Page 65 of Fair as a Star

“All the beauty you see before you is on account of the flaws. Were it perfect, it would have no color at all. No value, certainly not to me.” He took the ring from its box. “I prefer this one. It matches your eyes.”

His handsome face blurred in front of her. She blinked to clear her vision. She didn’t want to cry. Not now. Not even from an excess of joy. She didn’t want to miss a single blessed moment.

Moving from the bench, Mark sank to one knee in front of her and took her left hand gently in his. “Miss Burnham,” he said with husky gravity. “I’ve loved you since we read Dickens together the summer you turned eighteen. I’ve loved you near, and far. When I thought you might be mine, and when I feared you were lost to me forever. And now—if you’ll let me—I mean to love you for the remainder of my life. And beyond that, too, I suspect, if you’ll consent to be my wife.”

Her throat tightened with emotion.

“I know we agreed to wait six months,” he said. “And we will. We needn’t announce anything yet. And it would probably be best if you hid the ring away until January. But I need to know, when the time comes…will you marry me?”

The threat of tears rendered her voice the veriest raspy whisper. “Yes,” she managed. “Yes, yes.”

Mark’s own eyes shimmered. His mouth hitched into a smile that swiftly spread into a grin. He slid the beryl ring onto her finger. No sooner had he done so than he was back at her side, and she was in his arms.

She didn’t wait for him to kiss her. Curving her hand around the back of his neck, she tugged his face to hers with gentle insistence. He bent his head, and she stretched to reach him, her mouth finding his. Their breath mingled, their half-parted lips meeting and clinging.

One kiss led to another and another. They were interspersed with murmured love words and giddy huffs of laughter.

“I don’t know why I’m laughing,” she said. “I daresay it’s because I’m so happy.”

“I know you are.” Mark’s strong fingers brushed over the dimple in her cheek. “I’m happy, too. More than any man has a right to be.”

“Is happiness a right?” she wondered.

“What else?”

“I think it’s something we must earn. That we must fight for every day.”

He smiled down at her. “And when we finally have it in our grasp?”

She moved back into his waiting arms, her own smile hidden against his chest. “We must hold on to it, of course.”

Mark enfolded her in a fierce embrace. His voice was deep with certainty. “We shall.”

Dorset, England

August 1865

Mark closed the lid of the hamper. “There’s plenty more food if you’re hungry.”

“I couldn’t eat another bite.” Beryl leaned back against the curving trunk of the old oak tree, whose wide branches shielded their picnic from the midday sun. Ernest wandered over to plop down beside her. “Mrs. Fraser always packs too much.”

Their housekeeper at the Harbury Court vicarage was a hearty, motherly sort of woman. She enjoyed nothing more than looking after the pair of them. Indeed, Beryl and Mark had been welcomed and accepted by all of the villagers in Harbury Norton, most of whom seemed to take a special pride in their handsome new vicar and his equally new bride.

“Sometimes,” Mark said, “I suspect Mrs. Fraser enjoys our Monday picnics as much as we do.”

“She’s a romantic.” Beryl paused, adding, “As are you.”

“I won’t deny it.”

Their Monday picnics had been his idea. Saturdays were taken up with writing his sermons, and Sundays belonged to his parishioners. But Mondays were Beryl’s exclusively.

He stretched out on the picnic blanket, his head pillowed in her lap. He’d already removed his coat and loosened his cravat. Clad in his shirtsleeves, a black cloth waistcoat, and trousers, he looked perfectly at his ease.

She smoothed his dark hair from his brow. There was something endlessly pleasurable about the liberties she was allowed to take as his wife. She could touch him whenever she wished—and with as much familiarity as she wished. He was hers, absolutely. A heady sensation, and one Mark seemed to relish as much as she did herself.

A drowsy quiet stretched between them. It was a peaceful silence, born of trust and understanding. They’d been married all of six months. Hardly any time at all. But it felt as though they’d been together for far longer.

“What are you thinking about, my love?” he asked.