Geoffrey let go of her fingers as Adam set the tray down on the table. Wordlessly her steward shifted the plate, utensils, and glass onto the place beside the one Jane had vacated. He sat, sliced off a piece of ham, and stuck it into his mouth.

Adam had interrupted a wedding proposal – her wedding proposal. She should be furious. And yet she had to work to keep herself from running over to his chair and hugging him. None of this made any sense. Her thoughts tumbled and swirled like the cyclone she’d argued about with him. More than anything she wanted a minute to think, to breathe, without everyone staring at her.

“You’re not wanted here, Driscoll,” Geoffrey snapped, his expression for once as flat as his voice.

“I live here, actually,” Adam countered.

“Not for long, you don’t.”

“And I dine with Isabel and Miss Jane every evening,” he continued, as if Geoffrey hadn’t spoken. “Now be a polite guest and eat your dinner.”

Instead the viscount grabbed her hand again, startling her and pulling her further off her literal and figurative balance. “You know he’s here because he’ll do anything to interfere in my life and happiness. Ignore him. Hell, dismiss him. I’ll find you a steward who doesn’t have aspirations above his station.”

“He’s proposed, then?” Adam asked, his voice oddly pitched. “And where will the two of you live? Alton? Blackbridge? Here? London?”

“What the devil does it matter where we’ll live?” the viscount cut back in. “It’s none of your damned affair.”

“Gentlemen, please,” Isabel said forcefully. “I haven’t agreed to anything, and yes, it does matter where we would live if – if – we married. I’m the guardian of Nimway Hall. This is where I belong.”

Alton’s fingers tightened around hers. “Then agree now, Isabel. Marry me, and we’ll spend enough time at Nimway to satisfy you. Does that assuage your reservations?”

No, it didn’t. She left her fingers where they were, beginning to worry that he would pull her out of her chair if she resisted. “It would better assuage my reservations if you would stop viewing this as a decision that needs to be made tonight. There’s no reason to hurry so.”

“Unless he’s already made arrangements to sell off half your cattle or large sections of Balesboro Wood.” Adam’s expression remained calm despite the coiled, ready sensation she felt from him, and he continued eating.

“The timber rights are mine,” Isabel countered, frowning. “They remain mine, whether I marry or not. Why would you say such a thing?”

“He’s saying it because it’s what he’s been planning. Distract you with those beehives you were telling me about and sell off timber lots to the highest bidder. Bits here and there, little enough that you wouldn’t notice.” Geoffrey narrowed his eyes, pinning Adam with a glare of not just anger, but a hatred that startled her.

“You’ve thought it all through then, have you?” Adam said. “That explains why he wants to be rid of me. I’d never allow you to steal from here. To steal from Isabel.”

Abruptly Geoffrey released her and lurched to his feet. “This does not concern you,” he grated. “I’ve seen the way you look at her, Driscoll, but look at yourself. You’re a farmer in everything but name. You smell of dirt and cattle and horseshit. Even worse, that’s all you aspire to. Elizabeth knew that six years ago. She said you liked having dirt beneath your nails. You haven’t changed.”

Isabel’s frown deepened, and something much darker lurched to life in her chest. Who was Elizabeth? Adam’s face when she looked over at him had paled to ash. He stood, his own motions smoother and more…deadly than the viscount’s. “Say her name again, Alton. I dare you to speak her name again in my presence.”

The way he said the words, like an axe cutting through hard wood, struck her with almost physical force. “Who is Elizabeth?” she whispered, odd despair touching her soul. Had there been another woman they’d both loved? Did Adam still love her? He did. She could hear it, feel it, in his voice.

Adam glanced at her, his jaw clenching, before he returned his gaze to the viscount. “You brought it up. Do you wish to explain it, or shall I?”

With a grimace Geoffrey dropped into his chair again. “Considering I’ve no wish to be attacked for uttering the wrong name, I leave it to you.” He jabbed a finger at Adam. “But I did nothing wrong. You chose to make me a monster to assuage your own guilt.”

