1816, Piazza Alberica, a short drive from Carrara’s marble mines
Colum leaned over a rustic table, arms braced wide, plans and ledgers spread out before him. A new cabochon ruby gem intaglio, a delayed wedding gift from Emma, gleamed boldly on his hand. A proud stag and a gentle doe had been carved in it. She had purchased the stone and commissioned the ring with her latest earnings. It had been worth it. She’d risked everything, marrying Colum Ramsay, as he had risked everything returning the Godwin gem intaglio to the man who’d sired him.
People had whispered about her running away with a man (a footman!) with no prospects save a grand heart, a keen mind, and a working knowledge of stone.
Giving him a redolent once-over, she’d add his other excellent qualities, but she’d keep that to herself.
They’d made a fresh start together. A new life with new rules far from the conventions which had bound them. Their start hadn’t been easy. His earnings and hers had been scraped together. For a time, she’d been an outcast to her mother and father. Forgiveness there came slowly, but standing on her own two feet with her new husband had forced new growth.
Their first year together, they’d whispered plans in their gloomy garret not far from Chancery Lane. Dreams were born. Hope spread. A letter from the Duke of Godwin helped, but Colum would take no more from the man. Colum had his pride, and she loved him for it.
No formal declarations or recognition of the bastard son and his new wife ever came.
But there were quiet meetings. The duke was hungry to know the stalwart man he’d sired. Pride beamed often from the older man’s eyes. From those meetings sprang the offer to write a letter of introduction to an influential marchese who lived near Carrara. Colum’s ideas to harvest the best marble and sell it in London had pleased the duke.
A merchant of stone was promising.
The Duke of Godwin’s letter had opened a door. Colum still had to prove himself once he walked through it—and work hard and smart he did.
He was resplendent tonight in black merino wool and crisp white cotton. He drew attention in the town square, a Scot striving to perfect his Italian.
As a man, he drew feminine eyes wherever he went. Tall with shoulders broad and a chest strong, he was often mistaken as a quarryman. Many was the day he came home with hands covered in white marble dust.
But her man of stone only had eyes for her.
It thrilled her to her toes. Colum. Her friend, her love, her husband. No truer partner in life could be found. And on occasion, they danced. Very often they laughed, dancing in their rented house overlooking the piazza.
In matters of grace, she was a work in progress.
In matters of love, she was years ahead of her time.
Skirts swirling about her ankles, she set down her tray of calda-calda, cakes made from chickpea flour.
“How do I look?” she asked.
Colum’s black stare burned a path across the room. “Like the prettiest lass I’ve ever seen.”
“You are a charmer when you want to be, Mr. Ramsay.”
“If I can charm the dress off ye, then I’ve done my job.”
She smoothed damp palms over azure velvet. The dressmaker had said the color matched her eyes. Fishbone pleats in the bodice enhanced her curves.
“Do you think she’ll like it?” Really, she meant, Do you think she’ll like me?
“She’ll adore you, the same as I do.”
Outside, a massive carriage drawn by four bays clattered through the piazza. Emma’s heart kicked faster.
“She’s here.”
Colum dropped his pencil on the table and walked to Emma. Shutters opened, their nosy neighbors taking a gander at what was happening at the home of the hulking Scot and his wife.
He folded both Emma’s hands in his and kissed one, then other. “The contessa will be pleased to meet ye. The two of ye sent too many letters for it no’ to be so.”
Contessa Mallatorre. The woman who gave birth to Colum.
“In meeting her, your circle is now complete.”
He pulled Emma close and kissed her warmly. “No, Mrs. Ramsay, my circle is complete because of you.”
She basked in the moment, his arms around her, and his heart beating strong and true against her cheek. These were the times she lived for—the freedom to love and revel in it.
And she had the rest of her life to do it.