“Because you’re the only wife I want, Wachiwi.” He got down on one knee then, next to the bench where she was sitting, and took her hand in his own. “Will you marry me?” And then he added what he had wanted to say for months, and hadn’t even allowed himself to feel. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” she said softly, lowering her eyes. She had known it for months too, and loved every moment she spent with him, and his children, but she had never dared to think that her feelings for him would be returned.

He took her in his arms then and kissed her hard. They sat on the bench talking for a long time, making plans. By the time they walked back to the château, they had agreed to marry in Paris in June, with the children present, and he would present her at court as the Marquise de Margerac the next day.

They told the children when they got back to the house, and Agathe and Matthieu jumped all over the nursery laughing and shouting and they both kissed Wachiwi. The governess slipped quietly out of the room then, and gave her notice the next morning. The children were thrilled about that too. But most of all they were thrilled that Wachiwi would be their mother now, and so was she. They didn’t want a governess anymore, they had her. Forever. And Tristan did too.

Chapter 16

For the next two months, Tristan and Wachiwi rode together, walked in the gardens, made plans, had dinner in the dining room every night, and talked endlessly of all the things they hoped to do in the future. He wanted children with her, but he admitted that he was terrified that he would lose her as he had Agathe and Matthieu’s mother.

“That won’t happen,” she reassured him. “I am very strong.”

“So was she,” he said sadly. “Sometimes bad things happen when you least expect them.” She knew that was true, she had learned that with Jean, and all that had happened to her before that. She had never expected to be kidnapped by the Crow. And she always wondered what had become of her father after she left. She didn’t know and never would.

“It won’t happen to us,” she said quietly. She felt sure of it. She wanted to have his babies. She was surprised that nothing had occurred with Jean in the few months they had been together. She hoped that she wasn’t like one of those women in the village who never produced children. They had been looked upon as defective and freaks of nature. And she wanted to have a child of their own soon. She loved Agathe and Matthieu, but she wanted to carry Tristan’s children, as many as she could have. “Perhaps by this time next year, I will be able to give you a son,” she said, looking proud in anticipation of it, and then a cloud passed over her eyes. “Would you mind if we call him Jean, in honor of your brother?”

“I would like that very much,” he said quietly. He knew that she had loved him, but he wasn’t troubled by it. He felt now as though his brother had brought her home for him, that it was what destiny had wished. And although Wachiwi had loved him, she had told Tristan that she loved him more. She had never really known what love was, she said, until him. She had still been a girl when she and Jean met at the lake, innocent and foolish to take such enormous risks. Now she felt like a woman, wise, and strong, and sure of what she felt for Tristan. She was his.

The next two months passed quickly, and in June, Wachiwi and Tristan and the children set out for Paris. Agathe slept on her lap much of the time, and to keep him entertained on the long trip, Matthieu rode with the coachman. And finally, very late on a warm summer night, they reached their home in Paris. All the servants were waiting for them, the house was filled with flowers, and everything was ready for their wedding the next day. Handwritten invitations had gone out weeks before to Tristan’s closest friends in Paris. Because it was his second marriage and his brother had died within the year, they wanted to keep the wedding small.

The children went to the nursery, and the housekeeper stayed with them. Wachiwi couldn’t sleep, she was too excited. She kept thinking of how she had gotten here, and how blessed she was to belong to Tristan now. She could hardly wait to become truly his, in the eyes of God, and man, and in his arms as well. She wasn’t an innocent girl this time. She was a warm, loving woman and wanted to welcome him into her heart, her body, and her life. She was a passionate woman, and beneath Tristan’s cool exterior, his desire had been smoldering for her for months. Only respect for his late brother and Wachiwi had kept him silent for so long. He was standing in his room that night, looking out the window, and thinking that in the morning, the most beautiful girl in the world would be his.

