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‘Not unless what?’
‘Not unless you say that you will let me propose to you.’
Propose to her?
Feeling giddy and thrilled, and as though by magic all her earlier anxiety and misery had disappeared, Janey said breathlessly, ‘You mean you want to ask me to marry you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh, John!’
In a near delirium of relief, Janey flung her arms around his neck and lifted her face towards his.
Oh, but this was heaven, after all that she had just been through: to be held so was tightly and lovingly, so protectively by darling John, Janey thought as she returned his kiss with excited enthusiasm.
Being married to someone like John, who would look after her, would be wonderful. Being in his arms felt so right, as though they had always been meant to hold her, Janey thought.
Held in John’s arms, it came to Janey that with John she would never need to worry about trying to make things right and trying to make him happy, trying to win his approval, because he loved her, truly loved her.
Tears filled her eyes.
‘He isn’t worth your tears,’ John told her.
‘I’m not crying for him,’ Janey told him truthfully. ‘I’m crying because knowing you love me makes me feel so happy.’
* * *
‘I was going to wait until Christmas to ask you,’ John told her later, when they were sitting drinking the champagne he had ordered, ‘but I was worried that some other chap might come along and bag you before I got the chance, so…’
‘So when I had to ask you for help you decided to make me listen to your proposal now,’ Janey finished for him happily. ‘Oh, John, it’s almost like fate meant us to be together, isn’t it? What with you rescuing me from the march and then me finding out about Charlie, and now this; just like all the time fate’s been showing me how perfect you are. Not that I needed to be shown, not since you were so kind over Charlie. I thought then how wonderful you were and how lucky the girl you eventually married would be.’
John gave her a passionate look and squeezed her hand.
‘There’ll be some compromises to be made, I know,’ he told her. ‘My place is in Cheshire, running the estate, and you’ve got your shop here in London. I dare say we’ll work something out, though. Your parents did, after all. Jay runs the estate and Amber has her business here in London.’
Janey’s heart overflowed with gratitude. Darling, darling John, who was so traditional and old-fashioned, loved her enough to want her to be happy so much that he was prepared to make the kind of compromises that none of her previous boyfriends had ever considered making.
‘My designing is important to me,’ she agreed, ‘but I can do that just as easily at Fitton Hall as I can here in London. I want to be with you,’ she told him fiercely, ‘not separated from you. Oh, John, I never knew that love could be like this. I think it was worth losing all that money because it’s made me so happy. You’ve made me so happy.’
‘Good. Because making you happy matters more to me than anything else,’ John told her truthfully.
He’d fallen in love with her the night of her twenty-first birthday party, but had never thought he’d stand a chance–him, a dull fellow, a countryman–not when she was here in London surrounded by far more dashing and attractive chaps. But fate had stepped in and now she was his.
Chapter Fifty
‘Feeling a bit better now, old chap?’
Emerald glared at both her son and Drogo.
‘Oh, do stop fussing over him, will you, Drogo? There’s nothing wrong with him. He’s simply being difficult because he doesn’t want to have lunch at the Savoy.’
They were in Hyde Park, where Drogo had taken Robbie riding earlier in the morning, something he had been doing virtually every morning since they had returned to London. But now, to Emerald’s irritation, Robbie was complaining that he had a headache and didn’t feel well.
She knew what was wrong really. Given the chance, Robbie would have spent every hour he could in Drogo’s company–he positively worshipped him–and was sulking because she was taking him away from his hero, to go home and get changed for her lunch engagement with Jeannie de la Salles at the Savoy.
When Jeannie had telephoned she had told her that she had some important news for her, but then refused to divulge it over the telephone, so naturally Emerald wanted to find out what it was.
And now here was Drogo, typically trying to undermine her authority and encourage Robbie to be difficult. Emerald gave them each another glare. They were standing side by side, and whilst she had been speaking Robbie had moved closer to Drogo and was now almost leaning against him, Drogo’s hand resting protectively on the little boy’s shoulder. Protectively? What was he supposed to be protecting Robbie from? She was his mother.
