Page 66 of Deals & Dream Spells (The Charmed Leaf Legacy #2)

Chapter Thirty-One

Mariselle returned to the cottage with Lady Nirella, and the moment the grandmothers disappeared into the kitchen with promises of a ‘proper tea, not whatever passes for refreshment in this abandoned cottage,’ Evryn caught her eye with a meaningful glance toward the garden door.

“Sneak outside with me?” he whispered to her, stacking several books with exaggerated care while Lady Rivenna’s voice drifted from the kitchen.

Mariselle bit her lip to suppress a smile, dutifully rearranging papers until the clink of cups and saucers suggested their grandmothers were thoroughly occupied.

With a quick nod from Evryn, they slipped out the garden door and into the dappled sunlight that filtered through the canopy of trees surrounding Windsong Cottage.

They paused for a moment just outside, breathing in the sweet tangle of honeysuckle and wild roses that perfumed the morning air. In the distance, Dreamland stood waiting, no longer a ruin but a monument to possibility.

Freedom. That was what it smelled like, Mariselle thought. Freedom and possibility.

Evryn reached for her hand, his fingers sliding between hers with the easy familiarity of puzzle pieces finding their match.

A bubble of awed laughter suddenly burst from her lips. “They embraced! Evryn, they embraced ! They admitted they missed one another! If I hadn’t witnessed it with my own eyes, I’d never have believed it possible.”

“I’m half convinced I never actually woke up this morning,” he replied, shaking his head in wonderment. “Perhaps I’m still asleep.”

“And my grandmother wants to help with Dreamland,” Mariselle added, her smile growing impossibly wider. “She wants us to succeed. She’s proud of what we’ve accomplished.”

Evryn squeezed her hand. “Of course she is. I’m beginning to think your grandmother is remarkably similar to mine—rigid as granite on the outside, but underneath, she’s essentially a spun-sugar cloud with feelings.”

Mariselle’s laughter rang out louder at that, and Evryn’s grin stretched wider. He tugged gently on her hand. “Come. I want to show you something.”

He led her along a narrow path between flowering bushes, his hand warm in hers. They passed a small tree laden with clusters of glossy crimson berries that gleamed like jewels. “Oh, I’m positively famished!” Mariselle exclaimed, reaching out and snagging one as they strolled by.

She had already popped it into her mouth when Evryn turned, his expression shifting quickly from surprise to concern. “Did you just—Mariselle, what if those are poisonous!”

She rolled her eyes, chewed, and swallowed.

“They’re perfectly safe, you ridiculous man.

Though I thank you for your concern. I realize you have precisely zero interest in things of a botanical nature, but I’ve actually had a look at some of Lady Eugenia’s journals.

These are laughing rubies. They cause a slight tingling sensation on the tongue that feels like effervescence. ”

Evryn’s eyebrow arched slowly upward, one corner of his mouth lifting in a way that sent heat crawling up her neck. “Effervescence on the tongue? Is that so?”

“It is,” she replied, trying to pretend she was entirely unbothered by that look of his. “Would you like to try one?”

“I absolutely would like to try one,” he said, his smoldering gaze never leaving hers.

“Of the berries,” she clarified with a laugh, then turned and grabbed another one.

She brought it to his mouth, then paused, the air suddenly becoming charged between them.

Her heart pattered faster. His eyes held hers as she gently placed the berry between his lips, and she found herself unable to resist tracing the pad of her finger along the soft curve of his lower lip.

The slight catch in his breath—a barely audible hitch that revealed his composure wasn’t nearly as steady as he pretended—sent a thrill through her.

But then, predictably, his lips curved into that insufferable, irresistible grin. “You just wanted to touch my mouth.”

Well, it was true, so why deny it? “Astute as ever,” she said with a half smile, echoing his earlier words. She reached for his hand again and added, “Now, what was it you wanted to show me?”

They continued a short distance along the path until they reached a small clearing among the trees. At their feet lay a patch of pale sand. Evryn pointed to it.

“You want to show me … sand?” Mariselle asking, one brow arching.

