A Promise For All Time by Paula Quinn

Author:Paula Quinn [Quinn, Paula]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dragonblade Publishing, Inc.
Published: 2024-04-06T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

Josiah set down his brush two hours later and gazed at Mercy on the settee. She’d fallen asleep but he didn’t need her to be awake to paint her. He knew every beguiling nuance of her expressions. He should have carried her to bed sooner, but he selfishly continued painting. Once, he even had to stop to swipe his eyes free of the tears loving her produced. He laughed thinking of all the emotions she made him feel. He’d never felt happy or grateful enough to weep. He’d never experienced jealousy, or the willingness to forgo his needs and meet hers instead. He lived smiling under the weight of a terrible curse, but even knowing now that the tales were true, there really was a ruby dagger, and it apparently possessed enough power to send someone back in time almost four hundred years, he was hopeful that the prophecy would not be fulfilled.

He went to her and fell to his knees before her. She let out a little snore. His gaze on her warmed. The sight of her made his heart thump, resonating like a warning through his body to run. But he didn’t have to run from her. She would guard his heart lovingly in her hands, his soul within her needful embrace.

Who was Mercy Smith that she mattered so much to him, that he thought of her night and day, and ached to be with her—just be near her? Why had the force that ruled the dagger chosen her as a link to get to him, and was that all she had to do with the ruby dagger?

He leaned forward until his face was close enough to hers to count her lashes. He loved the shape of her eyes and the color of them, and how they revealed her heart when she looked at him. He let his gaze rove over her brow and the beguiling slope of her nose. He reached out, and, breath held, ran his fingertips over her top, then bottom lip, tracing their shape with a feathery touch. He wanted to kiss the alluring curve of her jaw and whisper in her ear that he loved her. But he didn’t want to wake her, so he sat for another hour, admiring her while she slept, until he joined her in slumber.

When he opened his eyes again, the soft light of dawn filled the studio and Mercy was still curled up asleep on the settee. When he stirred she came awake and smiled seeing him. “Good morning, Josiah.”

“Good—”

Suddenly, she sat up and her eyes opened wide. “I’ve spent the night with you again and now I have to sneak off to my chambers before the whole castle sees me!”

“What? Has someone said something to you?”

“No,” she reassured him. “But this sort of thing is frowned upon in the seventeenth century.”

He furrowed his brow. “Is it not frowned upon in the twenty-first century?”

“No. Not really,” she let him know. Then, “Josiah?”

“Hmm?”

“You’re brooding.”

“No, I’m not.”

“I never stayed overnight with any man.

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