“He will.” Olivia dragged him back. “And you will desist from using coarse language at such a pivotal moment in Galahad and Vee’s long and much-too-protracted romance.”
Gal supposed it was pivotal and had been a long time coming.
“Venus Merriwell…” He shuffled toward her in his blanket, then dropped to one knee before her. “… you have always been the fly in my ointment and the itch I couldn’t scratch…”
“Didn’t I tell you that they were destined for each other,” Olivia interrupted, nudging first Minerva and then Diana. “I havethe eye.”
“Shut up, woman,” said Jeremiah in a stage whisper out of the corner of his mouth. “This is Vee’s moment, not yours!”
Venus sniggered and he did, too, because this was about as unconventional a proposal as their first meeting had been.
“… from the moment you first flattened me, you’ve botheredme…” He took her hand, and in the absence of a ring kissed her ring finger. “… but it turns out that I do love nothing in the world so well as you—isn’t that strange?”
“What a lovely thing to say.” Minerva sighed.
“It’s not his—he stole it from Shakespeare.” Giles had always loved the theater. “FromMuch Adoif I’m not mistaken.” That earned him a jab in the ribs from Diana.
“It’s her favorite,” sighed Olivia.
“Don’t mind us,” said Hugh by way of an apology as he scowled at his mother. “Please continue.”
“You’ll have to say it quick to get a word in edgewise in this family.” Venus stroked his cheek with her free hand, tears in her eyes.
But as he couldn’t ask her with her arm in the air, he stood and helped her fix the sleeve. He tossed the mangled stays to one side and righted her distracting spectacles. Then he tugged her into his arms. “So what say you to marrying me, Venus? Not because you have to—but because you want to.”
“I want to.” She kissed him. “I want you.” The next kiss was deeper. “I suspect I always have.”
“We are too late for a Christmas wedding, but with some finagling we could have them up the aisle by New Year’s. At St. George’s, seeing as we are all in town. Madame Devy can make the dress and…”
As everyone groaned at Olivia divvying up the errands she suddenly needed run to get them hitched fast, Gal kissed the woman of his dreams. As usual, she ended it before he was ready, and stared into his eyes.
Into his heart.
Into his soul.
“What profound and wise words would your grandpa have to say about all this, Galahad?”
“Oh, I know exactly what he’d say.” He tugged her back, laughing. “He’d tell me to go put some goddamn clothes on.”
Epilogue
While I am sad to be leaving our cozy little apartment above the club, and all the happy memories we made there, I am beyond excited about the new house and cannot wait to move in. That is, if my vexing husband ever finishes planning where he wants Mr. Evans to put the dratted staircase…
—from the diary of Mrs. Venus Sinclair, aged 27
“It’s so much smaller than I remember.” Vee stood in the center of the dilapidated room, taking it all in while the memories assaulted her. Some were good, most were bad, but they were all part of who she was regardless, so she embraced them all.
Minerva frowned at the thick layer of dust covering the tatty windows. “It’s so much more dingy than I remember. But I see the stain is still there.” She pointed to the big, brown smudge on the cracked ceiling. “You’d have thought after ten years the landlord would have had the roof patched.”
It had been a decade since they’d left these depressing rooms in Clerkenwell, and it felt like a lifetime. For nostalgia’s sake, they had come to visit it one last time together before it was all torn down.
“It’s every bit as dreadful as I remember, so good riddance to it.”Diana had always been the least sentimental of the three of them. “If somebody wants to fetch me a hammer, I’d happily knock the place down myself right now. Better still, I’m going to do some digging on our old landlord as he deserves shooting for charging desperate people rent for this!” Her middle sister still worked atThe London Tribuneand still crusaded against all the wrongs in the world. A happy marriage, two children, and a thriving Shropshire estate hadn’t dampened that passion. Only nowadays, two other anonymous crusaders helped her write the Sentinel’s feared column while the one-legged reprobate Dalton did the legwork.
“I think what you are doing with the place is so fitting, Vee.” Like her, Minerva had let it all go. It was such a blessing to see her older sister so happy after all the years she had struggled to keep the family afloat and raise Vee at the same time. It had taken a few years, but she had finally picked up her art again, and instead of carving woodcuts for a pittance, Minerva now painted landscapes in between raising her own three boys. She’d even sold a few—or rather Payne, the Standishes’ loyal but disobedient butler, had sold them behind her back when she refused to believe her efforts were good enough. “A school is exactly what the poor children around here need.”
“The three of us would never have escaped here if we couldn’t read.” Which was sort of the truth. Reading had always been her escape and she was still passionate about passing on her first love, as well as opportunities, to those who had so little.
But altruism wasn’t the only reason that Vee had purchased this building the second she had learned that it was on the market. She had done it to close the door on that part of her life once and for all. Turn all her lingering and resentful memories of her father into something positive.
