by Donna Hatch
“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.”
More romances by Michele Paige Holmes:
About Michele Paige Holmes
Michele Paige Holmes spent her childhood and youth in Arizona and northern California, often curled up with a good book instead of out enjoying the sunshine. She graduated from Brigham Young University with a degree in elementary education and found it an excellent major with which to indulge her love of children’s literature.
Her first novel, Counting Stars, won the 2007 Whitney Award for Best Romance. Its companion novel, a romantic suspense titled All the Stars in Heaven, was a Whitney Award finalist, as was her first historical romance, Captive Heart. My Lucky Stars completed the Stars series.
In 2014 Michele launched the Hearthfire Historical Romance line, with the debut title, Saving Grace. Loving Helen is the companion novel, with a third, Marrying Christopher, followed by the companion novella Twelve Days in December.
When not reading or writing romance, Michele is busy with her full-time job as a wife and mother. She and her husband live in Utah with their five high-maintenance children, and a Shitzu that resembles a teddy bear, in a house with a wonderful view of the mountains.
You can find Michele on the web: MichelePaigeHolmes.com
Facebook: Michele Holmes
Twitter: @MichelePHolmes
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