permission to live at Blackwell in your stead for his loyalty and his help this day.”
“Gunther is the one who burned it down for me,” Brant interjected. “No doubt he thinks to get a new manor out of the bargain.”
“Are you angry? I was desperate to have you believe me and could think of no other way to make you hear me. I was afraid you would leave and never come back. Edwyn really has Strathfeld well in hand and Gunther is not needed here as seneschal. And, if he is there, then you…” She touched his face, pushing back the long locks of his hair. “I could not have survived it if you were to leave me.”
“Methinks it is a good idea,” he said thoughtfully, only to laugh when she panicked at the thought of him leaving her. “I mean entrusting Blackwell to Gunther. You are right about Edwyn, and Roldan is competent with the guards. It would make much sense to give Blackwell to Gunther…after I punish him for his treachery.”