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“I don’t want it,” she added with a wry smile.
Ernest’s steady eyes did not waver. “I want to give you your world. A home, and a family, and children, and a garden to call your own. A life where you, and everything and everyone you love, is at the center.”
Gwen’s stomach lurched. “I want that, too.”
“And I know we have had our misunderstandings,” he continued in a quiet voice as a slow, romantic tune was begun on the fiddle and there were cheers of delight from her family and the crew. “But I’ve come to learn that the strongest relationships begin with misunderstandings. It’s by pushing through them, not fearing them, that we will grow stronger, Gwen, and I want to—God, I want to adore you. I want to drop you to this deck and worship you—”
“Ernest!” Gwen’s gaze darted over to her father, who thankfully appeared not to have heard, and her mother, whose neck was remarkably pink.
Oh, dear.
Ernest was chuckling as he took another step closer to her, pulling her into his embrace, and she was willing to go. “Gwen, I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life proving to you that I won’t run at the first sign of trouble, that I won’t ever dismiss you or belittle you again. Will… Will you let me?”
Was this happening?
He dropped down to one knee as the romantic fiddle soared above them, the bright autumn sunlight streaming down, and Gwen’s breath caught in her throat.
A proposal. A romantic one, this time, and from the one man she could not imagine living without.
“Gwendoline Chance,” Ernest said quietly, staring up at her with such adoration, Gwen thought she might combust. “You are the most easily irritated, swiftly provoked to anger, constantly furious woman I have ever met.”
Gwen gave a choked laugh as her eyes filled with tears. “And you were doing so well!”
“Sorry. You are also the most beautiful, the most captivating, the most charming,” continued Ernest with a mischievous look in his eye. “I want to spend the rest of my life building a home with you—building a life. I don’t want riches—”
“Good, because I do not have a big enough dowry for you,” she whispered, hardly able to speak.
“Will you just let me finish?”
“Sorry,” she said hastily, giggling as Ernest shook his head with a wry smile. “There we go again. Apologizing to each other.”
“I can think of a worse basis for marriage,” said the man who was to be her husband. “You will marry me, Gwen, won’t you? I’ll be devastated if you decline me.”
“Oh, well, devastated,” she said lightly, heart soaring as she tugged the man’s hands to bring him back to his feet. “If you were to be merely inconvenienced—but I would hate to see you devastated.”
“Then you’ll be my wife?”
Gwen’s throat was dry, but she had never been more certain. “Yes. Yes, Ernest—I will be your wife.”
She was swiftly in his arms, his lips pressed to hers and her whole body crackling with need, and all she wanted to do was stay in this moment, stay right here and revel in the fact that she had found a future with a man she genuinely loved.
“Ahem.”
Gwen and Ernest sprang apart, both of their cheeks burning red, and she smiled weakly as her father gave another mock cough.
“Now who do we have here?” Lady Pernrith said with a twinkling smile. “Gwenny, why don’t you introduce me to this face that is practically a stranger to us after all those days away?”
Ernest gulped.
Gwen slipped her hand into his and squeezed it as she turned to her father. “I am delighted to announce that I am engaged to Baron Frasemere!”
And this time, the response was much more satisfactory.
Chapter Twenty
October 17, 1841
Ernest stared down at the letter that had been delivered only minutes ago.
