"The whole thing ought be just a little more to the right, don't you think, Alex?"

All Alex could think at the moment was that his wife had the finest pair of hips in the entire kingdom.  Two sons, a daughter and another child on its way had only made her more luscious, more beautiful.  Made him lust after her even as she stood beside him in the remains of the old courtyard, little Mary bundled tightly against the chill, and fast asleep on her shoulder.

"Well, Alex?"  She turned all that eager radiance on him, and he was lost again, sublimely in love.  "Don't you think the great hall ought to be rebuilt right here where it was?"

"Indeed it should, my love."  He'd never been able to refuse her a single thing.  From setting his own castle ablaze, to throwing himself on Stephen's mercy, to living gladly in that drafty old manor house for the last eight years. 

And he'd do it all again in a heartbeat, because he was lucky enough to have lived there with her at his side.

Had shared her bed, ate and laughed and loved with her.  Sowed crops and prayed and reaped, and welcomed each of their children with a deeply abiding joy.

"Lissa, look!"  Gemma giggled and pointed to the barbican wall; she was almost thirteen now, yet still prone to girlish fancies.  "You can still see the limewash globs below the step." 

Lissa laughed brightly, fifteen and on the brink of womanhood.  "I think I still have some in my hair, Gemma.  I know Alex does: You can see it there at his temples."

Alex gave her plait a gentle yank.  "Grown permanently white, Lissa, from having to chase the young men away from you."

God help them all, it had been a miracle so far, a haven in the midst of a war.  With Brenna, happily married and a mother now; Fiona, thriving at school in the convent.  Lissa and Gemma still safely at home.

And Kyle--

"Mama!  Papa, look!"

Alex looked toward the ruin of the guardhouse tower and the sound of his son's voice and his heart stopped dead.  

Good God!  Little Gilbert was waving at them from atop the last turn of the stone steps, inches from where the staircase dropped off into the open cellar.  Alex raced toward him.       

"You come down from there immediately, young man!"  Four years old and already as stubbornly independent as his mother. 

"But I see a horse, Papa!"  The boy ran half-way down the steps, then leaped the rest of the way, would have landed in a heap if Alex hadn't scooped him out of the air.

"You'll take care next time, Gil, else you'll find yourself over my knee."  Alex heard his wife's gentle laughter as she came up behind them, knowing he'd never had the heart to lay a hand on his children.  "And if you doubt my intentions, son, someday, when you're old enough, you can ask your mother what I did to her the day that I caught her about to burn down this castle."

Gil's eyes grew wide.  "Mama, what did Papa do to you?" 

Talia laughed.  "Your mean old father married me, my little love, that very day–and Timothy was born some nine months later."  She kissed the boy on the cheek, then landed a softly lingering one on Alex's mouth.  "Now what's this about a horse?"

"And where the devil is your brother?" Alex asked, scanning the tumbled down ramparts for Timothy, their fearless adventurer, for all of his seven years.

"That's what I'm telling you, Papa!"  Gilbert whirled in Alex's arms and jabbed his finger toward the gatehouse.  "Timothy's ridin' a horse."

"Where the devil did he get a horse?"

"Oh, Alex, listen!"  Talia looked expectantly toward the sound, as though she knew far more than she was saying.

He heard it then, too, a familiar voice lifting above the clatter of hooves coming hard up the incline. 

And then a hearty–  "I beg entrance, Carrisford!"

Alex laughed and sent a grin to his wife.  "It's Kyle!"

Her smile was cat-like and ripe with her delicious mysteries.  "Yes, I know."

Alex hardly recognized the large, fiercely-muscled warrior that came cantering through the fallen passage with Timothy whooping and waving from the saddle in front of him.

"We brought Uncle Kyle home for Christmastime, Papa!" Timothy said, "Mama and me!" 

Kyle slipped off his huge horse, slinging Timothy up onto his broad shoulders in a single motion.  It had been only six months since they'd last seen him, but Kyle had grown up completely in that time, a match for his own height, a man now. 

This remarkable brother of his, who suffered Alex's embrace and gave a crushing one of his own.

Talia swallowed back the lump in her throat and watched her dear husband and his darkly handsome brother fall into their easy welcome, her own sons embraced by the pair, included in the jostling.

And Gemma, too, as she joined them at a run.

"Do you suppose the ladies at Stephen's court fight over our Kyle, Talia?" Lissa asked wryly from Talia's elbow. 

But Kyle was on them too in the next breath, waking little Mary with his kisses and his encompassing hugs, a fine young man with an eager heart and a doting family.

And a proudly beaming brother, who came to stand behind her and left a steamy kiss on her ear while all the children jigged and jumped around Kyle.

"I'll be thanking you for this surprise tonight, wife," Alex whispered. 

"And you can be sure that I will collect, my husband."

Kyle managed to drag himself from the fray.  "Ah, before I forget: I bring a Christmastide message for Alex.  From Stephen."

Talia no longer feared these royal communications.  Stephen was still king, yet now at peace with his feuding cousin.  All of the fighting for naught, because in the end, Stephen had named Maud's son, Henry, his heir.

"What does he want now?" Alex asked, popping the royal seal.

"Haven't a hint," Kyle said, lifting the squirming Mary from Talia's arms, bearing up bravely under the three-year-old's sloppy kisses, and the children tugging at him to play.  "Though I've been in the king's service long enough to recognize that wily smile of his."

"Alex, it can't be a charter to rebuild the castle, that came at Michaelmas."  On the very day they'd laid dear old Quigley to rest beside Leod and Jasper.  A fitting peace for her champions.  "What does Stephen say?"

But Alex had gone completely silent, only raised his eyes to hers, holding back something, a smile, chewing on it as he handed her the message.

Very official looking, with the list of Stephen's titles at the top and his seal on the bottom.  And in between– 

"Oh, Alex!  Does he mean it?"  She looked up at her husband, found amusement in his eyes, and vindication.

And the profoundest kind of love.

"I suppose he does, sweet."  Though Alex didn't look quite serious enough for this kind of royal honor as he took her up into his arms and kissed her, letting the message drift to the cobbles.

"You are going to accept, aren't you, Alex.  A grand title: the earldom of Carrisford, castles and fees.  It's what you've always wanted."

His eyes grew damp and starry as he cupped her face between his hands.  "Oh, my dear wife, you are what I've always wanted.  To love you, and be loved by you, to share our days and our nights.  And this sorry old fortress.  And them–"  He nodded toward Kyle and their brood, the man happily beleaguered by the children leading him on a chase.  "And though I've never wondered what might have been, the proof is right here in my heart.  Because, Talia, I haven't the least interest in this title."

"I love you, Alex."  Talia caught back a sob of joy and slipped her arms around his neck, felt his heart leaping against hers.  "But you can't disappoint the king.  He needs you."