‘Do you fancy a walk?’ Stefan asked when he stopped in front of the manor house. She said she did and he took her hand and led her to Wolf Tarn as daylight faded into the blue grey dusk and the fells slowly disappeared in shadows.
How strange that her fears had vanished, that she was able to walk on the lakeshore without the pangs of anxiety and the terror she used to experience every time Belthorn was mentioned. She had no idea what she had really seen ten years before, no idea if it had been a memory, a hallucination, or a trick of the moonlight, but thanks to Stefan she wasn’t afraid any longer.
She turned to face him, looked up. ‘Thank you…’
‘I want to thank you…’ he said at the same time.
He smiled, traced the outline of her lips with his finger then cupped her cheek in the palm of his hand. ‘We’re doing this again… Go on, you first.’
She cocked her head to one side, enjoying the warmth of his hand against her cold skin. ‘Thank you for coming with me to Patterdale Farm today. It meant a lot to me. I know you’re not keen on Christmas, so I am very grateful that you agreed to spend the day with my family. All together, they can be quite overwhelming.’ She held his hand. ‘And thank you for talking to Gabrielle about my ideas, and giving me the chance and the confidence to prove myself as a designer.’
He stroked her cheek slowly, bent down and kissed her lips.
‘You have already proved yourself as a designer… and more importantly as someone who touches and changes people’s lives… You have a gift, Cassie. You have your smile, and your kindness, and your courage.’ He punctuated almost every word with a kiss. ‘God knows I was a miserable, self-centred, grouchy man when I arrived here, wallowing in self-pity and despair.’
‘You had good reason to be!’ she protested. ‘You’d been through war, the death of your friend and of the people you cared for. You were injured and in pain, lonely and…’
He interrupted her with another kiss. ‘And you changed all that. With your kindness, your cushions, your smiles and that lemon scent your granddad says you spray around to improve people’s mood… You gave me the greatest gift I could ever have wished for. The greatest gift a man can ever want. Your love.’
His voice became rough, and in the dim light of dusk, his eyes were a soft and mellow gold. Her heart was close to bursting with love, and she wasn’t even trying to stop the tears from falling.
He cleared his throat, and pulled something out of his pocket. A small pink box she recognised as being a gift box from The Studio.
‘I should have given you this earlier,’ he said. ‘I was waiting for the right moment. The right place. The right words. And this is it.’ He gestured to Wolf Tarn, to the stars that had started to twinkle in the darkening skies, and the shiny moon peeping over the line of the mountains.
He gave her the box. Her fingers were clumsy as she opened it and pulled the beautiful necklace out. It was a tiny, beautiful, delicately carved swan, hanging from a fine gold chain. A work of art.
‘You changed me, Cassie. You are that beautiful white swan from the story, the one that saves the ugly hunchback by giving him her love. You rescued me from myself, showed me that I could have a present, and a future. I love you more than I ever, ever thought I could love anyone, and I hope you’ll want me by your side forever.’
He pointed to the necklace nestling in the palm of her hand. ‘It’s not much, I know,’ he said quickly. ‘But I promise I’ll do better next Christmas, and the Christmas after that… and every Christmas for the rest of our lives.’
And as he enfolded her in his arms, and touched his lips to hers, her heart felt as big as the moon rising above the snowy peaks, as big as the sky filling with stars.
* The End *
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Thank You
Dear Reader,
Thank you so much for reading Bluebell’s Christmas Magic. I loved writing Cassie and Stefan’s story, and I hope you enjoyed spending some time with them and their friends in the little Cumbrian village of Red Moss. The story was inspired by a family holiday in Coniston, which is one of my all times favourite places, and I hope my writing did this wonderful place justice.
If you did enjoy the story, then I would be very grateful if you could take a few minutes to leave a review. It is a wonderful feeling for an author when readers let you know that they loved your story and your characters. Reviews are invaluable, not only to raise a book’s profile, but also to encourage the author to keep writing, especially when self-doubt creeps in.
Please feel free to contact me using the information at the bottom of my ‘About the Author’ page.
Marie
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About the Author
Originally from Lyon in France, Marie now lives in Lancashire with her family. She works full-time as a modern languages teacher, and in her spare time loves writing romance and dreaming about romantic heroes. She writes both historical and contemporary romance, and her historical romance The Lion’s Embrace won the Gold Medal at the Global Ebook Awards 2015 (category Historical Romance). She is a member of the Romantic Novelists Association and the Society of Authors. Her native France, as well as her passion for history and research, very much influences her writing, and all her novels have what she likes to call ‘a French twist’!
For more on Marie visit:
www.facebook.com/marielavalauthor/
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