A Timeless Romance Anthology: European Collection (7 page)

A tiny pinprick of hope flickered in her heart. 

“Anna, I almost lost you last night,” Pete said, his voice suddenly thick. “And part of me nearly died too.” He shook his head vehemently. “I can’t risk that ever again. If you’ll have me…” He knelt before her bed and pulled out a small piece of granite with wire clumsily wrapped around it, formed into a makeshift ring. “I’ll find something better when we’re out of this place, but if you’ll give me the honor of your hand, make me the happiest man alive by being my wife, I promise to make you happy, whatever and wherever that means.” He held up the wire and stone and waited expectantly.

Anna blinked, sending tears into her hairline and onto her pillow. She wanted to cry out that yes, of course she’d marry Pete. But doubts made her hopes collapse like a falling house of cards. “I can’t be the wife you deserve.” Even that much tore at her throat.

“Stop that right now.” His jaw tensed, and his nostrils flared. “If anything,
I
don’t deserve to have someone as amazing as
you
. Please.”

Her heart fluttered in her chest, but she had to be sure. “Get Kaisa,” she rasped.

Pete blinked and blinked again. That clearly wasn’t the reaction he’d expected. “What? Why?”

“Just… please.”

He slipped the ring into his shirt pocket and waved Kaisa over. The nurse came into Anna’s view, leaning over the bed.

“Can I get you anything? How is your pain?”

Anna had other ideas. She glanced at Pete then looked at Kaisa again. Painfully, she managed to lift one burned and bandaged hand and motion for Kaisa to draw nearer. Finally, Anna could whisper into the nurse’s ear without Pete hearing.

“Does he pity me?” It was a simple yet loaded question, but one Anna had to know the answer to.

Kaisa pulled back knowingly but stayed close, inches away. She shook her head as she whispered back, “Not as you mean. He has been— how you say— beside himself. Walking up and down hospital, praying, begging God to let you live so he could have one more chance.”

“Does he stay because it would be bad to leave me… wounded and ugly?”

A warm smile spread across Kaisa’s face. “English doesn’t have a strong enough word for
no
to answer that. In Finnish, I would say not just
ei
, but
eikä
. He cannot bear the thought of not being with you for always.”

Warmth flooded Anna’s chest and spread throughout her body. “Thank you,” she said, more mouthing the words than saying them.

Kaisa nodded. “You are very welcome,” she said, straightening.

Pete nearly jumped out of his seat at that. “Please don’t tease me,” he begged of Kaisa. “Do you mean Anna… that she…”

Kaisa just grinned. “Ask her yourself.”

Flushed bright pink, and looking more alive than he had since Anna first saw him in this very room, Pete turned to her and got back on his knee. He held out the ring and silently pleaded. His eyes were ringed with red, and he looked ready to cry. “Please say yes.”

Heart pounding near to bursting, Anna smiled and managed, “Yes, Pete. I’m yours. Always.” She wanted to say so much more, but was too weak.

Her left thumb was the only digit on that hand without a bandage. So he took the “ring” and pried the wire open a bit more then eased it onto her thumb.

“You won’t pity me?” she asked, needing to hear the words from his own mouth even as she looked at her ring.

“Only that you’re tied to a sop like me.” Pete grinned, leaned in, and kissed her long but gently on the lips.

“I’ll follow you anywhere,” she said.

“Even to war, apparently.” Pete chuckled and looked around them. His voice lowered. “You won’t be able to shake me. I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth and back again.”

With one more kiss, Anna’s heart soared, and she knew there was nothing that would make her happier than being married to Pete. No matter where that might take them.

Author’s Note

The Winter War began with a Soviet invasion and air raid on November 30, 1939. More Soviet soldiers crossed the border that first day than the Finns had in their entire army and reserves combined. Stalin claimed the action was in part to protect Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) if Hitler decided to invade.

