“It isn’t one of them. And I am fully in control of my senses. As for your not needing to know, I am afraid I must tell you because you are a necessary party. Ailis, my choice isyou. If you will have me.”
“Me?” She stared at him incredulously. “You are askingmeto marry you?”
Someone behind him let out a shriek.
“I knew you could not be on bended knee again merely to check her sling,” Mrs. Curtis cried out with a joyful laugh.
Jonas turned around to find not only Mrs. Curtis but the vicar, Edward, and his mother standing in the doorway, all of them grinning at him like happy baboons. Behind them were more familiar faces, including those of Grimes and Mrs. Fitch.
Jonas nodded to acknowledge them all before turning back to Ailis. “Well, Miss Temple? Will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
“Yes!” the crowd answered for her before she got in a word.
Ailis looked at him in the softest, most loving way. “I did not think dukes were in the habit of marrying beneath their station.”
He turned serious, standing up and drawing her up beside him. “Ailis, let us be clear about one thing—I may stand taller in height, but you are above me in every respect. Kinder, wiser, gentler. I readily admit you are far better than I deserve. But I want you by my side for now and always. What’s it to be? Are you going to disappoint me and an entire village of your friends?”
She grinned. “I dare not. I would not. Nor can my heart give any answer but yes, I will marry you.”
The spectators cheered.
“I expect everyone realizes by now that I have fallen in love with you,” she continued as the crowd began to filter in to offer their congratulations.
His brother called for champagne, and bottles of it miraculously appeared along with glasses for everyone. “I knew you would ask her tonight,” Edward said, giving Jonas a congratulatory clap on the back after everyone had given their toasts and well wishes. “You did not disappoint. When is the wedding to take place?”
Jonas turned to Ailis. “Is tomorrow too soon?”
She thought he was in jest, but he was not. He ought to have proposed to her years earlier, for he’d felt their attraction from the moment they met. But he was his own worst enemy, was he not? Unable to admit he was not perfect and too busy building prison walls around his heart to ever allow her in.
It had taken her injury during the snowfall to make him realize how wrong he had been to close her out of his life. But having her forced to remain with him for days and days, watching the snowfall and hoping it would never end, had brought home how desperately he needed her and wanted her.
She belonged with him.
They resolved to marry on the eve of the New Year, only five days hence but still an eternity as far as Jonas was concerned. However, it was for practical purposes, since his staff needed to prepare a wedding breakfast and all the villagers were to be invited.
As the crowd dispersed and momentarily left Jonas alone in the parlor with Ailis, she turned to him. “I hope one day you will come to love me as much as I love you. I’ll do my best to be a good wife to you. I—”
“Let me stop you right there.” He wrapped his arms around her. “That day has already arrived. I knew I was hopelessly in love with you when you mouthed off to me on the day of thatheavy snowfall. You put me in my place, and then you were caught in the storm and fell off your horse.”
She winced. “I should not have said those things to you. You were entitled to your privacy.”
“No, I deserved to be told off,” he said with all sincerity. “Once we are married, I hope you will never fear telling me when I am wrong.”
She smiled up at him. “Oh, you need never fear that. I was never good about keeping my opinions to myself. Is this really going to happen, Jonas? I’ve longed for this moment, but never thought it possible.”
“Quite real and going to happen, that is my promise to you.” He drew her closer into the warmth of his embrace. “Are you ready for kiss number ten? This one comes with a marriage proposal and a promise to love and honor you for all of my days. Is that acceptable to you?”
Ailis lifted up on tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek. “It is perfect. And look.” She pointed to the parlor window.
“Snowfall,” he muttered with a laugh, watching the delicate flakes fall softly upon the ground against the moon’s silver glow.
She sighed. “Isn’t it beautiful?”
Ailis was the true thing of beauty on this memorable night, and he told her so as he gave her kiss number ten, which was not an end to their bargain but the beginning of something new and wonderful.
As his mouth captured hers, the last of those walls he had built around himself tumbled and vanished. Gone was the bitterness and private anguish that had chained his heart and held him back from happiness for all these years.
Gone was the need to hide in the shadows.
