Since then, their courtship had been as sweet and tender as ever—but not entirely chaste.
Minerva put her arm through his, and they resumed walking down the path. “I’m not deterred. I’ll find some other way to publish my findings.”
“We’ll find a way. If you can wait five more weeks, I’ll celebrate my birthday by printing a copy for every household in England.”
She smiled. “A few hundred copies would do, and there’s no need to rush. Francine’s footprint survived in that cave for millions of years. I can wait a bit longer to make my own mark.”
“Would it help if I tell you there’s already a deep, permanent, Minerva-sized footprint on my heart?”
“Yes.” She kissed his cheek, savoring that hint of cloves from his shaving soap. “Do you have any business this afternoon? I was hoping to spend a few hours poking through the Riverchase library.”
He didn’t answer for a moment. “If an afternoon in the library is your desire, you shall have it. But I confess, I had something else in mind.”
“Truly? What’s that?”
“A wedding.”
Minerva nearly dropped her posy of flowers. “Whose wedding?”
“Ours.”
“But we can’t—”
“We can. The vicar’s read the banns in the parish church three times now. I sent him a note before I left the house this morning, and I asked the butler to ready the chapel. By the time we return, all should be ready.”
Minerva blinked at him. He’d been planning this? “But I thought we agreed to wait until after your birthday.”
His arms went around her, wreathing loosely about her waist. “I know, but I can’t. I simply can’t. I slept well last night. But when I woke this morning, I missed you so intensely. I don’t even know how to describe the sensation. I looked at the other pillow, and it just seemed wrong that you weren’t there. As though I’d woken up missing my own arm, or half of my heart. I felt incomplete. So I rose, and dressed, and I just started walking toward you—because I couldn’t move in any other direction. And then there you were, walking toward me. Flowers in hand.”
Emotion glimmered in his eyes, and he touched her cheek. “This isn’t a whim. I simply can’t stand to spend another day apart. I want you to share my life and my home, and . . .” He cinched her tight, drawing her body in exquisite contact with his. He bent his head, pressing kisses to the soft place beneath her ear. “And I want you to share my bed. As my wife. Tonight.”
His kisses made her dizzy with longing. She clung to him tight. “Colin.”
“I love you, Min. I love you so much, it terrifies me. Say you’ll marry me today.”
She pulled back a little. “I . . .” Swallowing hard, she ran a trembling hand down her butter-yellow muslin. “I should at least change my frock.”
“Don’t you dare.” He shook his head, framing her waist in his hands. “You’re perfect. Utterly perfect, just as you are.”
Emotion swelled in her heart and thickened her throat. She felt like pinching herself, just to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. But she never could have dreamed something so wonderful. She was perfect. He was perfect. This moment was perfect. She was afraid to speak, for fear of ruining it somehow.
Don’t pause to think. Just run down the slope.
“Yes,” she finally blurted out. “Yes. Let’s get married.”
“Today?”
“This very hour.” A giddy grin stretched her cheeks, and she couldn’t hold back the pure joy any longer. She launched herself at him, flinging her arms around his neck. “Oh, Colin, I love you so much. I can’t possibly tell you. I’ll try to show you, but I’ll need years.”
He chuckled. “We have decades, darling. Decades.”
Five minutes’ hasty walk saw them to the chapel door. While Colin went to find the vicar and round up a few servants as witnesses, Minerva passed into the small churchyard and came to stand before a slab of flawless granite, polished to a mirror gleam.
She stood there for a long minute, unsure how to begin. Then she took a deep breath and dabbed a tear from her cheek.
“I’m so sorry we’ll never meet,” she whispered, laying her posy atop the late Lord and Lady Payne’s grave. “But thank you. For him. I promise, I’ll love him as fiercely as I can. Kindly send down some blessings when you can spare them. We’ll probably need them, from time to time.”
By the time she left the churchyard and rounded the chapel corner, she caught sight of Colin leading the vicar, butler, and house servants marching in a bemusement-day parade. Holding open the door, he waved them all into the chapel.
“Come along, now,” he said, tapping his boot with impatience.
When the rest had all filed in, and only the two of them were left standing at the door, he caught Minerva’s gaze. “Ready?”
She nodded, breathless. “If you are.”
“I’ve never been so sure of anything.” He reached for her hand and kissed it. “You belong beside me, Min. And I belong beside you. I know it in my heart. I feel it in my soul. I’m certain, in every possible way.”
And he’d never been more handsome.
“Certainty becomes you,” she said.
Smiling, he laced her arm through his, leading her into the chapel.
And that was how the grand, epic story of their future—the tale they’d tell friends and dinner party guests and grandchildren for decades to come—ended. Just as a proper fairy tale should. With a romantic wedding, a tender kiss . . .
And the promise of happily ever after.