"Yet you risked that, to be with her?" Lord Rowley sounded perplexed.
"I would risk far more," Eli said. "I will be the earl if that is what you wish, Emily."
Both men stared at her, and she read equal trepidation in their expressions. Lord Rowley did not wish to lose his privileged life, while Eli did not wish to take it upon him.
She was still not pleased at having been the subject of their wager. But it had been so long ago. Eli has cared for me for so long. He truly did wish to marry me. She had not quite believed that until now, thinking he had only gone along with her proposal that fateful night, out of the goodness of his heart.
His love for her was not new, as was hers for him, but had been growing these many years. Thinking back on those years now, and their many interactions, she felt a sort of dizzy panic. What if she had not come to the stable that night? What if Sophia had not come as well and brought Lord Rowley with her?
What if I had missed the opportunity to be Eli's wife? Knowing this and feeling as she did for him, she could not ask him to assume a position he did not want. She would not force the life of an earl upon him. Yet … could not Claymere still be his?
Tugging her hand free of Eli's, Emily turned slightly toward Lord Rowley and took the scroll from him. Facing Eli once more she placed it in his hand.
"Your father wanted this. He wished to live at Claymere with your mother-wherever they pleased upon the estate. We shall do that for them, but no more. Lord Rowley will continue on as the earl."
Eli stared at the scroll in his hand then slowly allowed his fingers to close around it. Claymere. He thought not of the grand house at the top of the hill, but the whole of the glorious gardens, the fields that produced already, the tenants who lived upon the land. Though long neglected, Eli knew that, if managed correctly, the estate could turn a handsome profit. He and Emily would never want for anything.
We do not want for anything now. He pulled his gaze from the papers to his wife, her eyes anxious as she looked at him.
"Eli?"
Just hearing her say his name was heaven. He leaned forward and kissed her softly, answering the question in her voice with a token of love followed by his own smile.
Eli turned to Sherborne. "Thank you-brother."
Sherborne's reaction appeared mixed. For a fleeting second a pout appeared, as if he was offended, but then the corners of his mouth turned up.
"I should have known long ago that you were my brother. You were always a pain."
"Likewise." Grinning, Eli held his hand out. Sherborne took it at once in a tight clasp of brotherhood, and Eli felt a new kind of joy and hope. In the future, family might come to mean more than Emily and their children. Perhaps those children would grow up having an aunt and uncle and cousins.
As if she had read his mind, Emily spoke. "You must come visit us here, and bring Sophia."
"And we request your presence at our wedding, Saturday next," Sherborne said. "Providing I can keep myself out of trouble between now and then."
Eli caught Emily's eye. "A man can do a lot of things for love."
Moonlight shone through the bedroom window and the open curtains flapped gently in the breeze as Eli looked down on his wife. With care he brushed the strands of hair from her face then leaned over and whispered, "Emily."
She stirred at once, responding to him in sleep much as she had when awake. He marveled to think of it, how in the two weeks of their marriage she had been both trusting of him and giving of herself, stepping willingly into this new life. She was everything he had imagined her to be and more.
Her hand came up to touch his cheek. "Are you having a nightmare?"
His heart squeezed then expanded at her concern, and he recognized the feeling. His love for her had grown a little more.
"Quite the opposite." He took Emily's hand from his face and pressed his lips to her wrist then proceeded to work his kisses up her arm to the bend of her elbow.
She giggled. "Oh. I see."
"Not yet, you haven't." He flung the covers away from both of them then jumped from the bed and held a hand out to her. "Come on."
"Where are we going?" She rose, and he helped her into the same dressing gown she'd worn that night in the stables. It seemed very fitting to him that she should be wearing the same garment tonight that she had when hope of a future with her had first presented itself.
"To see Claymere. It is most glorious in full moonlight."
He pulled her from the room and they left the cottage, starting up the same path they'd traversed a few times already today. A short ways down it they encountered the dipper and pail still on the ground where they had been tossed aside. Eli thought he might leave them there permanently, as a reminder of a particularly sweet memory.
They left the roses and the confines of the property that adjoined the gardener's cottage and wandered up the hill toward Claymere Manor. Though steps carved into the hillside made the climbing easier, it was still steep, and by the time they reached the top Emily was breathing heavily.
"All right?" he asked, stopping so she might catch her breath.
She nodded. Her face was flushed, but they'd just a little farther to go, so he continued on, following an overgrown pathway until they reached a terrace garden.
"This is as far as we'll go," Eli said as Emily collapsed on a bench. From this vantage point, about two-thirds of the distance to the manor, they could see in all directions. Behind them, at the top of another, smaller hill, overlooking all, stood the house, a grand building with a pillared front and circular drive. Eli had pointed out the front of it to her before, from the road below, which had a more gradual slope on which teams and carriages might travel.
"We've come up the foot path, the back way." He sat beside her.
"The way your father snuck down to see your mother?" Emily asked as she snuggled into the crook of his arm.
"Yes. How did you know?"
"It would take true love to traverse those steps often."
He laughed, pulled her closer, and kissed the top of her head. "No sneaking for us."
Eli shifted his gaze down the hill, to the stone cottage, so covered with ivy it blended almost seamlessly into the surrounding garden. "The cottage will always be ours-whether we live there or not. We'll keep it as our special place, somewhere we can escape to whenever we wish."
"I like that idea." Emily sat up and turned to him. "We don't have to live in the manor, Eli. It just-seemed right that you should have all this. It was your parents' place and their dream."
"I am no longer concerned with their dream, but mine, right here." He took Emily's face in his hands and kissed her, long and slow. Moonlight spilled over the garden, seeming to rest just over them, over her, illuminating all that was good and beautiful within.
"I think," he said, quite seriously, "that I would wager my entire life to have had this night with you."
"Fortunately." She kissed him once more. "You don't have to."