Page 60 of The Untamed Heart

“I am disturbing you,” she said uncomfortably, turning a little as if she would leave and go back inside.

“No!” he exclaimed, rather too vehemently, for she jumped. “No. Not at all. Actually, I’m glad you’re here. I have something to show you.”

She smiled then, and the curve of her lips was his new favourite thing, next to the sound of her laughter and the wicked glint that would flash in her eyes before she said something provoking.

“You do?”

He nodded, gesturing to her to follow him. The urge to offer her his hand would have been impossible to resist if not for the knowledge he was so grubby.

Marcus turned to check she was following unhindered, for he had not entirely cleared this corner of the garden yet and the way was overgrown and uneven. Her eyes sparkled, a naughty smile at her lips and he waited with anticipation for what she would say.

“Are you leading me up the garden path, Colonel Hamilton?”

Marcus grinned, too delighted both by her suggestive comment and by the way he had known it was coming. He knew her, knew what made her smile, what saddened her, the way pride glowed upon her glorious face when she was happy with her work.

Love.

He almost stumbled as the realisation hit him with more force than the damned French bullet had managed. It was not merely affection, not only admiration and regard, that he felt for this extraordinary woman.

It was love.

It filled his heart, his soul, and he knew he would never be the same again. She was the one. She was the peace for which he had been searching. She had given him back his grandfather’s voice, she had given him the garden as a place to heal, and she had reminded him what he’d fought for.

So that men and women could fall in love and live their lives together in peace.

“We can’t go any farther.”

Marcus turned in surprise, wondering if she had heard his thoughts and knew he must declare his intentions to her before it was too late. But then he saw her consternation and realised she was staring at the ivy-covered wall.

He laughed, amused by her confusion and by the giddiness of his own heart.

“Yes, we can,” he said gently, and pulled back the curtain of ivy to reveal a door. He lifted the latch he’d oiled earlier that morning and pushed. It gave with only a little protest, and he turned to look at Eustacia as she peered inside.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, one hand going to her heart. “I had no idea this was here.”

She followed him through the door and turned in a circle, staring around her. It was a relatively small space surrounded by brick walls—a secret garden.

It must have been beautiful once, a riot of roses, their perfume filling the small space. A lovely wooden bench, now rotten and tangled with bindweed and ivy, was set against one wall, with a little pond at the centre. It was dry and silted up now, with a statue in the middle, a cherub who would once have poured water from the shell it held. The sound of the water must have added to the peaceful atmosphere that lingered even now, after so many years of neglect.

Marcus watched Eustacia, drinking in the delight shining in her eyes, her happiness lighting him up inside.

“You said the man that built the house was a recluse, I think?”

Eustacia nodded. “Yes, he lived alone. His sister said he was rather an eccentric and ill-tempered fellow.”

“Well, that’s what happens to a man if he loses the woman he loves,” Marcus said.

Eustacia’s eyes flew to his. “What do you mean?”

Marcus led her to the wall where he’d found the inscription. It had been carved into stone and set in the wall.

He heard her soft gasp and said nothing as she gazed upon the words. But then she spoke them aloud and, in this place, a place created by a man as an act of devotion to the woman he loved, the force of everything he felt hit him again, reminding him that life was short and only a fool wasted his allotted time.

“Thy love is such I can no way repay,

The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.

Then while we live, in love let’s so persevere,