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She nodded wordlessly, incapable of uttering a sound but with her heart in her eyes as she looked up at him.
‘And will you marry me?’
‘Yes.’ It was tremulous and soft, her eyes searching his face, and then, as she saw the expression that lit up his countenance, the tears threatened again but she blinked them away furiously. ‘Yes, I’ll marry you, Slade,’ she said more loudly, and as she reached up and put her arms round his neck, pulling his head down to hers, she said again, ‘Yes, yes, yes,’ against his lips until he began to really kiss her, and then somehow words were no longer necessary.
EPILOGUE
SLADE and Daisy married that autumn and gradually, over the next months and years, his promise was worked out. The healing didn’t happen overnight but the arrival of a baby brother for Francesco three years later was part of the process, and after little Giuseppe, named after the uncle he would never see, came Marie, and after Marie the twins, Liliana and Catherine.
Life was rich and full and good and so filled with love that at times Daisy was awed and humbled at what she had been given.
‘I can’t believe Francesco is going away to university next year.’ She and Slade were sitting watching their children play in the pool, the eldest—Francesco—looking like the Pied Piper as his brother and sisters followed him adoringly. ‘Giuseppe and the girls are going to miss him dreadfully.’
Slade smiled at her, a wealth of love in his eyes as he bent and kissed her. He kissed her frequently. ‘It is good he feels able to spread his wings,’ he said softly, ‘and the others have each other.’
And she had him. She turned to him, speaking out what was in her heart as she said, ‘You are my sun, moon and stars, my everything, you know.’
‘I know.’ His eyes, dark and glittering, crinkled at the corners. ‘True love begets love, and loving you the way I do how could it be any different? You are the air I breathe, the food I eat—’
‘Wife, mother, friend, mistress?’ she teased gently, her eyes laughing at him.
‘Talking of the last—’ he nodded towards the pool ‘—Francesco has the rest of the brood under control, so how about if we slip away for a while and you show me just how good a mistress you can be?’
She dimpled back at him as she rose, and they walked together towards the house as they were to walk throughout life—hand in hand, one in everything that mattered.