“You—”

“Enough!” Isabel stood, swiping swiftly at her face and hoping neither man noticed her tears. No one’s marriage proposal was supposed to tangle into a discussion about another woman. And hers… She’d waited for the orb and her life to all come together, and in none of her imaginings had it ever looked, or felt, like this. “You…punch each other to your heart’s content. I’m leaving.”

She shoved through the drawing room door, nearly knocking both Jane and Simmons down in the process. So Adam and Geoffrey preferred to fight over a different woman. Fine. She didn’t care to be a part of that. Ever.

With Simmons away from the front door, grabbing up a shawl and heading out across the drive was a simple matter. Then she walked. It didn’t matter where, as long as she kept moving. The moon was high in the night sky, the air pleasant if a little chilly, and the road in front of her stood out clearly as it curved into the woods.

This was her land, and her well- and frequently traveled road. And if a fox or a badger wanted to argue with her tonight, she felt ready for a fight. The moonlight dimmed as she stepped beneath the leafy canopy, but she could still make out the road and the deer trails that crossed it.

Above her an owl hooted, and the sound echoed once, twice, thrice deeper into Balesboro Wood. It was a lovely, old sound that made her think of ancient times, and lonely enough to suit the hurt in her heart. Adam had said he wanted to woo her. Had he only wanted to do so because he couldn’t tolerate the idea of Geoffrey Bell-Spratt winning her favor? It definitely sounded as if they’d fought over this Elizabeth, as well.

Isabel slowed her steps. Simmons had told her that Geoffrey had been engaged, and that the lady in question had died. Had that been Elizabeth? Oh, that was even worse. A cherished memory of love that would grow more precious and perfect with time. An image with which she could never hope to compete.

That was her, then, a bone to be fought over by two dogs because the meal they preferred was no longer available. No wonder Adam hadn’t wanted to speak of the hostility between him and Alton. She put her hand over her chest and kept walking. It hurt. Her heart physically hurt.

And not because she’d discovered that she was Geoffrey’s second choice. After she spoke with him, and as much as she’d wished otherwise, it had been rather apparent that his first love would always be himself. That had become much more evident tonight. But dropping from second to third hadn’t troubled her, truthfully. His plans hadn’t troubled her, except with the growing realization that she didn’t wish to be a part of them.

Adam, though… The way he’d reacted at just hearing the name Elizabeth – whoever she was, he’d loved her. Deeply. And that had broken Isabel’s heart.

How typical, and how stupid, that she’d realized how important he’d become to her only after she’d made it clear to him that she’d pinned her hopes on Lord Alton. That was irony, wasn’t it? To make him her second choice only to discover that she was also his second choice?

But even if she’d belatedly realized that she wanted Adam, the orb seemed to have a different idea. Before she’d become acquainted with Geoffrey, on the surface he’d fulfilled her fairy-tale ideal of a husband – handsome, titled, presumably wealthy, charming, and a believer. Tonight, though, he’d made her uneasy. He’d refused to answer the simplest of questions, turning her queries into a jest and making her seem unreasonable for asking them. Even before Adam had barged in, she’d felt something wrong in the air.

Nothing made any sense. And the one person who might have helped her figure it all out was one of the men from whom she’d fled. And even he couldn’t help her reconcile her feelings with what the orb had indicated.

A fallen tree lay across her path, and she stopped. The bower. Isabel’s Bower. Had she walked all that way already? It would be a good place to think, and safe from even the most unlikely perils of the road. The brambles scratched her arm and tried to snatch away her shawl, but she managed to duck beneath them and into the clearing.

The three stones glowed a soft white beneath the beams of moonlight, and she could almost hear music on the light breeze. The rustle of leaves and the soft rush of the low waterfall might as well have been ancient voices murmuring words she couldn’t decipher.

Isabel ran her hand across the carved surface of the female stone as she went to stand at the midpoint of the trio. “Is there magic here?” she murmured, lifting her face to the sky. “Are you merely old stones and leaves and water and moonlight, or are you more?”

