"Brain smarts," Tessa replied obliviously, and brandished a long match.
Warning bells pealed in my head. "Maybe you should show me how the Rube Goldberg machine is supposed to work first before you… light it."
"For Mercia!" Tessa shouted. She struck the match against the box, and as it flared to life, she hurried across the clearing to where I now saw she'd set up a fuse that connected to…
"My candles!" I put my hands on my hips and started toward her, but Benjamin put his hands on my shoulders and held me back.
"Let's let the hoyden finish her project. I'm sure it was enriching or… something," he offered.
I rotated pursed lips his way. "That was seven hundred dollars' worth of candles, you know."
He blanched. "Seven hundred? How much are you charging for those things?"
"They're handmade with real beeswax; clearly they would be?—"
Tessa cleared her throat loudly, bending over the fuse that was sticking out from a metal box. "Focus, please."
"Oh my God. Tessa, you didn't use themalldid you?" I asked weakly.
Tessa lit the fuse, which sparked and retreated rapidly. "Behold!" she shouted. But then she ran across the clearing like she'd lit a bomb, and I took a hesitant step back. Benjamin held me, steady even as Tessa streaked past us. The fuse caught on another one, and then another, and like a tree branch extending through the clearing, I watched in some awe as the many strands of fuses lit hidden candles. Dozens of them. A whole box's worth, actually. Each candle winked into existence as the fuse flared past it, and suddenly, the grove lit up with dancing fairy lights. She had placed them on tree stumps, wedged between branches, and all around the enclosed clearing.
I turned around in a slow circle, my mouth dropping open. "Tessa, how did you—what made you think to do this?"
"It's pretty, right?" she asked behind me.
I took in the sight of the flickering candles, and then I belatedly realized that, unlike her usual devil-may-care experiments, she had thought this one through. The candles were all in glass votives, surrounded by sand and placed safely so they truly wouldn't be a fire hazard. And they were beautiful. Romantic even. I smiled, chuckling. "This is lovely, Tess. Although it does look a little like a cliche proposal setup."
Behind me, Benjamin sighed loudly, like he was disappointed. I whirled around to find him on one knee. He had a ring box in one hand and a beleaguered expression on his handsome features. "'Cliche?' Really? We made a Rube Goldberg machine. With fire."
I stared, speechless. Tessa threw up her hands from behind him. "No one appreciates our genius."
"Yeah," Benjamin agreed, his mouth twitching.
"I do," Nan said, emerging from the path and escorted by Dr. Wells. She panned a look of appreciation over the clearing. "Oh, it's enchanting. Well done, you."
"Thank you," Benjamin said. "Enchanting, yes. That was the idea."
My brain had gone blank. I was having trouble processing exactly what was happening, here. "What was the idea?" I asked, my voice distant.
Benjamin opened the black velvet box, and a diamond winked in the candlelight. "To ask you a question."
"Oh my God." I pressed my fingers to my mouth, my heart leaping to a panicked rhythm. "No, you're not."
"I kind of put a lot of effort into it actually, yes." He gave me that dimpled, lopsided smile that always gave me arrhythmia.
"I'm not sure I'd call this a Rube Goldberg machine," Wells pointed out, his British accent a little heavier after the months he'd spent in England with his family. After Margot had passed, he'd disappeared to his family home, and Benjamin had taken over propelling his research forward and finding investors. I hadn't seen Dr. Wells in months. Was he here for this? For…
Oh, God.
"Not the point," Benjamin tossed over his shoulder with a squint. Returning his focus to me, he reached out his free hand. "Evelyn, come here." My feet obeyed, but my mind whirled. When he took my hand in his, he caressed the back softly. "Evie, these past several months have been the warmest, happiest I can remember… and I need you to stop looking at me like that because I'm starting to think you're going to turn and run."
"Is that an option?" I rasped out.
His hand tightened along with his mouth. "No."
"Oh my God," I repeated dumbly.
"She doesn't look very happy," Tessa observed loudly. Nan shushed her.
