Page 29

Chapter 29

Elliot

E lliot pulled away from the kiss reluctantly. Distant sounds of cursing and movement reached his ears, suggesting Corbett’s men were dragging Rene back. Sadly, he couldn’t keep kissing Avery indefinitely.

Rene reappeared, each arm held firmly in the grip of a grim-looking townsman. Elliot gazed at the man who was apparently his father’s younger brother and tried to think of him as Uncle Clarence. He failed. Rene looked every inch the rough and unprincipled mercenary he had first appeared to be.

“This has proven an unexpected morning,” Corbett said with bemusement. “I won’t even attempt to comment on…” He cleared his throat and looked uncomfortably away from Elliot and Avery’s embrace. “That.”

Elliot laughed. “You weren’t expecting the expedition to the cave to include any declarations of love, Corbett? I can’t imagine why not.”

From the corner of his eye, he caught Avery glowing up at him, and he barely restrained himself from kissing her again.

“I don’t pretend to understand most of what’s just happened,” Corbett said, “but it seems obvious that you were protecting Bolivere when you handed your family’s legacy and inheritance over to me. I hope you know that I stand ready to return it, as is only right. I won’t hold you to your words.”

“Don’t say that!” Elliot said promptly, surprised at how easily the words came out.

He had felt the ties cut the moment he had verbally handed everything over to Corbett—his tie to the lamp and by extension Avery, and his tie to the home he had only just rediscovered. And in that moment, he had seen his own heart clearly. The only tie he had truly grieved was his lost bond to Avery. And that was a bond he could take back up by choice.

“What are you doing, Elliot?” Avery whispered. “Bolivere is your home.”

Elliot smiled fondly down at her. From the enthusiasm of her kiss, he knew she shared his feelings, and yet even so, she was arguing against her own interests, consumed by worry for him.

“Bolivere is my roots,” he said. “And roots are important. When I tried to pull them out, I was left alone and untethered. But the stability those roots provide comes from my history. I don’t need to stay bound by them in order for them to feed my future. The manor will always be my childhood home, but it’s not my current home. I don’t want to settle down and live there forever.”

He smiled across at Corbett. “There’s already a family there giving the manor new life.”

“But Elliot,” Avery murmured, “are you sure? All you’ve wanted all this time is to settle down.”

Elliot shook his head. “No, what I wanted was a home. And I’ve finally realized that what I want isn’t to wake up every morning in the same place. That was just the consolation prize because I didn’t have what my heart actually craved—a person who truly knows and loves me. Bolivere isn’t my home any longer, Avery, you are. And wherever my home goes, that’s where I want to be.”

Avery’s eyes turned moist as her heart shone through on her face, even while she seemed to struggle to absorb his words.

“Do you really mean that?” she murmured. “Are you sure?”

“I’ve never been more sure about anything.” He shifted, turning fully toward her and wrapping his arms around her.

But before he could lower his head to hers again, Corbett cleared his throat. “I think once was enough for all of us,” he said dryly.

“Don’t tell me I missed it!” Mattie cried, puffing slightly as she strode from between the trees. “I sleep in one time , and I miss everything.” She surveyed the gathered people with interest, her gaze skimming over the able-bodied warriors and her brows rising as she saw Rene being dragged away by two of them. But her attention didn’t settle until her eyes rested on Avery inside Elliot’s arms. She smiled smugly, making Avery step back and put a little distance between them.

“It took you two long enough,” she said. “I was starting to think I needed to knock some sense into both your heads. I was strategizing how to lure you back to my library.”

“Do you have some good books on knowing your own heart?” Elliot asked with a barely suppressed chuckle.

“No,” Mattie said, “I just have a lot of books that are a good size for whacking people over the head.”

Corbett snorted, and Mattie turned her assessing gaze on him. “One of your men directed me here from the cave. He let me take a look at the creature—you’re right about that thing coming from Mardella, north of the mountains. I have no idea how it made it over here, but their Legacy is the only one that makes wolves that enormous. There isn’t much written about the kingdom, but all the records agree on that.”

Corbett shook his head. “I have no idea how the Mardellans deal with such beasts on a regular basis.”

Mattie shrugged. “I don’t think they’re usually so twisted or so blindly aggressive. I wonder if it was the journey over the mountains or the Glandore Legacy that affected it so badly?”

Her manner assumed a scholarly air that reminded Elliot of her natural habitat—a library full of ancient records. Corbett, who hadn’t properly met Mattie before, was staring at her with bemused fascination. When she noticed, she didn’t look offended, and only peered at him more closely as if Corbett rated slightly above the deceased creature on her scale of interest.

“The man who showed me into the cave was going on about you being the new lord,” she said.

“Apparently I am.” Corbett still sounded a little dazed at the morning’s unexpected turn.

“I’m most disappointed,” Mattie said, making Elliot frown. “You have a fascinating wolf-creature to study back there, but you’re all out here talking about who lives in the biggest house.”

