He strode to her and took her in his arms. “I thought you had gone home,” he said in a ragged whisper, relieved when she did not attempt to push away.
Instead, she rested her head against his chest. “I meant to, but Hawthorne is still out there. I cannot walk out your front door, and I am not tall enough to make it over the garden wall without assistance. I want to get away from you both.”
But she did not appear eager to move out of his arms.
He was not going to point this out to her.
“Don’t leave. I will humbly get down on bended knee and apologize to you as many times as it takes. Seeing how bad I have made you feel just destroys me.”
“You needn’t get down on one knee,” she said with a sniffle. “I think I need to learn how to be tougher.”
“No, you are perfect as you are.”
She laughed. “I doubt that.”
“The world is filled with boors and selfish oafs. Petty, narrow-minded fools. Thieves and cheats. For every thousand of them, there is one treasure…you. You are the ray of sunlight on a grim day. The one who smiles when all others are frowning. Don’t change a thing about yourself, Berry. There is no one finer than you.”
The tension appeared to flow out of her as she peered up at him and cast him the smile that he would give a king’s ransom to see every day for the rest of his life. “My friends insisted on holding our tea society meetings at my home every Thursday this month.”
“I noticed.”
“We could have switched to someone else’s home. I could have insisted on it, but I did not. We were all watching you. We could not wait to see you climbing up the ladder or standing on the roof. That was not very nice of us, the way we ogled you.”
“You didn’t do it in front of me.”
“No, we did it behind your back. And I let them do it. And I did it myself.”
“Berry, is this your way of forgiving me for the prank Bonham and I pulled on you?”
She nodded.
He gave her a chaste kiss on the forehead. “Thank you.”
She stared up at him with her gorgeous, soft eyes. “Will you forgive me?”
He laughed. “I was never angry with you. Those seven faces pasted to your window every Thursday pretty much gave you away. I would have said something if I were peeved.”
“But it was not nice of us. Weren’t you the littlest bit perturbed?”
He held her gently by her shoulders now. “Berry, if I told you more about my life after leaving the orphanage, I would have youcrying again. What you did was not proper bytonstandards, but harmless to me. I have encountered far worse. Can we leave it at that?”
She gave a reluctant nod.
“Will you help me make my home elegant?”
She nodded again.
Will you marry me?
Chapter Seven
Before Berry lefthis home an hour later, she wrote out a detailed list of paint colors for each room in his house. “Have your painter bring samples tomorrow. Just the samples of each.”
“Why not a full supply? Then his crew can start right away.”
“Because the colors must be perfect before I give him the nod. I’d like to see how they look on the walls in daylight and in the evening, especially the ballroom. I need to imagine how the chandeliers will reflect the candlelight.”
Gideon smiled. “All right. You’re in charge.”
