Page 70 of The Baron Takes a Wife

“Bees?”

“You know, small insects? Tend to sting when provoked?”

“I know what a bee is, but why are you keeping bees?”

“For honey, of course. I don’t much fancy being stung.”

He grabbed her hand and pulled her to him, twirling her around. The reckless energy that their bantering had spun was infectious, and she found herself laughing for the sheer joy of it, as if all those heavy things, all those thoughts that weighed her down all the time, just dissipated in the clear, crisp air. As the spinning slowed, she tried to catch her breath and listen to what he was saying.

“I’m keeping bees to make honey so you can make baklava and teach us to make it.” He seemed almost as breathless as she felt. “Then we can have it out here anytime you want.” He looked down as if he was thinking through what he would say next but then looked back up at her and said simply. “We can’t let the candle be snuffed out.”

Something in Elena’s heart cracked open at that moment, possibly the last shards of ice. That feeling that everything would slip through her fingers in a second fell away. She suddenly saw her husband more clearly than ever before, even as they were twirling in a very undignified fashion on this country lane. She drew him to her, hugging him tightly, and held on for dear life. He brought his head down and kissed her for several moments. Thank you, she tried to say with the kiss. Thank you for not letting me forget my home and proving that not all memories must have sorrow. I see you, you wonderful man, and I never want to let you go. As their kiss intensified, his hands roamed to her backside, and he lifted her up to kiss her more deeply while keeping his hands in place.

“David, not here, the bees!”

“Hmmm, should we risk it? I think it would be worth getting stung.” He found that spot on her neck that somehow drove out all rational thought, but again, they were interrupted by Goliath, who had come running back to bark at the bees.

“I’m not worried about us so much, but him.”

David looked up to regard the dog. “That is true. Poor beast has not yet learned the wisdom of self-preservation.” He turned his gaze from Goliath back to her. “Now that we have discovered the music room and the library, mayhap we ought to sample the outdoors?” He nuzzled her neck, sending jolts of pleasure straight through her entire being.

“How about somewhere away from stinging insects?”

“Where is your sense of adventure, my lady?” He set her down but held her hand in his as they began to walk again, with Goliath running just ahead of them.

“I have had enough adventure for one lifetime. I think I am ready for a quiet life,” she grumbled.

“Not too quiet, not so quiet that you can’t be slightly scandalous with me.”

“No, not quite that quiet,” she admitted. He looked rather pleased with himself at her response and glanced over toward the bees.

“You know, my mother used to tell me that, in olden days, the bees were seen as sacred. To some, bees were the link between our world and the spirits. So, if you had a message for the dead, you could also tell the bees. I like it much more than sitting at a gravestone, actually.”

Elena thought about what she would want to say to her family, then, with a pang, realized deep down that she was starting to think of them as truly dead and gone. A profound sorrow tinged with a lightness that made her feel guilty gripped her heart.

To distance herself from her turbulent thoughts, she turned her head up to look at her husband. “What would you tell them, your parents?”

“I think I would tell them how much Irene has grown. That I’m trying to do my best.” He looked down, and she could see he was really considering this, that despite his light tone, their loss weighed heavily on him.

She tightened her hold on his hand. “The Orthodox have a saying at funerals: may their memory be eternal.”

“I like that. Very much.” He paused again as if to collect his thoughts. “I think I would also tell them that I went to war rather recklessly, but thankfully, I came back mostly one in piece. And I might mention the strange foreign woman I brought back, who cast some kind of spell on me, making me her eternal servant.”

“She sounds quite demanding, this foreign mistress,” Elena offered, holding back a smile.

“Oh, she can be a cruel taskmaster, making me save stray dogs, and—”

“Husband, Goliath will hear you!” She playfully tried to grab her hand away from his.

He grasped her hand more firmly and drew it up to his lips. She felt the customary spark this action brought on and started to count the hours until they could be together that evening in her head. Lost in her counting, she saw Goliath headbutt David out of the corner of her eye.

“Steady on, old boy.”

David held her hand up to Goliath, allowing him to sniff it. “I’m trying to watch over her, same as you.” He leaned his cane against his side to ruffle Goliath’s fur. “He’s very protective of you. That might be a good thing, but I don’t fancy him attacking me whenever we’re feeling amorous.”

She considered Goliath, who had come to sit in front of them. “I think we can train him not to headbutt you, yes? Although he might have just heard you complaining about him.” She gave him a mischievous grin.

As they bantered and walked along in the fading sunshine, Elena reflected that the countryside might not be so bad if she could spend more days like this. However, she couldn’t shake an unease, a sense that she was just missing something in the corner of her eye that she had first felt in London. She tried to convince herself that the eyes she felt watching her belonged to the animals that Goliath chased, but she could not rid herself of an inexplicable chill entirely at odds with the warmth of the late afternoon sun.