Wynthall Manor- The Wynthall Manor Trilogy
Page 24
Eva remained silent as Grey paused, seeing that his mind overflowed with unsaid words. “Perhaps this is why I spoke so thoughtlessly in the hall at Wynthall,” said he. “For a time my foolish words—not so foolish now—amended the altercation; but now that it appears to come to an end a great part of me yearns for it to go on.”
Eva's scrutinizing expression began to fall from her face as the baron continued. “When I came upon you in the forest, I was drowning in my own grief and wished only to discover the truth of her death and then die myself. It is only since you are come that I feel as though I can breathe again.”
Eva’s eyes were fixed on Grey’s, not daring to hope that he meant what it was he spoke. “L-Lord de Grey… what are you saying?”
Grey knew not the expression that he saw on Eva’s face. Only that it appeared shocked and hinted at fright.
“I cannot stand before you now and claim I have forgotten my love for Dahlia, for I have not nor shall I, but I can give you everything that is mine, including the heart, which you brought back to life. Were it right or no, I can pretend not that over the past days I have felt nothing for you.” Grey’s heart sped, beating against his chest as though he were preparing to uphold the world, which he was certain the lady would send crumbling around him. “Eva…” Her heart leaped as he spoke her name. “Will you marry me?”
Eva’s eyes were wide and her mouth stuttered with a lack for words, her core was filled with a rush of feelings which she knew not. “M-marry you?” her voice was barely audible, her face displaying her shock at the baron’s declaration. “You wish me to marry you?”
Grey nodded without hesitance. “I do wish it. Of that you may always be certain,” he spoke with a passion that she had yet to hear in him. “I know this is hardly the proposal every young girl imagines, for they dream of such a thing all their lives, do they not? But if there is anything I know for certain, it is that our only so recent acquaintance has overcome my home, my staff, and most of all, myself. I thought such things were gone forever, such feelings as my heart will not allow me to keep hidden. Perhaps I am acting out of love again? A most admirable one. And if you do not know it already, Eva. I am in love with you.”
A smile slowly began to overtake Eva’s astonished frown and she found that her heart began to lift and her cheeks flush a light pink. The next moment she felt her head nod as she became lost in the baron’s softened gaze. “Then, Lord de Grey, I will marry you.”
A small smile so soft Eva doubted it could be his own shed a gentle light to Grey’s bold features. Reaching to take her hand in his, he raised it to his lips to plant a kiss on her soft fingers, her feeling the warmth of his hand run up her arm and darken the pink on her cheeks.
“You are truly in love with me, James Nightten?” she asked, assured that such a thing could not be so wonderful and still so true.
“I am, madam,” Grey assured, raising her hand again to his lips. “Most assuredly I am.”
EPILOGUE
The wind was cold against Eva’s skirts, blowing them to and fro about her legs as a dark September storm began to appear from over the hilltop. With a heart heavy under the weight of grief, she beheld her father’s grave. His tall stone laid aside that of his wife, engraved with his name and title, the dirt still soft at the foot of the rock. Pulling her shawl tighter about her Eva shivered, looking up into the swaying blue needles of the spruce tree which oversaw the graveyard just down the hill from Covingdell.
“I thought you would be here.” The voice she had grown so accustomed to hearing over the past three months, the one which came always with loving, comforting words, met her ears from behind. Turning she saw Grey, his dark black hair and blue cloak being tossed by the wind as it blew from off the moor, his eyes filled with a gentle sadness as he understood her grief. Joining Eva next to her father’s grave, Grey took her small hand in his, encircling her cold fingers so that they were instantly warmed.
“There was a time at the beginning of the spring in which I was certain he would not live through the night,” Eva’s soft voice carried on the wind as she spoke. “And yet it was six months before his heart gave way.”
“Perhaps it would have been any night had he not rallied his strength so that he might see you again.”
Eva nodded, a smile coming upon her face. “And despite it all, he did. He saw first me again and then he saw me taken into the most caring of hands so that he might worry not for me. It plagued him—and myself—to believe he would leave me all alone in this world. But he did not see us married a week before he could finally go in peace.” Calmness fell over the graveyard as the cool air hissed past the two, standing hand in hand over the freshly uplifted dirt, gazing upon the name that to both was called father before his death. Eva turned her head to look up at Grey, finding that he too looked down at her. “What is this strange look upon your face, Grey?” she inquired almost laughingly as she beheld his half frown, half smile.
“It is nothing.” Grey shook his head. “Only the stir of feelings your sight creates in me. We have been married ten days, and with each day that passes, I fall more in love with you.”
Eva’s already rosy cheeks fell a darker shade. “You are a flatterer, my lord.”
“And rightly so, for whom should I flatter other than my lovely wife?”
Still Eva’s smile grew. “I can scold you not lest I scold myself, for I too feel this love of which you speak deeper than I thought my heart could travel.”
His half frown disappearing, Grey’s lips were lit with a smile, now not such a rarity to his hard expression. “You could have had a prince, Eva. You could have become the queen of England, and yet you will be my baroness. I fear had I left you any time to see other men you would have chosen quite differently.”
At this Eva laughed, the sounds of her happiness filling Grey’s heart. “Indeed you are quite mistaken, my love,” she now scolded freely. “I should have been neither queen nor baroness lest the title was yours, James. No man older or younger would have suited me for I love none but you.”
Bringing her hand again to his lips as he had done so often in the passing month Grey began to pull Eva away from the lonely sight of the lined graves, where were buried much more than those of the past but the past itself.
“Come then, Baroness de Grey or Duchess of Dawcaster or whatever you might be called, let us go before the storm is upon us.” With Grey’s hand pulling Eva along through the fields, they journeyed back to Covingdell and from there to Wynthall Manor.
THE END
The Wynthall Manor Trilogy
Wynthall Manor Gardemore
Book I Book II
*Wynthall Manor Trilogy: Book III is still in the works!
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About the Author
Brianne E. Pryor is the author of The Wynthall Manor Trilogy, an English Regency/Action Adventure; and Young Adult/Christian fiction series, The Unforgotten Past. She grew up with her parents, grandparents, brothers, and a sister in Middle Tennessee, where they currently run a small produce farm in Putnam County. Pryor started writing short stories when she was very young as a way to amuse her younger siblings and was soon en route to the publishing world. Having been home-schooled from kindergarten, she excelled in English, dreaming of becoming a writer from an early age. When not engrossed in the pages of a new book, Pryor enjoys spending time with family, working the farm, and driving her grandfather’s truck down an old country lane while listening to her favorite music.
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