An owl hooted from one end of the bower, as if to ask who she was to be standing there. And frankly, she couldn’t answer the question. The hoot repeated, faded, then repeated on the opposite side of the clearing. A third owl took up the query, then a fourth and a fifth, then so many, so much mournful noise, that she couldn’t keep count.

She clapped her hands over her ears. Who was she? The offspring of a sculptor? A half-Italian pretender? Or the daughter of a daughter of a daughter of Somerset, the place where Nimue and Merlin had lived and, legend said, had had a daughter of their own to begin the line from which she claimed descent?

Isabel lowered her hands again. “I am Isabel Jacqueline de Rossi,” she stated clearly, refusing to feel self-conscious about declaring herself to a wood full of owls. “I am the daughter of Charlotte Anne Harrington, and the granddaughter of Olivia Heather Devries. And I am the Guardian of Nimway Hall.”

The sound died around her. In the space of a half dozen heartbeats the wood became itself again, filled with the rustling of leaves, the chirping of crickets, and the burbling of slow-flowing water. She blinked. Had she just imagined all that? Was she going mad now?

Wood snapped off to her right. Isabel whirled around to look into the gloom, her heart pounding even as she stifled her gasp. Her gaze immediately went to a small circle of light that bobbed and grew larger, ducked, and rose again.

“Isabel?”

For just a second she shut her eyes. Adam. “I’m here.”

“Thank God.” The light lifted and brightened, becoming a lantern as he approached her through the low moss and white flowers. “How the devil did you find your way here on foot and in the dark?”

“I just did,” she said, and turned her back on him. “I don’t want to talk to you. I’m well. I’ll return to the house later.”

His quiet footsteps continued toward her. “Alton’s demanded a room; he refuses to leave while you’re missing, and evidently he asked you a question and insists on receiving an answer.” Adam paused. “I assume the question he’s referring to is whether you’ll marry him,” came from much closer behind her.

Her jaw and her fists and her heart clenched, she faced him again. “I assume the same thing, as yes, we both heard him ask me.”

Adam’s brow dipped in a deep frown. “I hope you’re not—”

“This story about the animosity between the two of you,” she interrupted. “It was over a woman. Elizabeth. Neither of you liked the outcome, I assume, and now you’ve found some other chit to fight over. Which makes me, at best, the second choice for you and for him, and at worst, makes me the foolish pawn in your game of one-upmanship.”

His face looked ashen in the moonlight, his expression drawing hard and tight as she spoke. “You don’t—”

“Considering that,” she broke in again, her fury and hurt warming her, “I suppose it doesn’t matter which of you I marry. The orb, though, grew warm at his touch, so there you have it.”

As she spoke, the disappointment of eighteen years of expecting a fairy-tale life once she reached Nimway, the sadness of having to rethink each thing he’d said to her knowing that he’d likely said them all before and meant them before – it was too much. A tear ran down her cheek and plopped onto the bosom of her gown.

Adam, though, continued to stare at her. She wished he would go away, or at least have the good manners to look away, but he did neither. He just gazed at her, unblinking.

“Nothing to say?” she prompted. “Then I ask you once again to go back to the house. I would like to be alone.”

His mouth opened and shut again. “I should have told you everything, after all,” he finally said quietly.

“It’s too late n—”

“You’ll listen to it anyway,” Adam snapped, then blew out his breath. “I did love Elizabeth, though I’m not convinced Alton ever did. He loved her dowry; I know that.”

Isabel couldn’t hold back a sob. If he’d told her he’d once had his heart broken, she would have understood. If he’d told her, her own heart wouldn’t be breaking now. Turning away again, she put her hands over her ears. “Just go away!”

“Elizabeth… Elizabeth Driscoll. She was my sister, you see,” he went on anyway, his voice muffled but still understandable through her palms. “She was a year older than me. Twenty, when Alton met her. He dazzled her, I think, and after two months she accepted his proposal of marriage.”

She lowered her hands. The pain in his voice, though – she didn’t want to turn around to look at him, for both of their sakes. This… She hadn’t expected this. His sister?

