Page 118 of What Blooms in Barren Lands

“Einar Anderson, are you telling me it was love at first sight?” I teased him, latching onto the pause in his speech.

“Ha!” he exclaimed, shaking his head. “As far from it as you could go. No, this was dark and possessive. It was like ... You know those Indian tribes that ate the flesh of their enemies, believing that it would make them stronger?”

I nodded a little uncertainly, utterly baffled and not a little discomposed by the comparison.

“It was kind of like that for me. It was the same breed of desire. I wanted to make myself stronger by invading and ravishing you, by subjecting you to my will. Bydevouringyou.”

I swallowed, unsure what to say. I lowered my gaze to the level of Einar’s chest, unable to bear the intensity of eye contact any longer.

“The love came soon after,” he assured me softly, noting my expression. “Perhaps the same night, even. It started with admiration when you spoke of your journey to Corsica, completely unaware of your own resilience. And as you talked, I realised that I had never met anyone with a mind richer than yours. And then, later yet, when you lay next to me like you had always been there, I knew that you belonged with me. It was an instinctive kind of knowledge, the same as knowing I would die if I hurled myself off a cliff.”

Looking up anew, my eyes met his, sincere and transparent like twin mountain lakes. The colour had crept away from his cheeks, and when he took a breath, it was shaky with nerves. He grasped both my hands in his. And he knelt.

“Einar, please, you really don’t need to go to all this trouble. Not for me ...” I protested, feeling guilty for his distress and as embarrassed by the immensity of the gesture as I was stirred by it.

“I expected you to say something to that extent, my girl.” His voice trembled a little, but there was a trace of a smile on his upturned face. “I know you don’t think much of your own worth. For all your immense courage and dignity, your selflessness and intelligence, for all your unwavering integrity, you are kind to all but yourself. You love me fiercely, and yet you don’t think yourself deserving of the same kind of affection. You have no idea of your own worth. I do, though, and from this day forward, I wish for nothing more in my own life than to finally give you a life worthy of you.”

He kissed both of my hands before letting go of them. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a plush ring box and opened it, revealing a diamond-studded, white-gold band witha huge princess-cut ruby. My eyes swam with its astonishing colour of blood and roses. In the times long past, it would have been worth more than my yearly income, and in the present times, it was likely worth next to nothing.

“That ring,” I said with barely suppressed laughter, “is an obscenity!”

Einar laughed as well, his face loosening up.

“Aye, it is.” He shrugged. “It’s the kind of ring that some medieval English countess in one of your books would get from the Viking who had invaded her country but then fell for her. At least in any decently corny historical romance. And it is also the ring that had I taken you along to the Bastia jeweller’s, you would have ogled incessantly before insisting that you only wanted something modest.”

With his free hand, Einar reached up and grazed my cheek with his fingers. The pressure that had been building behind my eyes was finally too much for me, and tears spilled out and dripped onto Einar’s hands and the ring box. In a moment that rushed by too fast, Einar asked me at last in a voice that quaked with trepidation, perhaps, but no longer with anxiety.

“Renata, my love, will you marry me?”

He held his breath anxiously, and his eyes searched my face intently for a clue to my answer.

“Y-you can’t possibly think t-that I would ever say n-no,” I sobbed. “My answer is yes. It has always been yes.”

Holding my left hand in his, he slid the ring on the appropriate finger. It was a perfect fit.

PART V

41

THE FINAL STAGE OF GRIEF

The mellow light of an autumn morning fell through the gap between the floral curtains of our Vizzavona cottage. I opened my eyes to see soft dust particles floating in the warm air above our bed. And to see Einar looking at me, the ice-cold harshness of his irises also mellowed out by the meek luminescence.

“Good morning, husband.”

“Same to you, my darling wife.”

He readily returned my smile, running a hand through the tangled mess of my uncombed hair. Einar always looked at me like I was a misunderstood masterpiece that only he was capable of fully appreciating. That had not changed in the six months since our wedding.

“Do you know what day it is?” I asked, my own smile widening.

“Of course I don’t. Darling, no one but you keeps track anymore.”

“Well, it’s been exactly a year since you proposed to me.”

“An anniversary of a kind then.”

Hands burrowing under the covers, he pulled me closer.