“Yes. I spotted it from the window.”

“How extraordinary,” she replied with exaggerated wonder. “I’ve never before witnessed such remarkable … grains. Is it possible they’re enchanted? Perhaps they whisper secrets if one listens closely enough?”

He rolled his eyes, bent closer to her ear, and whispered in that low, honey-warm voice that sent a shiver through her, “Dance with me, darling. You’re already barefoot.”

Ah. And suddenly the sand made sense.

Evryn’s hands found her waist as hers settled naturally on his shoulders, and their bodies drew together with the quiet certainty of two pieces finding their match.

His thumb traced a whisper-soft circle at her side as they began to sway, their feet pressing gentle impressions into the sand.

As in her dreamscape, this wasn’t dancing in any formal sense.

It was simply being together in motion, their foreheads nearly touching, breath mingling in the narrow space between them.

His eyes never left hers, as though memorizing each fleck of color in her irises. The world beyond their small circle of sand ceased to exist, contracted to the singular point where they held each other, moving as one.

“Are you preparing to get down on one knee, Evryn Rowanwood?” Mariselle whispered.

His lips stretched up on one side. “I am. How can you tell?”

“I believe I hear the distant whisper of terrible poetry gathering in the air around us, preparing to assault my ears at any moment. ”

He smiled, shook his head with fond exasperation, and then slowly lowered himself to one knee before her, his eyes never once breaking from hers, as though afraid she might disappear if he looked away even for a moment.

“Mariselle Brightcrest,” he said, his voice steady despite the vulnerability in his eyes, “I want to be the one who makes you feel cherished beyond words each day that passes, the one who is there to catch you when you fall. I want to kiss away your tears when you cry and laugh improperly loudly with you when you’re happy.

” He grinned, eyes shining. “The kind of laughter that makes stuffy lords and ladies turn and stare.”

She let out a sniffle-laugh, tears of joy gathering in her eyes.

“I want to walk beside you through the landscapes of your dreams, and more than anything, I want to love you, exactly as you are, for as long as you’ll let me.” He took a breath. “Would you do me the extraordinary honor of becoming my wife?”

Mariselle was quite certain she had never been happier in her life.

In a rush of movement she wasn’t fully conscious of initiating, she found herself on her knees in the sand before him, as though her body refused to maintain even that small distance between them. “Yes,” she answered, tears brimming in her eyes as she looped her arms around his neck.

His laughter vibrated against her skin as he pressed his face into her neck, though the slight tremor in his voice revealed he was just as overwhelmed as she was. “You’re not supposed to kneel too, you impossible woman.”

“Well, what did I tell you earlier about liking you right beside me?”

He drew back just enough to smile down at her, one hand rising to gently cradle her face, his thumb tracing the delicate curve beneath her lower lip. “I believe, my dainty destroyer of sanity, it was something scandalous involving a bed.”

She snorted. “Dainty destroyer of sanity?”

He rose, pulling her up with him before looping his arms around her waist and lifting her effortlessly. Her feet dangled above the sand, his face tilted up to hers as their eyes met in a moment of suspended delight. “Ambrosial chaos nugget?”

“Oh no.”

“Resplendent bog truffle?”

She laughed, bright and bold and unrestrained .

He lowered her gently to the ground. “When you laugh like that, darling,” he said huskily, bringing his lips to her neck, “you are my undoing.”

“Then I shall make it my life’s purpose to laugh every day,” she promised. “To undo you repeatedly and thoroughly.”

She turned her head just as he lifted his, and finally, finally their lips met.

It was not tentative or careful. It was the culmination of every stolen glance across the cottage, every teasing exchange in crowded ballrooms, every maddening brush of fingers and withheld desire.

It was a breathless, dizzying surrender—like tumbling off the edge of something vast and wondrous and terrifying, and finding that she did not care at all about the fall.

A quiet gasp caught at the back of her throat as his hand tangled and tightened in her hair, his other hand drawing her firmly against him. And in his embrace, she found herself truly held for perhaps the first time. Secure, safe, beloved in a way she had never dared to imagine possible.