Down by the River Ch. 05

Lucas chuckled again as he touched my face. "Does it matter?"

"No," I answered, kissing his lips. "But you lied again."

"I just said that there's carpet covering the floor," he argued good-naturedly. "I never said there was absolutely nothing else in the house."

I rolled my eyes but smiled. I stood up. "Would you like to show me the rest of the house?"

He, too, stood up, pulling up his pants. "Only when you look respectable enough."

As he laughed, I glared at him and picked up my gown. He helped me put it back on, before picking up my panties and putting it inside a laundry basket under the stairs. While he did that, I looked around and saw yet another evidence that this was a costly house. Nothing as beautiful as this could be bought at a low price; I knew that even if I had no idea about large money matters.

The more I saw of the house, the more convinced I became that it was expensive. Not that I would say anything about that to Lucas. First of all, it was his money he used to buy this, and I had no right to question his decisions over how to spend his money. Also, it was not as if the price of it mattered.

He left the master bedroom for last, saying that we would likely be staying in there for a while, anyway, so better leave it until I had seen the rest of the house. What was waiting inside was nothing that I expected to see.

The room itself was beautiful and large. Without the extravagant looks of most of the rooms in Uncle Matthew's country house and with all of the natural elements I loved, the room immediately stole my heart. But it was not the room itself that surprised me.

There was a huge cake on the table in front of the fireplace. There were also unused dishes and an unopened champagne bottle. On an armchair beside that table was a huge bouquet of beautiful flowers. And petals were scattered all over the carpeted floor.

Immediately, I turned to Lucas. He was smiling at me, holding a small box on one hand. His other hand held mine, squeezing it tenderly. Eyes focused on mine, he spoke.

"Selene Katrina Kier, will you be my wife?"

I was speechless for a second. It took a moment to convince myself that what I was hearing, what I was witnessing, was true.

"Oh god," I whispered as I threw my arms around his neck. "Of course I will!"

Lucas laughed as he held me closely, kissing my hair. We remained locked in each other's arms for a good while before we parted, and he took out a diamond ring from the box and slid it into my finger. He kissed my hand afterward; I could not stop smiling to the point that tears of joy were starting to blur my eyes.

"No tears," he said softly, kissing both of my cheeks. "I don't like it when I see you cry."

I laughed at that and blinked my tears away. "Oh, Lucas..." As I looked around the room again, I asked, "How did you...?"

"I hired a couple to look after this house, and told them that we would be coming today as soon as Uncle Matthew gave me permission to ask for your hand," he answered.

"I thought you only asked him if we could see this house!" I said.

He smiled and pinched my chin. "I would need to explain to him why I bought the house, anyway, so to make matters easier for us to discuss, I told him that I want to ask for your hand in marriage."

"And Grandmother?" I asked.

"She gave me permission through the letter I received last week," he answered. "Besides, she already gave us her blessing before we even left, remember?"

How could I forget? I wound my arms around his waist and put my head against his chest. "So, I am the last person to know?"

"Something like that," he answered, stroking my hair.

At that point, I remembered the horses outside, and realized that what I thought I heard while we were having sex was probably his hired man driving the horses to the carriage house. My face burned at the thought, especially since I was not holding back on my loudness earlier. I told Lucas, but he assured me that it did not matter at all -- that the couple would not judge me for it.

"Are you hungry yet?" he asked me, nodding at the cake waiting for us.

I shook my head, and realized why Lucas might be asking. After all, I was always complaining of my perpetual hunger. "Uhmm... Lucas?"

He looked at me with a smile. "Sweetheart?"

I smiled back. "Well, I had been wanting to tell you this for a few days now, but was still waiting for the right time, so I thought I wouldn't tell you yet. However..." I held his hands and took a deep breath. "I think I might be pregnant."

He looked stunned. "Pardon me?"

I bit my lips, squeezing his hands. "I said I think I might be pregnant."

Slowly, a smile formed on his lips, and he lifted me up to kiss my lips. "No kidding?"

"It's just a possibility," I told him. "My belly's still as flat as ever, so I don't know for sure. Still, my period's been very, very late..."

Lucas laughed. "This is just too good!"

I frowned slightly. "It's just a guess. What if I'm wrong?"

"Then we'll make the baby," he answered, his joy not a bit dampened. "It does not matter how soon or late we get our first child..."

He carried me to bed, laying me down on it gently. He kissed my lips, my forehead, the tip of my nose, before he seriously looked into my eyes and stroked my face with the back of his hand.