He relaxed, barely holding back a laugh.

“Rabid nonsense,” Frank cried, swooping in to land on Mattie’s shoulder.

To Elliot’s surprise, she made no attempt to shoo him away.

“I’ll forgive you on this occasion,” she told Corbett, “since you appear to have captured the man who abducted me. I hope you mean to punish him to the fullest extent of the law.”

“I certainly do,” Corbett said grimly, the topic of Rene shaking him out of his bemusement.

Mattie nodded, seeming satisfied, before turning on Avery with a forbidding look. “Since my cousin failed to wake me, it was left to the bird to do so. I’m not sure whether to be offended or glad I wasn’t entirely forgotten.”

“Sorry,” Avery said guiltily. “I left in a panic. I wasn’t thinking about much, if I’m honest.”

“When do you ever in a crisis?” Mattie asked. “Even as a child you were like that. If you saw someone in trouble, off you’d go.” She looked at Elliot. “I hope you’ll be able to guide her into better sense in that regard after the wedding.” She looked between them. “When is it to be?”

“Wedding?” Corbett’s brows rose. “That moved quickly.”

“Quickly? Ha! You wouldn’t say that if you were in my shoes.” Mattie gave him a scolding look. “And don’t try to distract from the question. If you can forget about that cave beast to talk about houses, we can pause for a moment to discuss the far more important topic of Avery’s upcoming nuptials.”

Elliot shook his head. “There are no upcoming nuptials.”

Several startled and disapproving eyes turned on him, and he hurried back into speech. “I need to ask her first! I haven’t had the chance yet. Perhaps if you could all…” His words trailed off as Avery burst into giggles.

His brows drew together in confusion as he looked into her laughing face.

“Sorry,” she giggled. “I don’t mean…It’s just that…Actually, you already did ask me. Weeks ago.”

“ Weeks ago?” Mattie stared at them both. “Then what in the kingdoms have the two of you been dancing around for the last—Oh!” She gave a bark of laughter.

“What are you talking about?” Elliot asked, utterly bewildered. “I’m fairly sure that’s not something I’d forget.”

“Don’t worry, I didn’t take it seriously.” Avery smiled up at him, rising onto her toes to press a fleeting kiss on his lips, apparently amused by his continued expression of bewilderment.

He happily accepted the kiss, but he still had no idea what she and Mattie were talking about.

“He was very bold,” Avery said to Mattie with a wicked twinkle. “He asked me straight out if he could travel with me after our first proper conversation. It was only the third time we’d met!”

“I’ll make sure to note that in the records,” Mattie said gravely. “A romance for the ages.”

“I had to travel with you,” Elliot protested. “You know that. But I still don’t know what that has to do with me proposing.”

“Roving merchants have a few customs of our own,” Mattie said, finally taking pity on him. “And one of them is the wording of our marriage proposals. If an unmarried man asks an unmarried woman if he can travel with her, he’s proposing marriage.”

Elliot’s eyes widened, his face turning red as he remembered their first conversation after the river rescue. Avery had seemed flustered by his question, but it had never occurred to him that there might have been any reason beyond the obvious one.

Avery laughed again. “There’s no need to look so horrified. I knew you didn’t mean it the first time. The second time just now, however…” She grinned. “If you try to claim that wasn’t a marriage proposal, I’ll be appropriately scandalized.” Her smile and voice both turned soft. “Especially since you once promised that once you were free of the lamp, you’d help me fulfill my greatest desire.”

“Since marrying you is my greatest desire, my recent request to travel with you was certainly intended as a proposal, even if I didn’t understand the significance of my words,” he replied promptly, earning another kiss.

“Steady! Steady now,” Mattie said quickly. “Bolivere’s new leader is full of good sense. Once was quite enough for all of us.”

“It wasn’t enough for me,” Elliot whispered, earning the reward of Avery’s arms slipping around him.

“My wife, Marilla, and I would be honored if you would be married from the manor,” Corbett said.

Elliot looked hopefully down at Avery, and she nodded.

“That would be lovely, thank you,” he said to Corbett. “We’ll just need to wait for Avery’s family to travel here from the coast.”

She gave him an extra squeeze, and her beaming expression was worth a short wait. They couldn’t be married without her uncle, aunt, and cousins.

“But I’m not waiting for every roving merchant in six kingdoms to gather,” he said warningly.

Avery’s lips pressed together as she tried to fight another laugh. “That’s perfectly acceptable,” she said, “since I don’t want to wait either.”

Elliot gave a contented sigh. The travel that had once seemed so tedious now filled him with anticipation. He wanted to show Avery every place he had been, and to see all the places she had traveled in return.

And when they got tired of endless nights on the road, they could visit Mattie’s records hall, or their aunt and uncle’s cottage, or Elliot’s childhood home. Their roots would always be there for them while they built a new home in each other.