“You haven’t asked me to marry you. Until you do that, and I accept, we aren’t engaged.”
Alden looked at me with his now two black eyes.“You don’t think I’d marry you after everything we’ve been through?”
“Of course I do.”
“Then you don’t want to marry me.” Instantly, his body language changed. He went into full awkward mode.
“Trouble in paradise,” the narrator yelled. “He wants to marry her, but she doesn’t want him.”
The boos that met that statement were so loud, they echoed in our chamber.
“I do want to marry him,” I told the guy at the wall. “But I want a proper proposal.”
“My bad,” he called out to the crowd. “She does want him.”
Alden sighed and, with a groan, tried to go down on one knee. He ended up just kneeling in front of me, taking my hand in his. “Mercedes whatever-your-middle-name-is Starling, will you save me from being an inarticulate lump of social anxiety, and marry me?”
Love filled every last inch of me. “Yes, Emanuel Alden Ainslie, I will.”
“He just proposed,” the narrator yelled. “She accepted.”
Another cheer could be heard.
“Now he’s trying to get up. Oh, he’s down, flat on his face. She’s helping him up. So is Vandal. They have him on the stool, and she’s kissing him. He’s giving me the thumbs-up. I think it’s all good.”
Another cheer could be heard, this one including what I assumed were some ribald suggestions, if the laughter that followed was anything to go by.
“He’s got his hand on her arse now, and she’s stroking his thigh—”
I stopped kissing Alden, and glared at the man.
He grinned and turned back to the crack. “My work here is done! Let us go celebrate with ale and wenches!”
A cheer so loud it made bits of dust flake off the wall shook the entire cave.
We waited until the medics arrived to check Tamarind, and take her away, saying she’d suffered a slight concussion. Several more police arrived, but by then, we were out in the cave proper, where there was room for everyone who was tramping back and forth while they led out Barry and his cohorts, and dismantled the meth lab.
“We will want a full statement,” one of the cops told us, but, after seeing Alden’s face, added, “You can do that tomorrow.”
“Thank you,” I said, leading my tired warrior out of the cave. He was limping, his face was battered, he had numerous bruises, swellings, and a few scratches, but otherwise, he was relatively unhurt.
“Just get me home and into a hot tub,” he said when I suggested driving him to the hospital. The medics had said there was nothing they could do for him, but I thought they were being a bit callous. “Then I’ll be able to reciprocate.”
I paused as we started up the many stairs to the top of the cliff. “Reciprocate a bath?”
“No.” His cracked and split lips moved in a stiff smile. “It’s my turn to use the leather cuffs on you.”
“You have remarkable staying power,” I told him as I slid my arm around his waist, helping him up the steps. “But I’m not sure if even you could survive the sort of attentions I want to give you tonight.”
“Just you wait and see, Nancy Drew. I’ll surprise you yet.”
I smiled, and decided that although he probably wouldn’t be up to romping with the restraints, there was no reason I couldn’t show him how much fun a bath for two could be. “You’re on, my darling Ned. You are so very on.”
Epilogue
“And this is, of course, the famed verandah of the famed Ainslie Castle, with the famed west view of the Roman dig site.”
“Famous!” I said, giggling a little as Alice, Lady Ainslie, led me out of the house onto a stone verandah that was dotted with a couple of round glass tables. At one, a woman who had been introduced to me as Alden’s sister-in-law Lorina sat with her stepdaughter, a charming, if talkative, girl in her late teens.
