“You brought me back,” she said.
“You brought me back.” He rested his forehead against hers. “You saved me, Elizabeth. It was my turn to save you.”
She smiled. “We saved each other.”
Epilogue
Two Months Later
With an anxious hand, Elizabeth punched the code into Henry’s gate. The edge of her fingertip hit the nine by accident, and the panel buzzed at her. Steadying her hand, she entered the code again, this time successfully. A goldfinch warbled and twittered somewhere above and she stood back as the gate opened, taking a deep breath. Her heart fluttered, more than it usually did.
As she walked the trail and passed the broad front steps of his mansion, headed toward the stone wall, she wondered why he wanted to meet her back here. At sunset in his garden, he had said when calling a few hours ago. There had been something almost unsettling in his voice, and she felt it now as she approached the opening in the wall. She tried not to fear.
When she moved the vines aside and stepped through, the air calmed her; not even a summer breeze stirred here. Within the overgrown and unruly trees, birds sang. She closed her eyes just briefly, inhaling everything she loved.
“Henry?” she called. “You here?”
She heard nothing except the crunch of her sandals over the dry July earth. She passed a rosebush, brushing one of the large, red blooms with a finger, a habit of hers now. During the past two months, Henry always saw to it that she had fresh ones in her kitchen, and even at Jean’s. Always the blossoms were perfect, carefully selected and trimmed by him. The bouquets had become as much a part of her house and shop as she. Their scent was intoxicating, and the sight of their beauty almost as fulfilling as the sight of their gardener.
She made him happy, too. His eyes confirmed it, and so did his almost-constant smile. They were together often, and though she spent many nights at the mansion, living in a luxury she still couldn’t grasp, most of their living took place in her tiny house. It simply felt like home, to both of them.
She grew anxious as she approached a canopy of green. She entered the tunnel of trees she and Henry had walked beneath many times, and when she rounded the corner, her breath caught. It probably always would; even in their old age, seeing Henry would make her heart skip a beat.
With his hair casual and his hands in his pockets, he straightened. He smiled the wide smile she adored, his short beard failing to conceal his dimples. And she loved seeing him here, with a forest backdrop and nature’s soundtrack. Her feet couldn’t move quickly enough, and when she reached him, he swept her up, lifting her from the ground. He groaned into her neck, and she tightened her arms around him, closing her eyes. Absorbing him.
“You’re here,” he said.
She almost laughed, lowering her feet to the ground. “You thought I wouldn’t come?”
“No, I just…” He cleared his throat, taking her hand. He appeared nervous. “Walk with me?”
She did, watching him carefully. Her heart raced. This was different than the anxiety he got from surprising her, like he had just last week for her thirtieth birthday. It wasn’t much, he had said, but she couldn’t have asked for a more perfect gift than a secluded weekend campout at the waterfall where they once used to sleep. The one near the boulder he’d taken her to almost nightly, and the one she used to ache to see in the sunlight.
It wasn’t long before he stopped beneath their tree tunnel, now taking her other hand as he faced her. “Elizabeth, do you remember the first time we were together in this very place?”
She bit her lip through a smile and dwelt on that early evening almost three months before, when she’d seen the garden for the first time and the air had been hot with infatuation. And how she hadn’t been able to remove her eyes from him. “How can I forget?”
He tucked her hair behind her ear, his dark caramel eyes smoldering. “While standing over there,”—he pointed to the end of the tunnel, at the vivacious rose bush scaling the wall—“I learned your favorite color was green. And while standing here, you tried convincing me of a dandelion’s beauty. It was when I first admitted to myself that you may be able to find beauty in me, too.”
He inched closer. “Elizabeth, right here, at that moment, was when I first realized I was falling in love with you. It was the moment I knew I would never get my heart back.”
Her eyes warmed.
Then, before she could think of an appropriate response, he lowered himself to one knee. Suddenly, she couldn’t breathe. “Ms. Ashton,” he said, “please be my wife. Marry me, in this spot.”
Unable to help herself, she grasped his face and kissed him, falling to her own knees. His arms, slightly tremulous, wrapped themselves around her at once. Three months ago, she never would have pegged Henry Clayton as a man to get nervous when proposing. Hell, she never would have pegged him as a man to propose at all.
She broke away from his mouth since she couldn’t breathe. In answer to his question, she simply nodded, since words were beyond her. He reached behind him, pulling something from his back pocket. Their canopy of trees and the setting sun made everything murky, but the golden band had a light of its own. Again her breath caught. It appeared to be ancient, two golden strands twisting around each other to form an intricate band. Atop it were three diamonds, the one in the center massive.
“It was my mother’s,” he said. He slid it onto her finger, his eyes hooded as he stared at it. “After she died, my father didn’t want it, so I kept it. And nothing has ever belonged to someone more than this belongs to you.”
“Henry.” She touched his face, staring at the greenish light glinting off the ring. She wasn’t sure she would ever get used to the sight of something so exquisite on her finger. His lips were eager and warm when they met hers, and just after she pressed herself into him, wrapping her arms around his neck, he pulled away abruptly, their joyous moment interrupted with the nervous scanning of his eyes.
He froze, his gaze zeroed in directly behind her.
Her heart dropped.
She glanced in that direction, but she saw nothing. Looking back at Henry, she warily said, “What is it?”
“You didn’t hear that?” he asked in a distracted hush. His eyes flitted to hers just briefly before falling on the trees behind her again. His senses were still enhanced since the release of his curse, the beast’s senses never having left him—especially his heightened hearing. In the same way, she felt the residue of magic inside her, concentrated in her core as though it had solidified into a physical bulk of energy.
Before she could answer, he stood, pulling her to her feet. With his vision faithfully on the trees, his arm tightened around her. The same unsettling sensation she felt when walking through his gate minutes before resided in her abdomen again, only this time her excitement didn’t mask it.
The trees rustled behind her and she twisted with a start, finding the leaves twitching. “That I heard,” she whispered.
“Get inside,” he gently commanded.
“Henry, it’s probably nothing. It’s probably—”
“Elizabeth, inside.”
Her stomach churned, weakened. “Not without you.”
He threw an exasperated glance at her before creeping forward, since he wasn’t going to win. She stayed close, keeping her feet quiet. And just when the silence convinced her it had only been their minds playing tricks, the tree shook, startling her back. The mystery movement no larger than a human rushed through the underbrush as quickly as the beast had once moved. Whatever it was, it moved too quickly for Elizabeth’s sight, maneuvering through the rosebush and over the wall before she could get a proper glimpse.
At its departure, that bulk of energy in her core jolted, taking her breath—distracting her for the briefest second.
When she realized Henry was chasing it, he was already at the wall, leaping atop it. “Henry!”