“Before they were married she went for a ride on her mare, Lily, as she did nearly every morning in the country. This time Lily stepped into a badger hole. She broke both her forelegs, and Elizabeth broke her neck. My father got her back to the house and summoned a doctor and sent for the rest of us, and sent word to Alton.”

Adam cleared his throat. “When Alton came to see her, he was the very image of heartbreak, I’m told. My family felt sorry for him, for the life he’d just begun to plan for the two of them that they now would never have. He said he wanted to return with the parson of his own parish, a man who was like a father to him, to sit and pray over her with him. She was becoming feverish but seemed happy to see him, so my father agreed.”

“Adam—”

“Let me finish, for God’s sake,” he hissed. “I never want to tell this story again.”

Isabel shut her eyes. “I’m listening.”

“I was at my uncle’s estate when I received word of all this. Elizabeth and I… We were close. It took me six hours of hard riding to get back home. I ran up to her bedchamber, and found the door shut and her maid, Abby, in the hall, weeping. She said Alton and his parson friend wanted privacy to pray over Elizabeth. I burst in anyway, to find Lizzie so feverish she didn’t even recognize me – and this…holy man in the midst of declaring my sister and Alton husband and wife. He wanted her dowry, you see, more than he wanted her. If I hadn’t arrived when I did, if I hadn’t ripped the marriage license from the priest’s hand before Alton could put own signature beside Elizabeth’s… And they’d forged her name, because she couldn’t move her arms. Or her legs.”

Oh, she couldn’t stand it any longer. Isabel whirled about to wrap her arms hard around Adam, and his closed around her back. It must have been so awful. So awful. And Alton… To believe she’d thought herself lucky to meet such a handsome, charming, unmarried lord. “You should have told me,” she whispered.

“You are so genuinely good,” he returned roughly, “if that was what attracted him to you and vice versa, I thought perhaps he’d changed. Become a better man. And I tore up the license and burned it. I had no proof.”

As she recalled every conversation she’d ever had with Geoffrey Bell-Spratt, she had to shake her head. “I don’t think he’s changed. He can’t own my timber rights or my water rights, but he could certainly sell off half of Balesboro Wood, especially if we were residing elsewhere.” It had always seemed to come back to the timber. Every chat, every jest. And not very subtly, either. She’d just been too trusting to hear it. That money wouldn’t have lasted, because once the Wood was gone it would be gone forever, but what a bounty it would have been while it lasted.

Adam held her back from him, and abruptly she worried that she and her jealousy and her…crutch of magic and the orb had ruined this, too. “I want you to know,” he said slowly, “that you are the first and only woman with whom I have ever fallen in love. The only woman I ever mean to love.”

The keening thrum in her veins, the way her heart galloped – she couldn’t mistake the exultation she felt, or what it meant. “I love you, Adam Driscoll, you impossible man.” But the orb! Why in the world had it approved of Lord Alton? And what would happen to her and to Nimway Hall if she went against it?

“Do you have any idea how much I’ve wanted to hear you say that?” he murmured, brushing his fingers along her cheek and clearly not reading her thoughts.

Another warm tear slid down her face. He was being honest, because he’d always been honest. She needed to be the same. “I do love you,” she repeated vehemently, “but the orb chose Alton. I don’t know what might happen if I ignore it. I know you think that’s ridiculous, but it’s important to me. And to Nimway Hall.”

His brow furrowed again. “You would still allow that piece of rock and metal to dictate the course of your life?”

“I have to. That’s how it’s always been.”

Releasing her, he dug into his pocket. “Tell me this, then. If your orb chose Alton, why does it keep ending up in my room? I sat down to eat my damned dinner, reached for my glass, and found it in my hand instead.” He pulled the orb from his coat and held it out to her. “This is why I decided to join you for dinner. For just a second, I thought perhaps something beyond my understanding might be at work.”

