“I can’t imagine so. But she certainly seemed to believe it.” Libby didn’t think she’d ever forget the look in Lady Emily’s eyes either. Filled with tears. Hopeless. Dejected.
But she was among friends, at least. They’d see she was all right.
They walked in silence, comfortable and familiar. So much had already been said over the past two days. So much needed to be said still. But for now, it was heavenly just to listen to the chirping of the birds, the buzz of insects, the breeze running its fingers through the Cornish palms’ fronds. To be walking here with this man she’d dreamed about for years and who so surpassed all she’d ever hoped about him. This man she loved in a way she hadn’t quite thought herself capable of.
The path wound around another grove of trees, and Libby smiled. “This is the way your grandmother and I walked the day we met. I don’t believe I’ve come this way since. There was so much else to explore.”
“You’ll be needing a new notebook soon, I suspect. I did especially love your painting of the lily of the Nile.”
The Agapanthus was to be seen all over the islands, and she loved the purple blooms. “Would you like to know a secret?” She tilted her face up, grinning. “I usually sing ‘L’amour est un oiseau rebelle’ while I’m painting.”
Oh, his smile. She could get lost in it. “Well. Mamm-wynn did try to tell me weeks ago it was one of your favorites. I suppose I should have believed her.”
“Did she?” Odd. But she was beyond asking how at this point when it came to his grandmother. “You should have indeed, then. You ought to know by now that she’s always right.”
His laugh was a mere breath, incredulous. “So it would seem.” His fingers settled over hers on his arm, as they so often did. And she wondered if he’d kiss her again. There were hundreds of perfect spots here, and they had the Gardens to themselves. It would be the perfect cap to the last few strange days. “What did you two talk about that first day?”
“Well . . . on this part of the path, she told me a bit of the history of the Betrothal Stone. Or the legend, anyway.” They were only a few steps away from it now, so naturally they stopped. Libby smiled at the memory. “She mentioned that your parents had a story about it, though she didn’t tell it to me.”
“No? Well, that won’t do.” Grinning, Oliver pulled away so he could face her. “It was in the dead of winter, so you’ll have to use your imagination there. Most of the garden was dormant, and a fierce storm had just blown through. All the islanders had been hunkered down for days, but on the solstice, the sun was shining again. So my father seized the opportunity to take my mother for a stroll. She’d always been intrigued by the local legends—”
Libby laughed. “Having met her father, I find that utterly astounding.”
“No doubt.” He set a hand on the slab of granite. It would be warm from the summer sun, but perhaps he was imagining it with a winter chill. “Father had told Mother that he’d read the stone may have had some other ceremonial purpose in the days of the Druids. He said he thought that it was originally aligned to catch the rays of the setting sun on the winter solstice. Which, as you’d expect, was all it took to get her out here at sunset. Even though no one knows where the stone originally stood, she was certain that if she caught the flash of sunset through one of the holes, something would be revealed.”
She couldn’t have held in her smile had she tried. “And I suspect something did.”
“Indeed.” Eyes twinkling, Oliver shifted behind the stone. “While she was busy investigating, Father slipped back here. And at the exact moment when the rays were stretching through the hole, he reached through.” Oliver’s hand came through the small, topmost hole. “And he opened his hand.” Oliver’s fingers uncurled from his palm.
Libby’s smile stilled. Her breath caught. His hand wasn’t empty. There was a ring sitting there in his palm, the main stone a gleaming purple—or green?—with diamond rainbows sparkling from all around it. “Oliver?”
“I’m only an island gentleman, Libby. I have enough of a living to keep you in microscope slides, though I don’t imagine we’ll be able to travel the world. If you marry me, your brother says there will be no money from him. But if you marry me, I will devote my life to bringing joy to all your days. It isn’t a decision you should make lightly or quickly, so don’t feel as though you must—”
“Yes!” She reached into the hole and clutched his hand, trapping the ring between their palms. “I don’t care about the money or the travel or any of the rest. I only need you. The islands. Your family and mine and all our neighbors.”
“My Libby.” He moved his hand under hers, and in the next moment the ring was slipping onto her fourth finger.
She tore her gaze away from his enough to glance at it again. “It’s beautiful.”
“Alexandrite. As rare as you.” Their fingers still entwined in the hole, he leaned over the stone. And kissed her.
She let her eyelids flutter closed and reached up to cup his cheek with her free hand. “I love you, Oliver,” she whispered against his lips.
“And I love you, Elizabeth.”
“And that’s enough kissing until the wedding.” Bram stepped into view farther along the path, near where the small back gate let the Tremaynes in and out so frequently, his gleaming eyes belying his stern tone. He must have known Oliver’s plan, to have positioned himself so nearby. “Which should be planned for quite a while from now. I’m thinking a year’s betrothal. Perhaps two, given how short a courtship you had.”
“Bram, really.” But she didn’t much care how long the betrothal was. A day, a year, a decade—whatever the length, she’d get to pass the time knowing this man loved her. Knowing that she would be his. That she’d found her home, here where the islands knew her name.
Oliver came back around, letting go of her fingers only long enough to step to her side and then catching them in his again.
Her brother stepped to her other side and nudged her into a walk. “Well, we need time to get you a proper trousseau. Sort out how much of your dowry you’ll need and how much we should, perhaps, set up in trust for future children. Because really, I don’t think you could possibly spend it all here.”
Oliver’s brows pinched. “But you said—”
Bram laughed and slung an arm around her shoulders. “Is he always so gullible?”
“No.” She squeezed Oliver’s hand, pulling him along with them. “He always sees straight to a person’s soul.”
“Mm.” Oliver shook his head, though she knew well the pleasure in his eyes wasn’t from the promise of a dowry. “And what I saw with you, Telford, was a man who would do anything to protect his sister.”
“And don’t forget it.”
They strolled back in the direction they’d come. Talking. Laughing. Planning. About weddings and families and pirate treasure. About friends and enemies and what the rest of summer might hold.
Libby mostly let the men do the talking. She watched the birds wing their way from treetops to heavens, listened to the night insects as they made their debut.