Page 113 of A Murder at Kew Gardens

“Nonsense. There must be a great deal to tell," Grandmother said. "You've been to Paris.”

"Paris. Then south." He turned his wine glass by its stem. "Lyon, and down to the Mediterranean. I crossed into Italy in the spring—Turin, Florence. I meant to see Rome and didn't."

“You didn’t?” Cosmos exclaimed. "A man goes all that way and skips Rome?"

"I was diverted." Something flickered across his face and was gone. "Vienna, after. Then the lakes. I spent the better part of June walking in the Alps with a guide who spoke no English and a German who spoke no sense. I have never in my life slept so well or eaten so badly."

That got a laugh, and he allowed it to carry the moment past whatever it was he hadn't said.

"Were there ladies?" Chrissie demanded.

"Chrissie,” I murmured.

"It's a perfectly reasonable question. He's gone six months and comes home looking like the hero of a novel. There were obviously ladies."

"There was a great deal of scenery," William said gravely. "I admired all of it."

Lord Nicholas, who had been watching my brother with the frank interest of one young man taking the measure of another, lifted his glass. "A diplomatic answer. You'd do well in my line." Lord Nicholas had settled upon diplomacy and was due to sit the examination in September.

"God forbid," said William. For the first time tonight, he smiled like himself.

It was Petunia, of course, who got nearest the truth. She had been studying him across the table with that unnerving, unblinking attention of hers. "You're sad about something."

The table went quiet.

William looked at her for a long moment. "I'm tired, poppet. That's all. It was a long journey.”

“Maybe, but that doesn’t explain all of it.” Having delivered her verdict, Petunia returned to the meal.

He neither argued nor provided further explanation. I caught Cosmos's eye down the length of the table and saw my own thought reflected there. Whatever William had carried home from the Continent, we would not hear it tonight, and perhaps not for some time. Eventually, there would be a reckoning of it. There always was, in this family. But not over the pudding, and not with Warwick and his family there.

I steered us back to safer water—Florence and the lakes and the German who spoke no sense. He slowly thawed as the meal wore on, until by the time the cloth was drawn he was almost the boy who'd left us.

It was late when the party finally broke up, the children herded protesting to their bedchambers, the Duchess and Grandmother departing arm in arm in a haze of mutual contentment, already plotting Friday between them like two generals dividing a conquered country.

Warwick remained.

"A moment, if you will, Rosalynd,” he said quietly, and drew me back toward the morning room, where my lists lay scattered across the desk in the lamplight.

He took my hand. “This morning, I asked you to marry me with my bare hands and a great deal of poor reasoning. Taking pity on me, you said yes.”

“That’s not why I said yes, Warwick.”

“Let me do it properly, please.”

Why, he was nervous. I’d never seen him like this. “Very well.”

From his coat he drew a small box and opened it. Within, a ring caught the lamplight and held it. A sapphire nestled within, deep and dark as the moors at dusk, round it a circle of diamonds reflected the light in soft, candle-warm sparks. The whole of it was set in platinum, the shoulders worked with a fine scrolling. It was the most beautiful piece of jewelry I had ever seen.

"Warwick." It came out unsteadily. I had managed an entire afternoon of lists and letters and the wholesale rearrangement of my life without once growing teary, and now a single ring had undone me in the space of a breath.

"I'd hoped for an answer somewhat warmer than my name."

"You'll have a better one." I held out my hand, and found it was not quite steady either. "Put it on me, you ridiculous man, before I disgrace us both."

It fit as though it had been waiting for me, the sapphire settling cool against my finger, the diamonds warm with the light. He raised my hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to it just above the ring, and held it there a moment longer than the gesture strictly required.

"Constancy," I said softly, looking at it. "And you chose blue."