“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.