a saying for this moment, my dear?”
“The only one that comes to mind is something about a man’s wife being either his blessing or his bane.”
“You shall definitely be my blessing.” He glanced over at Sophia and took Rachel’s hand. “If you’ll please excuse us, Sophia, I need a private moment with my betrothed.”
James guided her down the hallway. Rachel’s heart fluttered like the wings of birds, and her head was so dizzy with love and hope and excitement she had to concentrate hard to keep from stumbling.
“Where are we going now?” she asked, laughing, the sound pouring out of her, fresh and happy.
“Do you know, Miss Rachel Dunne, I don’t think I have ever heard you laugh before. It reminds me of the tinkling of bells, or the sparkle of dew on grass.”
“I do believe, Dr. James Edmunds, you might wish to read more of the poetry you own,” she teased. “Your own verse is a little cliché.”
“Ah, Miss Dunne, I pray I’ll be spending far too much time with you to have time to read,” he replied, winking.
Her body flooded with delicious warmth. “You have not answered my question, though. You have not told me where we are going.”
“In here should suit,” he said, and tucked her into the library. The room where her life had begun in London. “I don’t think we need Sophia eavesdropping on this particular conversation.”
“And what conversation is that?” she asked, her blissful dizziness making her feel as though her feet might lift off the floor.
Arms embracing her, he crushed her to him. His eyes, the shade of a dove’s feathers, sparkled with a brilliance to outshine all the constellations in heaven. “A very short one, I hope. Say you love this weak and foolish man, Rachel Dunne. Say you’ll marry me.”
“I thought I have already agreed to marry you.”
“Not officially.”
“All right then.” She pulled in a breath and inhaled . . . him. He will be mine forever. My storybook hero. “Yes, I do love you, James Edmunds. With all my heart and all my soul. And I shall marry you.”
“Thank the Lord!”
His hands moving to gently cradle her head, he lowered his lips to hers, and she yielded to the force of their insistence, the press of his love, wished every particle of her body could meld with his. He was turning her knees to liquid, taking the air from her lungs, removing all thoughts from her mind until she could only feel and breathe and think of him.
Shakily, James lifted his head, dropped tender kisses upon her eyelids, her brow, the tip of her nose. “If I do not stop, I may not stop at all, and you’re not my wife yet.”
“Do not stop just yet, James,” she said, boldly, her breathing rushed.
“At your command, madam.”
He bent to kiss her mouth again, each kiss promising a love she had never imagined. A love she had hardly expected to find when she’d been standing on a London dock, fresh off an Irish steamer, her life in tatters. In spite of her doubts, her disbelief, God had worked a miracle for her.
A miracle whose name was James Edmunds.
CHAPTER 30
After a whirl of hasty preparation, they held the wedding a month later. Rachel’s only regret was that her mother had written to say that her family wouldn’t be able to attend. After postponing their arrival to wait for the cholera to subside in London, they now had to untangle the last of Father’s business dealings. At least they’d been spared any more threats from Mr. Ferguson. He had suddenly left Carlow not three weeks past, without a word of explanation, in the dark of the night. More of God’s mercies. James had kindly offered to postpone the wedding until her family could arrive, but Rachel knew what that suggestion cost him. It was hard enough to be separated for the sake of propriety, him moving to Finchingfield House, her staying in London. Any more time apart would be too hard for either of them to bear.
But soon—in less than an hour, to be precise—she would be his wife, to love and to cherish, to honor and obey, until death did them part, and her happiness surged until she feared her heart would stop from the power of the emotion.
Rachel smiled at Claire, adjusting the ribbon of Rachel’s butter-yellow silk bonnet one more time. “You can stop fussing, Claire.”
“I don’t believe I can! There,” she declared at last, stepping back from her handiwork. “I