O Night Divine A Holiday Collection of Spirited Christmas Tales - Kathryn Le Veque Page 0,290

I want there. The only one I have ever wanted there. Here.” He hugged her closer. When she draped her leg over his thigh, she barely noticed the lack of a lower leg. Just enough for a touch of sadness to graze her happiness. “Tell me about it.”

They were so close, she did not have to tell him what she meant. “Ah, yes. I last saw my left foot at Krefeld. Do you know the battle?”

She nodded. “I read all about the war.” Because he could have been there. Now, she knew for sure that he was there. “But that was over a year ago. In the summer. Why did I not know? Why did your brother not know?”

“Because I told my attendants not to tell him.” He stroked her cheek with one finger. “Sweetheart, I could have died. I made my will, I had a minister praying over me. I didn’t want them to know that I had died that way, in pain, so I ordered them to wait. I was the senior officer in that tent, and I made the most of it. As it turned out, the pain was worth it, because I lived. But that took some time. Two months, near enough. I had fever after fever, and the leg wouldn’t heal, not at first.”

“Oh, no. Oh, my love.”

He stilled, and she realized what she’d said. She’d called him her love. Well, he was, wasn’t he?

His smile was easy. “I survived. They moved me to a nearby castle as soon as they could. Prussia has almost as many castles as Scotland, you know. And I wanted to recover somewhat, to know how badly I was affected by the injury. I wrote to my brother then, but by then the year was heading towards Christmas. The letter did not reach him for nearly two months.”

“But I didn’t know.” She turned to him, tears in her eyes. “I didn’t know.”

“What could you have done? Rushed to Prussia to care for me? No, I wanted to tell you myself in my own time. I didn’t want to come to you as a weak man still in pain, still learning to cope with the man I am now.”

She understood, but didn’t agree with him. Frederick had always been far too independently minded, to the point of foolishness. “I would have come. It was unfair to keep that to yourself.”

He watched her as she went up on one elbow, his gaze darkening into passion. “Well, it happened, and here I am. It’s done now. Over. Do you not want to know about your gift?”

She smiled at the memory of what they had just done. “I thought it was this.”

“That is a gift for me as well as you. One I will take good care to repeat, and you’re willing. But no.”

Reaching out, he grabbed a small wooden box from the nightstand. “This is my gift to you on the first day of my courtship.”

She glanced down at the box. Small, pretty, carved with a word she had to move closer to the candle to read. “Past,” it said.

With a quick look at him, she drew the brass hook through the eye and opened the box.

Inside was a bird. She took it out. A carved blackbird, its shape unmistakable.

“The first time we made love, a blackbird was singing,” he reminded her, although she needed no reminder.

Although the bird was not carved as finely as the ones downstairs in the gallery, it was infinitely more precious to her. He had made it. Frederick had always enjoyed whittling wood, and had gained considerable skill. He’d made her a giraffe once, when she refused to believe they existed, and said he’d carved it from life, from the menagerie at the Tower of London. She’d had to believe him then.

Carefully, she put the blackbird back in the box. “Thank you. It means more to me than anything you could have given me.”

“Then come and give me your thanks in the best way possible,” he said, taking the box from her. He put his other hand in hers, pulling her on top of him.

Chapter Two

Present

Used as she was to waking early, Rhona still slept half an hour after her usual time. Not surprising after a night spent making love to the only man that had ever mattered to her. Leaving Frederick sprawled on his stomach, the sheets and blankets in twisted disarray around him, she slipped out of his room and made her way to her own.