“I was hungry,” he said. Then he put his hand into the pocket of his coat and drew out a napkin-wrapped shape that looked suspiciously like another ham sandwich. “But I’ll give ye my whole sandwich to make up for it.”
“Alasdair, your coat pocket!” Indeed, the pocket, composed of a patch of matching tweed on top of the tweed of his great coat was half-hanging down. “When we get back to the house, don’t give your coat back to the butler Andrews, give it to me, and I’ll fix your pocket for you in a jiffy.”
“Aye,” he said.
“And I’m not hungry anymore. I wantyouto eat your sandwich.”
“Nae,” he said and tucked the napkin-wrapped sandwich into his other pocket. “I’m not as hungry as I thought.”
They took more steps forward in the snow. Six of Arabella’s steps for perhaps three of Alasdair’s.
He cleared his throat. She looked over at him. He was squinting with the reflection of the sun on the snow.
“Ye know what ye said about my pocket?”
“That I would fix it for you?”
“Aye.”
They trudged forward.
“What would ye say to the idea of having as much time as ye like to fix it?”
“But it won’t really take that long, Alasdair.”
He stopped walking and turned toward her so she stopped walking, too. His eyes were fixed on the snow between them.
“Nae, I’m saying, what do ye think about having the rest of yer life to fix my coat pocket?”
Oh.
Oh.
It was here.
Shethoughtit was here.
But after her misunderstanding last night perhaps she better make sure he didn’t really mean to make her his eternal seamstress.
“What do you mean, Alasdair?”
He raised his eyes to hers.
“The evening Lord Morpeth became so ill. When we were in my room. Ye said ... Ye said that ye had thrown it all away. Being married, having children. But that’s not true.”
“No, I suppose it isn’t. I could have married Boyd Cormack.”
“Ye could marry me.”
He had said it. Almost. Not quite. But, oh, so very, very close. If she wanted to, she could pretend to herself that he had said it. But no. This was going to be her one and only proposal from Alasdair Andrews. She was going to make him say it. Actually, she was going to make him say both things.
She took a step in the snow toward him and stood on her tiptoes and reached up and brushed back the lock of hair that hung in front of his left eye.
“Could I?”
He grabbed her wrist.
“Would ye marry me?”