On the night of December 10, Russians penetrated the Finnish line. As described in the story, the starving soldiers were distracted by sausage soup cooking in the Finnish kitchens. The delay in fighting, during which the Russians ate, allowed the Finns to regroup, get reinforcements, and fight back. Had the Russians continued their attack, the war would likely have ended quickly with a Soviet victory. The events of that night were later dubbed “The Sausage War.”

Soon after the Winter War began, the League of Nations kicked out the Soviet Union, and the world’s attention turned to cheering on plucky little Finland battling Soviet Goliath. The Finns held on, refusing to surrender as they waited for promised aid from many countries. No significant aid ever arrived.

The Finns paid a high price for resisting Stalin. Under the terms of the ceasefire, they lost hundreds of square miles, which to this day are under Russian control. But even Stalin couldn’t call the result a victory. First and foremost, he lost the respect of the world at the expense of his people. Khrushchev later quipped that Russia got just enough land to bury their dead, and he estimated their losses at a million soldiers over the 105-day conflict.

Thanks to their
sisu
, Finland became the only country bordering the Soviet Union to retain its freedom and never fall to communist rule.

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Annette Lyon is a Whitney Award winner, a two-time recipient of Utah’s Best in State medal for fiction, and the author of ten novels, a cookbook, and a grammar guide as well as over a hundred magazine articles. She’s a senior editor at Precision Editing Group and a cum laude graduate from BYU with a degree in English. When she’s not writing, editing, knitting, or eating chocolate, she can be found mothering and avoiding the spots on the kitchen floor. Find her online at
http://blog.annettelyon.com
and on Twitter:
@AnnetteLyon

by G.G. Vandagriff 

Chapter One

England—1817

Lady Melissa Burroughs, Countess of Oaksey, repeated her new name to herself as her husband’s carriage bowled through the countryside on its way back to London from Gretna Green.

“Happy?” he asked, his gloved hand over hers, his luminous dark eyes warm with their new intimacy.

“Blissfully,” she assured him, putting her other hand on top of his.

“You do not regret that you have not had a grand wedding in Town, but only an uneducated blacksmith’s service over the anvil?”

Melissa thought about this before replying. “I think not, Thomas. If you knew my mother, you would understand why I have always dreamed of eloping.” She smiled and teased his irresistible dimple with her fingertip. “Our marriage concerns the two of us, not yards of satin, Mama’s megrims, or Papa’s bombast. Besides, I am very put out with him for having tried to marry me off to Lord Trowbridge, who did not love me in the least. It will take me a long time to forgive Papa for that.”

“Now
he
must forgive
you
for marrying me.”

“That will not be a problem,” she teased him merrily.

“Even though I am virtually a pauper?”

Melissa was startled. How could she not have known this fact? Probably because she had not spent time with the earl above three or four times before he suggested they elope, thus escaping her forced engagement to the man who wanted to marry her best friend. Lord Trowbridge had supposedly compromised her, but it had all been a misunderstanding, and Melissa could not bear to stand between him and Sophie.

All she
had
thought about was how vastly pleasant it would be to marry this man. His mere presence made her heart glad; his slightest touch enflamed her.

Now a horrible thought assailed Melissa. It surely should have occurred to her before now!
Did Thomas elope with me to secure my fortune?

No. He could not have. Her father had kept the amount of her dowry a secret. There was no way Thomas or anyone among the
ton
could have known she had thirty thousand pounds.

Melissa released the breath she had been holding. “Papa sets a great store by rank. He pushed for a marriage to Viscount Trowbridge even before my supposed indiscretion. He will be thrilled that his daughter is a countess. I suppose it is too much to expect that you are a fire-breathing Whig?”

“I am afraid so. My family have been Tories for eons.”

It seemed very odd to Melissa that she did not know such basic things about him, even though the night before had provided her with intimate knowledge of another sort. She began to feel uneasy. Had she been so elated to find a way out of the engagement her father had forced upon her that she had made a mistake? Taking another deep breath, she put the thought firmly behind her.