“Oh,” she said, and her eyes were bright and she was blinking them, but one tear trickled down her cheek anyway. “Am I, Justin? The light of your life? Do I make you happy? You were quite right in the summerhouse that first time, you know. I have been waiting for love and wondering if it would ever happen for me and if I would recognize it if it did. I am glad I have waited, for I have found it at last—and recognized it. I do love you so much.”
“Broken nose and all?” he asked.
She tipped her head to the side again and regarded it with a frown. “Would I love you more if it were straight and ordinary?” she said. “No, I think not, though I never saw it that way, of course. I like it extraordinary. It adds character.” She looked up into his eyes and smiled with exaggerated radiance, and he laughed.
Captain, stretched out on the bridge beside them, chin upon his paws, woofed but did not move.
“It was ignominiously acquired,” he said.
“No, it was not,” she protested. “You had spoken up in defense of a woman who could not speak up for herself.”
“Actually,” he said, “the landlady of the tavern wasalready on her way to the offender to box him about the ears before evicting him. Wes was on his way too, to help him out faster with a boot to his rear end. I got in their way.”
“The accidental hero,” she said. “Myhero.”
And they gazed at each other while the humor receded—the lovely humor that promised light and laughter down the years of the future, however many were allotted them.
“Estelle,” he said, raising her hands to hold them palm in against his chest. “Are you really going to marry me?”
“I really am,” she said while Captain woofed again and raised his head.
And the reality of it hit Justin. She was going to be his wife, his countess. His lover. The mother of any children with whom they might be gifted. He moved his head closer to hers. But her eyes had gone beyond him, and it occurred to him that Captain did not woof for no reason.
“We have company,” Estelle said.
The twin, Justin saw when he looked over his shoulder. Standing at the end of the bridge, looking steadily at them.
“Tell me,” Watley said. “Is this a very late-night walk or a very early-morning pilgrimage to watch the sunrise?”
His room was next to Estelle’s. And they had that odd twin connection even though they were not identical. They were differentgenders, for the love of God. He had no doubt heard the soft knock on her door last night. His room faced east. He had probably seen them making their way to the summerhouse. Perhaps he had stood in his window all night waiting to see them return. Justin would not have put it past him.
“Tell me,” Justin said. “In what way is the answer any of your business?”
Estelle gave a little huff of what might have been laughter.
“It is not,” Watley said amiably. “I just thought it a moreoriginal conversation opener than a comment upon the weather.”
“Was any conversation opener necessary?” Justin asked. “Have you ever heard the one about three being a crowd?”
Rather than look abashed, Watley grinned. “You are going to have to get used to it, old chap,” he said. “That is my twin whose hands you have trapped against your chest. Whom you were about to kiss, if I am not much mistaken. In what is now broad daylight. For every servant and house guest to see.”
“They are all very welcome,” Justin told him. “So would you have been if you had kept your distance. I have asked Estelle to marry me. She has said yes. I was indeed about to kiss her. I am curiously unashamed of the fact. I take unkindly to having been interrupted.”
“Are you quite sure, Stell?” Watley asked, looking beyond Justin. He was still grinning.
“I am quite, quite sure,” she said. And she, Justin saw when he looked at her, was grinning back at her brother.
You are going to have to get used to it, old chap.
“Then you must allow me to congratulate you,” Watley said, striding onto the bridge and drawing his sister away from Justin and into a tight hug. He turned then to offer his hand to Justin. “I believe she will be happy with you, Brandon. She would not have said yes if she was not quite certain she would be. Nor would she have made this such a late night—with the sun already up on a new day.”
“Notyour business, Bert,” she said.
“I suppose,” he said, “I had better make myself scarce now.”
“Oh, Bert,” she said. “There was a letter in the safe with all the jewelry. Addressed to Justin. From his father.”
“Ah,” Watley said.
