Page 96 of Return to Satterthwaite Court

He slipped the ring onto her finger. The diamonds sparkled and flashed. “At heart, it’s a symbol of what I’ve come to feel for you since the day we met. Respect. Admiration. Friendship.” He brought her hand to his lips. “Love.”

“Do you love me?”

“Love you? I want to marry you, Kate. To settle down on a great rambling farm somewhere in Somersetshire with you and our horses, our dogs, and even—Lord save me—your cats. I dearly hope you want that too. That you want me.”

“I do,” she said, a little wistfully. “Oh, but I do!”

Charles moved closer.

She set a hand on his chest, stopping him before he could take her in his arms. “But is that really what you desire? The mud and the muck? The dull life of a country squire? One day you might wake up and realize you’ve made a mistake. That you’re still the same man who left Somersetshire all those years ago in search of adventure.”

“You’re the adventure,” he said gruffly. And then he kissed her.

Epilogue

Charles and Kate’s betrothal was celebrated in grand style a month later at Heywood House. His grandfather and Mrs. Ogilvy were in attendance, along with Uncle George, Aunt Prudence, and their two strapping sons, Walter and Daniel.

Kate and her parents came to stay the week. Jack Beresford accompanied them, riding alongside the stately Allendale carriage on his newly acquired roan hunter. James was to arrive the following morning, on the heels of a previous engagement in London. As for Ivo, he’d absented himself altogether, for reasons known only to Kate’s family.

Charles suspected it had something to do with the titian-haired Miss Burton-Smythe. He said as much to Kate on the day of her arrival. After dinner that evening, the two of them slipped into the drawing room ahead of the others. It was their first real moment alone since parting in London.

They stood by the window, holding hands as they faced each other in the flickering light of a branch of beeswax candles. Flurry, Twig, and Odysseus wandered past, staking out their places on the hearthrug, a tufted ottoman, and a warm patch of carpet beneath an inlaid table.

“Ivo said he had an appointment in Bath,” Kate confided. “But he took none of his horses and he left his valet behind. We found out three days ago that Miss Burton-Smythe had gone as well. We don’t know where and we daren’t ask her father.”

“A proper mystery,” Charles said, teasing her.

She leaned into him, their fingers intertwined. Her skirts bowed against his legs. “I’ll leave the solving of it to my parents. I’m done with mysteries.”

He pressed a kiss to her temple. “I thought you enjoyed solving ours.”

“Did we solve it?” Kate wondered. “We know who wrote the letter and why. And we know what the injustice was. But we had no success in righting it.”

“No,” Charles acknowledged. “We didn’t.”

The last he’d heard, Catmull had sold Satterthwaite Court to the other interested party. It was out of Charles’s hands now. Out of all of their hands.

“Still…” She returned the warm clasp of her fingers. “I don’t count our collaboration a complete failure.”

He bent his head to hers. “Rather the opposite.”

She stretched up to meet his lips, returning his kiss.

“Must you be so indiscreet?” Jack asked, entering the room with Hannah. “There are children present.”

“I’m not a child,” Hannah said. Evangeline and Tippo were close at her heels. “And I think it’s romantic.”

“That’s one word for it,” Jack replied.

Charles and Kate broke apart, still smiling at each other.

The click of a cane announced the arrival of Charles’s father. He entered the drawing room with Lady Allendale on his arm. Lord Allendale followed, escorting Charles’s mother. The two sets of parents couldn’t be more different, but they had so far got along famously, making every effort to support their children’s match.

Charles’s grandfather and Mrs. Ogilvy came in next, along with Uncle George, Aunt Prudence, and their sons. They all sat down on the chairs and sofas around the fire, the older family members still conversing on the same topic they’d been discussing at dinner. Something to do with the perpetual drainage issues on Uncle George’s Northumberland estate.

Grandfather’s rheumy eyes kept falling shut as he listened. In his middle eighties now, he was overtired from his journey, and would be requiring his bed soon.

“Your mother and I have a gift for you,” Arthur said to Charles. “A wedding present of sorts.”