“I’ve wasted too many years seeking revenge,” she said. “Vengeance will not satisfy me.”
“What then?” he asked, brushing his knuckles against her cheek. “Whatever it is, I will do it.”
“If I promise to be a staid wife who never causes you trouble or worry, will you marry me?”
He shook his head. “The only woman I shall marry is the wild and troublesome one I’ve loved since she was a girl.”
She got up on her knees and embraced him, soaking his shirt. She tasted the salt of her tears in the water that dripped down her face.
“I shall try not to vex you so much in the future,” she said into his neck.
“My family will be gravely disappointed if you do not,” he said. “They fear that without you to prod me, I am bound to grow dull and tedious.”
“You shall never be that,” she said.
“Since I don’t expect you to change…” He leaned back and pulled a pendant on a silver chain from the pouch at his belt. “I want you to wear this again. I’ve mended the chain.”
She swallowed against the well of emotion that closed her throat and made her eyes sting. It was the medal of Saint George he had given her before.
“I found it on the ground near Saint Stephen’s Chapel,” he said as he slipped it over her head. “An angel must have guided my footsteps.”
Jamie always had the angels on his side.
“After we go to Hertford and see Owen and Queen Katherine married, I’d like to take you to Northumberland to meet my new uncle and his wife. If you like Northumberland, we will make our home there.”
“Wherever you are shall be my home.”
Jamie wrapped a towel around her and rested his hands on her shoulders. “I will stand between you and any threat of harm, and I shall be at your side in times of joy and sorrow.”
She felt the warmth of his breath on her cheek as he kissed her. “Now ’tis time for you to rest.”
Linnet wiped her teary face on the towel. “You asked what you could do to make me forget what happened.”
“Anything.”
“Then take me to bed,” she said. “Give me a child.” He made love to her slowly, with a tenderness he had not shown her since their days in Paris. With every touch, he made her feel she was precious to him. There would always be times when their passion would run hot and urgent, but this sweet tenderness was what she needed now.
Afterward, she lay in the arms of the man who would be her ballast in stormy seas and her shelter in times of trouble.
“Tell me a tale of one of your victories,” she murmured against his chest.
As Jamie told his tale, she imagined him in his graceful warrior’s dance, swinging high and low with his sword, the strongest and most handsome knight on the field.
Dawn was bright in the window as she drifted off to sleep, her heart at peace at last.
Epilogue
Northumberland
1431
When Jamie crested the hill and saw the square keep that once belonged to Charles Wheaton, contentment spread through him like warm honey. Tenants working in a distant field waved a welcome to their lord returned from France.
“A new babe, I see,” he said to a young mother who smiled and bowed to him as he passed her cottage.
Jamie took in the fresh whitewash and new thatch. He had married an industrious merchant wife, and their estates prospered. Of course, he would have to spend the next fortnight calming his tenants. While they were fond of his wife, they did not always take well to her attempts to change how they did their work. If their fathers had done something a certain way, that was good enough for them—but not for Linnet.
Linnet must have had the men watching for him, for she and the children were waiting at the gate to meet him. As always, his breath caught at the sight of her. Sometimes he still could not believe his good fortune. To him, she seemed more beautiful each time he returned home.