He left for the church before her, and she came a few minutes later with the children in the carriage. He had asked two of his closest friends to serve as witnesses, since Wachiwi had no one in France except Tristan and his children. The ceremony was Catholic in a tiny chapel on the rue du Bac, close to the house. She had asked to become Catholic and had been studying with a priest in Brittany for the past two months. She had been baptized before their wedding. She wanted to do anything to please him.

Their friends attended them at the wedding, and his children stood beside them, and Wachiwi held Agathe’s hand as Tristan looked into her eyes in a way no other man had before. Matthieu stood solemnly next to his father. And Agathe held her bouquet of lily of the valley as Tristan took Wachiwi’s hand.

They said their vows, and he slipped a narrow diamond band on her finger. He had given her a large emerald ring as well, but this was the one she knew she would always wear. She was wearing a white satin dress that the queen herself had lent her when she heard about the marriage. She said she had so many dresses like it that it was nothing to her to give this one to Wachiwi for her wedding. And she still hadn’t lost all the weight from the baby she’d had three months before. And as they walked out of the church together as man and wife, Wachiwi looked as beautiful as any queen. The Marquise de Margerac, a chief’s daughter of the Sioux nation, had come home.

They all had lunch at the house together, and that night it was filled with friends and well-wishers dancing and drinking champagne. They stayed until early in the morning, and when Wachiwi and Tristan finally walked upstairs to their bedroom, she felt as though she had belonged to him all her life. She had been born for him, in a Sioux village far from here, and she had come across a continent and an ocean, for this moment in time, and this man. She looked up at him once he closed the door to their bedroom, and gently slipped the white satin dress off her shoulders. It took some doing, but finally it fell to the floor, and a few minutes later he saw her, just as Jean had, when he discovered her at the lake in all her naked beauty. Her skin shimmered in the moonlight, as she reached her arms out to him, and he gently laid her on their bed.

It was the moment they had both waited for and desperately wanted, the moment when they became one body and one soul, when she was truly his. He melted into her as though there had never been another time, another place. They lay together and clung to each other and later knew they had become one forever that night as the sun came up. He was her destiny, and now at last she was his.

They stayed in Paris for three days after that. She was presented at court as the Marquise de Margerac the day after the wedding, and everyone cheered and called when the crier said her name. Rivers of champagne were poured, and she danced with Tristan all night, and once with the king. Tristan had given her dancing lessons in Brittany in preparation for this day.

Her wedding day had been the happiest day of her life, and her presentation at court as his wife completed it. Marie Antoinette had been equally excited for her, and had embraced her warmly, admiring a new dress Wachiwi wore that Tristan had ordered. It was a brilliant red brocade and looked incredible with her skin and hair. And she was wearing a ruby necklace that had been his mother’s. They went home together late that night, and discovered the wonders of each other’s bodies again.

They took the children all over Paris, and then went back to Brittany. They almost hadn’t gone back to court before they left, but Wachiwi thought they should and convinced Tristan to do so. He was in such good spirits after their wedding, he didn’t mind. He wanted to do whatever his bride wanted, and knew she was right to pay their respects to the king and queen before they left town again, and they both realized afterward that her impulse to do so had been destiny. There was a Dakota Sioux chief being presented at court when they arrived.

He was a tall, imposing-looking man, younger than her father, with fierce eyes, but he smiled when he saw her and so did she. He said he had met her once with her father when she was a child, although she didn’t remember him. But he knew her father well and she recalled his name. He was Chief Wambleeska, White Eagle, and two of his sons had made the trip with him to France. In a combination of court garb and native dress, the three men were an impressive sight, and Chief White Eagle began speaking to her in Dakota as soon as they were introduced. It made Wachiwi’s heart ache to hear it, and long more than ever for her father and brothers. She had to fight back tears as they spoke.

Within a few minutes she asked him if he had news of her father. Chief White Eagle had made reference to her kidnapping by the Crow and said that the death of their chief had become legend among the Dakota Sioux. She was thought to have become a spirit after she vanished, and he was stunned to see her here.