“It fell off the table in the drawing room,” she mused, reaching out to touch the orb. “I don’t…”

She trailed off as the moonstone beneath their two sets of fingers began to glow. Softly at first, then more and more brightly it blazed, as bright as sunlight. White touched with iridescent greens and blues and reds buried deep in the stone surrounded the two of them, and reflected off the trio of boulders around them. Far, far away, Isabel could swear she heard a lone female voice, singing a wordless tune.

Adam’s green eyes met hers, their emerald startling in its clarity. He held her gaze as the orb’s light began slowly to fade, leaving her almost blind in the filtered moonlight and the dim lantern set behind him. “Did you see—”

“I did,” he returned, in the same stunned tone. His gaze lowered to the dark moonstone they both still touched. That they’d never touched at the same time until now.

Isabel swallowed. He’d always been so logical. What might this do to him? “Did you hear…”

His eyes snapped up to meet hers again. “A woman. Singing.”

Isabel nodded. “Do you believe me now?” she whispered.

“I believe in what I see and hear,” he returned. “I saw this. I heard the voice. I heard the owls, as well. They led me here. I have no explanation but the one you’ve been offering me since you arrived. Magic. Genuine magic.”

Putting her hands on either side of his lean face, she leaned up and kissed him. This, this, was what finding the love of her life was supposed to feel like. The heat, the lifting sensation, the ecstasy in the rightness of touching him, of being touched by him.

And the explanation for Alton and the orb had to be the simplest one – the viscount had lied. The moonstone hadn’t heated when he’d touched it, then instantly cooled the moment she took it back. It had done nothing, just as it had done nothing every time she’d tried to convince it or herself that she was meant to be Lady Alton. Because she wasn’t.

Still kissing her, Adam shed his jacket, backing away for a heartbeat to spread it out on the grass. “I’m not waiting any longer,” he said, shifting his attention to her jawbone with shiver-inducing kisses and nibbles. “I’m not missing my chance.”

“I knew,” she breathed, helping him undo the buttons of his dark waistcoat, and that garment joined the first. “I knew it was you, because you kept interrupting every thought I had. But you didn’t believe.”

“I do now. I believe,” he murmured, his tone a heady mix of wonderment and desire. Desire for her. She felt it as well, all the way to her bones – the wish, the need, to be with him, to touch him skin to skin, with nothing separating them. That was why her feet had guided her here tonight. To Isabel’s Bower.

Here, with the ancient stone carvings, the moonlight, the dancing waters of the stream behind them, was where they were meant to be tonight. The small glen felt magical. And this time she didn’t need to convince him of that.

“Just tell me no one else is looking for me here,” she said, grinning, tangling her fingers into his dark hair, and shivering a little as his big hands slid from her waist to her hips, tugging her closer against him. What had been wrong with her, to ever think for a moment that she’d wanted Alton touching her like this? That had never even occurred to her before now; in her daydreams a match with the viscount had been a companionable partnership. As if he would ever share anything. As if he would ever have cared about her dreams.

“I don’t think anyone else knows about this place,” he returned, pulling the pins from her hair. Abruptly, though, he stopped, his gaze searching her face. “Isabel, I want you. I want you in my arms, and in my life. You’re already in my heart. But I’m selfish enough to want to know that it’s not the orb that’s convinced you.”

“Oh, hang the orb.” Pushing aside his hands, she pulled his shirttail from his trousers so she could run her palms up his warm, bare chest. “It took me far too long to figure myself out, but it wasn’t the moonstone. I’ve lived such an unconventional life, and I decided I needed someone…perfect to make me perfect. And because I’m an idiot, I saw exactly what Geoffrey wanted me to see, and I ignored what should have been plain in you.”

“You’re not an idiot,” he countered. “I saw a woman who believed in magic, but not in herself.” Adam smiled a little. “I’ve believed in you nearly from the beginning. And I think tonight you realized you can believe in yourself, as well.”

Isabel took a deep breath. She did feel different. After weeks of feeling inadequate and uncertain, tonight she’d made a decision, and she’d done it without the orb. The fact that the moonstone had then confirmed what she already knew in her heart – yes. Everything had changed. And now that she knew for certain what she wanted, nothing was going to get in her way. Not even herself.