"Welcome home, Mrs. Milner," he whispered.

I smiled as I reached for him. "I'm not yet entitled to use that name..."

Not that it would prevent me from taking full advantage of the privileges that came with that name. Exclusive rights to my husband-to-be, for example...

"Not for much longer," he said, starting to take off my gown again. "Especially now that there is a possibility of you being pregnant."

Ah. No use dressing me up 'respectably' if he were to undress me after only twenty minutes, although I might have felt uncomfortable being taken to this room and being proposed to while naked.

This time, however, I fully intended to make sure I was not the only naked person in the room. I began undressing him, too, much to his amusement.

"When do I get full entitlement to that name?" I asked in a whisper.

"In a month," he answered, busily working on my gown.

"Where?"

He did not answer. He only smiled before starting our little dance again. Not that I needed an answer; I thought I already guessed.

*****

As Lucas promised, we were married after a month, down by the river in the forest where I grew up. It was a fitting place. After all, as Grandmother has said, that river was ours.

The shed that Marcus built for me housed the altar for our wedding. He was not able to come, having already sailed out of the country only two weeks before, but he gave us a beautiful gift that Lucas and I would end up hanging in the living room of our house: a huge painting of the river so important in my life.

That day, Uncle Matthew gave me a beautiful necklace that he meant to give my mother on their wedding day. The night before, Uncle told me the missing parts of my mother's story. My father did love my mother, and really meant to marry her, but my mother's station in life would just not do for the heir of the Riles family. It was Grandfather Riles who disapproved of such a marriage, and forced my father to marry another woman. It was something Uncle Matthew was not supposed to discuss to anybody related to my mother, but two months before I was born, he finally told Mother, who decided to keep it secret from all the other people who mattered to her. Mother, at that point, agreed to marry Uncle Matthew if only so that I would be given my father's name, although plans of their marriage were only supposed to be made known after I was born.

As fate would have it, Mother died just a few days after my birth, while Uncle Matthew was away to arrange things for their planned wedding. It was a devastating blow. Still, Uncle promised on my mother's grave that he would take care of me. Only, Grandmother would not let him adopt me as his own.

Father received the news of my mother's death badly, and often quarrelled with his father over what happened to her -- and to me. Uncle Matthew said that my father, more than once, wanted to see Grandmother and beg her to let him have me, but Uncle stopped him, knowing that Father was not welcome in our place anymore. Three years later, he died during a trip with his wife's family, leaving no other child in this world except for me. Grandfather was already dead by then, and to the dismay of the family of Father's wife, he left all of his possessions to me, to be managed by Uncle Matthew until I found a husband for myself.

With that, I finally closed that previously-unknown chapter of my life, and a few months after my wedding, decided to visit my father's grave with Lucas, Grandmother, and Uncle. I told Grandmother everything, and even though it reopened past wounds, it finally gave her peace, knowing that her only daughter was loved back by the man she had loved.

Six months after my marriage, I gave birth to a healthy baby boy, whom Lucas and I named Matthew James Nathaniel, after my uncle, Lucas' great grandfather, and my father. Matt's birth surprised everyone except Lucas and me, since we never actually told them that I was pregnant when we got married. Nobody suspected, anyway; my belly only started to grow when I was already in my fifth month of pregnancy, and even then, it was not that huge. Only afterwards, it grew so rapidly that many people started to think it a wonder.

Ah, well. They had their answers in the end. Everyone in the family was upon us, but even their reprimands did not bother us. We had our beautiful little baby, and to my great delight and envy, he was Lucas' small replica. No trace of my blood in that boy, as Grandmother always pointed out before she burst out laughing that laugh that I could not remember ever hearing from her before.

In time, Lucas and I would have our little girl, Jasmine Mary Catherine, but not before Matt was already seven and was begging us for a sibling. Now, that little girl had all the amount of my blood that was lacking in our first born. Even at an early age, she would be the headache that I apparently was. Thankfully, Lucas was very patient in dealing with those types of little girls; he has had enough practice when he was young.

Ah, there! Another perquisite of falling in love with and marrying my best friend!

---END---

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AUTHOR'S NOTE: To everyone who followed Lucas and Selene's story, thank you very much! I hope that the ending does not disappoint you. :) I just really wanted to give a little parting gift to my heroine: peace of mind and a clear conscience. I'd love to hear any form of comment/critique. I hope you'll continue to read the stories I'll write in the future. ^_^