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I walk out of the kitchen before she can ask anything else.

***

I tell the boys at four o'clock on Friday afternoon, because I don't trust Miles with a secret for longer than three hours. By the time the car pulls up outside my mother's house, he's nearly vibrating out of his proper shoes, and Wells has elbowed him twice to keep him quiet.

My mother meets us in the front hall. She kisses Blaire on both cheeks, tells her she looks lovely, and announces that dinner is running a little late. Then she gathers both boys by the shoulders and steers them toward the drawing room with a look that tells me I have as long as I need.

"Come with me," I tell Blaire.

"I want to show you something."

I lead her down the corridor to the library and open the doors.

The room is lit only by candles. There are dozens of them on the mantel, along the shelves, and down the length of the long oak table where she used to spread out her files. White roses and peonies fill every surface. And in the center of the room, on a tall easel beneath a single soft light, stands the Reinhardt: Woman at the Window in deep blue and charcoal, the painting that brought Blaire back to London and back to me.

Blaire stops in the doorway. Her hand goes to her mouth.

"Charlotte loaned it to us," I tell her.

"For one night. She said it was the least she could do, and that she expects a full report."

Blaire walks slowly toward the painting, as though she's afraid it might disappear. Then she turns to look at me, and her eyes are already wet.

"Ross," she says. "What is all this?"

I cross the room to stand in front of her.

"The first week you worked in this room," I say, "you found a wrong number on the back of a frame. One handwritten digit that every appraiser for thirty years had missed. You didn't let it go until you'd traced it all the way back to the truth. I remember thinking I'd never met anyone who looked at the world that carefully." I take a breath.

"You've been doing it to me ever since. You found every wrong number in my life, Blaire, and you made me look at every one of them."

She laughs, a small, shaky sound.

"We've settled the schools," I say.

"The house. Your practice. The trustees. We've settled every logistic except the most important one."

She blinks at me. "What's that?"

I take the velvet box from my pocket and go down on one knee.

When I open it, the candlelight catches the sapphire first: deep blue, set in platinum and small diamonds in a clean Art Deco design. I had it made after the brooch she studied so closely in the Kensington archive.

"I've carried this since the week you walked back into my life," I tell her.

"I didn't know whether you'd ever let me give it to you. I only knew I'd spend whatever time it took earning the chance." My voice roughens, and I let it.

"I don't want to build a life around you, Blaire. I want to build it with you. I want every morning, every argument, every decision, and every ordinary day. I want to grow old with you at the center of this family, just as you are. So I'm asking you, not telling you. Blaire Wilson, will you marry me?"

For a moment, she can't speak at all. Tears run freely down her face, and she presses both hands to her chest. Then she nods, and nods again, and finally the word breaks out of her.

"Yes," she says. "Yes, Ross. Yes!”

I slide the ring onto her finger with hands that aren't quite steady, and I rise and pull her into my arms, and she kisses me as though the whole world has narrowed to the two of us and the candlelight.

The library doors burst open.

"She said yes!" Miles shouts, racing across the room and throwing his arms around both of us at once.