“I’ve had a good teacher,” she whispered, helping him lift his shirt off over his head.

He had the body of a man who worked hard, who didn’t spend his time at cards or drinking while other men saw to his duties in exchange for coin. More than that, he cared about Nimway Hall, and her, and all of her tenants, and even the bees.

“When I first arrived here,” Isabel said slowly, “I imagined the avenue would be lined with knights in shining armor astride white horses, all of them vying to win my hand. And I would solve every problem with a flick of my fingers.” She lifted one hand, and he twined his fingers with hers. “The truth I’m discovering is that I’m glad it’s not that simple. That nothing is simple or straightforward.”

“Are you certain? There is some old armor in the portrait hall, I believe. I might be able to squeeze into it.”

A warm shiver ran down her spine, and she chuckled. “No, I think it’s too small for you.”

His smile heated the rest of her. “I’ll take that as a compliment. Now turn around.”

She did so, and as his fingers opened the quartet of buttons at the nape of her neck she shivered again, every inch of her awake and anticipating his touch. A forefinger trailed down her spine, his warm mouth following. Goodness. Most of her daydreams became rather nebulous at this point, but this was no daydream, no fairytale. And she was exceedingly thankful for that.

He moved around to face her, his gaze on her face as he bent down to gather the mauve-and-black material of her skirt in his hands, then slowly drew it up above her knees, past her thighs, her hips, and upward. “Arms up,” he murmured, another slight, sensuous smile touching his mouth.

When Isabel complied, Adam pulled her gown and shift over her head, then dropped them to the ground as if they’d ceased to matter. She watched as his gaze lowered, watched as he took her in from her feet to her face. Her skin warmed, not with embarrassment, but with a heated anticipation. The orb could fly up into the air and strike the moon and she wouldn’t have spared it a glance. Just as well, then, that the claw-gripped moonstone seemed to approve.

“You belong here in Isabel’s Bower,” he said, “with the moonlight touching your skin. A forest nymph, too lovely to be real.”

“I see you’ve come to embrace the idea of magic fairly quickly,” she returned, lifting an eyebrow.

Adam laughed. “I surrender. You are magic. I believe in you, so I must believe in magic.” Keeping his gaze on her face, he kicked out of his boots, unfastened his trousers, and stepped out of them.

Oh, my. While she’d seen a plenitude of naked men carved in marble and plaster back in Florence, none of those statues did Adam Driscoll justice. He was…magnificent. And aroused, with wanting her. She knew that already, but now she saw the evidence of it.

When he took that one step back to her, she wasn’t certain what to expect. It certainly wasn’t that he would sweep her into his arms, and she gasped and wrapped her own arms around his neck. He kissed her again, deliriously long and deep, then knelt on the edge of his coat and set her down gently in front of him.

She refused to relinquish her grip on him, and he settled along her body as she sank onto her back. She was finished with making mistakes – or at least ones of the magnitude of the one she’d nearly made by not truly seeing the man who’d stood at her shoulder almost from the moment she’d arrived in Somerset. Then he slid down and took one of her breasts in his mouth, and her mind stopped thinking at all. There was far too much to feel.

He licked and teased at her breasts until she couldn’t breathe. Just when she felt ready to faint he lifted his head and moved up to kiss her again. That seemed to only be a distraction, though, because while his mouth was occupied, his fingers trailed up the insides of her thighs, then touched her…there.

Isabel jumped, then uttered a groan she couldn’t stifle as he slid a finger inside her. Heat spread from her center out to the tips of her fingers and her toes, sending a delicious shudder down her spine. Beneath his ministrations, even as she writhed in pleasure, she felt…everything. A part of everything. Him, the land, the night, the trees around them – together they became whole.

“I’m hearing music again,” he murmured, as he nibbled at her earlobe. “Is this going to happen every time I’m with you? Because I intend to have you very frequently.”

