“I believe,” Bret announced.
Catriona flashed him a grateful glance.
“You believe in what, Your Grace?” Fiona asked.
“In love at first meaningful conversation. Why not?”
“Why not, indeed?” Marilla exclaimed, clapping her hands together. And then she beamed at him.
“Oh dear,” Bret whispered.
“Did you say something?” Catriona asked.
He shook his head. But he didn’t let go of her hand.
“Blindman’s buff!” Marilla cried out. “Oh, it will be perfect.”
“Then we must play it,” Taran said, smiling at her the way she was smiling at Bret.
Good God.
“I’ve never been good at games,” Oakley said, in what Bret thought was a phenomenally lame attempt to escape the oncoming torture.
“I know,” Taran retorted. “It’s why you should do it more often. You’re playing, and that’s final. You too, Your Dukeness,” he said, jabbing a gnarled finger in Bret’s direction.
Which was how Bret found himself cowering in a corner an hour later, answering Marilla’s call with as quiet a voice as he could manage.
“Blindman!” she sang out.
“Buff,” he whispered.
“Oooh, I hear someone,” she sang out.
Bret looked frantically for Catriona. Hell, he looked frantically for anyone. But Oakley was half out the door, and Rocheforte had disappeared entirely. Lady Cecily was standing on a bloody table.
“Blindman!”
“Buff,” he mouthed, but Marilla continued marching toward him with unerring precision. There was no way Marilla couldn’t see from underneath her blindfold.
“Oh, I do love a meaningful game,” she trilled.
Meaningful? Good God.
He caught Catriona’s eyes. She had hopped up onto the table behind Lady Cecily. Save me, he implored. Surely she would take pity.
But no, she had her hand over her mouth and was giggling away, the traitor.
“Blindman!” Marilla called out.
Bret didn’t even bother mouthing the word this time.
“Oh, I hear someone,” Marilla cooed, still walking toward him. She held her hands in front of her, moving them this way and that. “You must warn me if I crash into something,” she called out. “But of course not someone.”
Bret inched to the left. If he timed it just right, he might be able to squeeze behind the grandfather clock. He also might knock over the grandfather clock, but he wasn’t so concerned about that at that moment.
Just a little more . . . a little more . . .
Marilla turned, following him like a beacon.
“She’s good at this game!” Taran hollered.
“I’m good at many games,” Marilla murmured.
That was when her hands found his chest.
It was all very amusing.
Until it wasn’t.
Catriona had been standing on the table, clutching on to Lady Cecily’s shoulder for balance as she watched Marilla stalk the duke. They’d all been laughing, because it was funny, it truly was. Even Lord Oakley had started to chuckle, and he never laughed about anything.
But then Marilla attacked.
“Who could this be?” she asked, placing her hands on Bretton’s chest. “Remember, you have to hold still while I guess your identity.”
Catriona frowned as she watched Marilla move her hands to Bret’s shoulders.
“Someone very athletic,” Marilla purred.
Catriona’s arms began to tingle. And not in a good way.
“Let me see,” Marilla continued. She trailed her fingers up to Bret’s face, lightly touching his lips. “It’s definitely a man,” she said, as if that hadn’t already been obvious, “but—”
“Enough!” Catriona roared.
“Miss Burns?” Lady Cecily said.
But Catriona had already vaulted off the table and was halfway across the room. “Unhand him!” she yelled, and before Marilla could make a response, Catriona had grabbed her by the shoulders and wrenched her away.
Marilla let out a shriek of surprise and would have crashed into a table had not Taran leaped forward to save her.
“Here now,” Taran said accusingly. “That’s not very sporting of you.”
“She was mauling him,” Catriona growled.
“It was just a game,” Marilla sniffed.
“It was—” But then Catriona stopped. Because Marilla hadn’t been doing anything wrong. She’d been playing the game precisely as it had been meant to be played.
Catriona’s stomach clenched, and all of a sudden she realized that everyone was looking at her. With pity. With shock. With—
She looked at Bret’s face, terrified at what she might find there.
She looked at Bret’s face, and she saw . . .
John.
John Shevington, the man with whom she’d fallen crazily, spectacularly, and apparently quite publicly in love.
He would never be the Duke of Bretton to her again. He would never even be Bret. He would always be John. Her John. Even if they never saw each other again, if he left Finovair and refused to ever take another step in Scotland, he would be her John. She would never be able to think of him as anything else.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. Because she’d made such a scene. Because now everyone was looking at him, and he was going to be forced to save the situation, to find a way to laugh it all off.
Because she couldn’t. It was taking her every ounce of strength not to burst into tears then and there.
“No,” he whispered. “Don’t be sorry.”
She swallowed, then looked down at their hands. When had he taken her hands in his?
“You are magnificent,” he said.
Her lips parted in surprise.
And then he smiled. One corner of his mouth tilted up, and he looked so boyish, so handsome, so just plain wonderful, that she thought her heart might burst.
He dropped to one knee.
Catriona gasped.
Marilla gasped even louder. “He is not proposing to her!”
“He is,” John said with a smile. And then he looked up, right into Catriona’s eyes. “Catriona Burns, will you do me the indescribable honor of becoming my wife?”
Catriona tried to speak, but her words tangled and tumbled in her throat, and finally, all she could do was nod her head. But she nodded with everything she had, and finally, when she realized that tears were running down her face, she whispered, “Yes. Yes, I will.”
John reached into his pocket and pulled out an ancient ring. She stared at it for a moment, mesmerized by the delicate etching on its sapphire center. “But this is yours,” she finally said. She had seen it on his finger. On his pinkie. She hadn’t even realized that she’d noticed this about him.
“I am lending it to you,” he said, his voice trembling as he slid it onto her thumb. Then he lifted her hand and kissed it, right where the gold touched her flesh. “So that you may keep it safe for our son.”
“Kiss her!” someone yelled.
John smiled and stood.
“Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!”
Catriona’s lips parted with shock as he drew her close. “Right here? In front of ev—”
It was the last thing she said for quite some time.
Chapter 9
One could hardly say that there was adequate documentation on the matter, but Byron Wotton had always taken hell to be a fiery proposition.