I can say that I have fallen deeper in love with you today, knowing the sort of man you are.

Jane, you are my confidante, my helpmate, my friend. My lover. You are everything the word wife means to me. In my heart, we are wed. In my soul, you are mine.

She was breathtaking in her beauty and her human spirit, he thought, unable to speak as he gazed upon her. Hers was the sort that would not fade or grow jaded with time and years, but flourish, grow more radiant with life and its experience. Hers was a beauty that no other possessed. A beauty he longed to keep, to hide away, to bask in, himself alone. She had become his. He didn’t know when, whether it had been the moment her fingertips had touched him when he was hurt, or if it had grown, like a seed, slowing spreading until Jane had become the root anchoring the shattered pieces of his heart, pulling them tight together until it resembled the organ it should.

Christ, he was empty, just a shell of himself. He had nothing to give, not even his seed.

Why?” he screamed, letting the noise bellow out loud and ferocious. “Why can I not have some measure of peace?” he questioned.

As he looked around the huge ducal bed,
he saw everything that meant the world to him.
Outside the sky was darkening and the snow was falling. Through misty
eyes, Matthew looked up, saw the moon glowing brilliantly and whispered,
“thank you.”
It was simple, but heartfelt. Never had a man been more grateful than that
very moment when everything was utter perfection. With his family and his wife
pressed up against him.