Her eyes practically rolled back in her head. She could hear it too, more as a rhythm matching her fast pulse than with her ears. “I hear it as well, and I have no idea,” she returned, her voice sounding ragged even to her own ears. “I look forward to finding out.”

As she spoke she reached between them to brush her fingers against his hard manhood, and had the satisfaction of seeing him jump. God. Because while this might be about her becoming a woman and the Guardian of Nimway Hall, it was at least as much about the two of them, together.

“Show me what’s next,” she breathed, arching her back as a second finger joined his first.

“This isn’t enough?” he asked with a grin, lifting his head to look down at her.

“I feel very…ah, wonderful,” she managed, “but you seem to be in an unsatisfied state.” She wrapped her fingers around his shaft.

Adam drew in a hard breath. “Pleasing you pleases me,” he returned, his own tone not quite steady. “But you have asked me to teach you some things.”

“Then teach me this.”

Moving up the length of her again, trailing kisses along her skin as he rose, Adam nudged her knees apart. Alive. Every inch of her felt so alive. And that was because of him. “I’m told this may hurt,” he said, gazing at her intently. “I know of no other way to make you mine, and it won’t hurt again. But I still need to know you’re ready. That this – me – is what you want.”

He would stop if she asked, because he was a gentleman, a true gentleman, down to his bones. But then she would never know what came next, for her or for the two of them. And she very much wanted to know. Isabel raised her head and kissed him. “I’m ready.”

Settling himself between her legs, Adam caught her mouth again, at the same time canting his hips forward. With an exquisite filling sensation he entered her. Deep inside her she felt pressure, then a sharp pain that made her wince, before he sank deeply into her. Isabel squeezed her eyes shut, determined not to cry out. A few hard beats of her heart passed before she realized how very still Adam held himself inside her.

Opening her eyes again, she forced a weak laugh, the feeling of him buried inside her intensifying as she took a deep breath. “I won’t break,” she said unsteadily.

“Good,” he whispered back, his voice hard and husky. “You’re Nimway’s guardian, but Nimway had best understand that you and I are a pair. Forever.”

With another deep, openmouthed kiss he began moving inside her. Arching her back, Isabel dug her fingers into his back, holding on as he rocked into her. Good heavens. Her legs fell open with an abandon she would never have expected of herself, but all that mattered was her being as close to him as she could get.

He moved slowly, then faster and faster, tension growing tighter and tighter inside her. She moaned, wrapping her ankles around his thighs to invite him in even more deeply. Abruptly everything went white, and she shattered into a thousand pulsing, shivering pieces.

Above her Adam groaned, entering her slowly and deeply, carrying her farther into ecstasy. As sound and sight began to return he sped his pace again, faster and harder until with a deep growl he climaxed, spilling his seed inside her.

Both of them breathing hard, he lowered his head against her shoulder, then rolled the two of them so that he lay beneath her. Under her cheek his heart beat strong and fast, matching her own. And this, this connection between them, this was perfection. She never wanted to move again, never wanted to leave the warm circle of his arms. “I love you, Adam.”

“I love you, Isabel,” he returned without hesitation, his low voice resonating through her. “And now tell me, in front of the orb and the stone carvings and the owls and the forest and Nimway Hall, will you marry me?”

He would make her a better Guardian. He already had. And more than that, he would be her partner, her equal, and her love. And that was what Nimway Hall was. Love. “Yes, beneath the moon and all the stars, I will marry you. Very happily.”

As he kissed her again, very softly and gently, she could feel his smile against her mouth, matching hers. “I’ve been trying to find an explanation for why, when I first arrived here and despite everything going wrong, it felt like…home. Now I realize it’s because this place, and I, were both waiting for you.”

That was quite possibly the best compliment she’d ever received, “I’m just glad you and the orb and the house were patient enough to give me time to figure myself out.” Everything had tried to tell her, she realized. Thank goodness she’d opened her eyes and her heart enough to listen and to understand.

And now she – they – had one more thing to see to. Nimway had an unwanted guest who’d badly overstayed his welcome, and before she could declare everything perfect, he needed to go. At once.