Page 88 of No Ordinary Lady

“Yes, John,” Gabby answered with a giggle. “I’ve got the answer I hoped to hear.”

“Ah, excellent,” John said. “Until tomorrow night, Miss Trill.”

The music stopped abruptly as Marian curtsied to the pair.

“We’ll see you out,” Danny said, and caught Marian’s elbow in his grip. He propelled her after the Kimbles and kept her on the top steps until the carriage drew away. “Take a walk with me?”

“I don’t think⁠—”

“Thinking has never been my strong suit, but let’s do it anyway,” he teased, and then hooked his arm through hers. “I haven’t taken a stroll in the garden with you yet.”

“What about Amy?”

“Mother will look after her. Besides, there’s something we need to discuss,” he whispered. “When I said I wanted you earlier…I really meant to say that I want to marry you.”

Chapter Twenty

Daniel caught Marian as she swooned into his arms and then hoisted her into the air. He stood bemused for a moment by her response to his offer of marriage, but then took advantage of her apparent helplessness. He carried her off into the garden.

When he found the secluded alcove he wanted, he sat down on a garden bench with Marian on his lap. She roused and suddenly fought against him to sit up straighter. “What are you doing?”

“I caught you and lifted you up, swept you away so I could profess my love and devotion,” Daniel said as he grinned. “I thought it rather gallant of me.”

“You cannot mean that,” she warned, looking around with an expression of panic on her face now.

“But I do. Every single word.” He tapped the tip of her nose. “I love you, Marian Trill. Thief of my heart.”

“How could you?”

“It’s your own fault. That and this ring,” he said, producing it from his pocket to show her. He waved it before her eyes and her attention fixed on it.

“I don’t understand,” she whispered, even as her fingers reached for the ring.

He let her take it and sighed when she slid it back on her finger. Where it had always belonged, he realized now. “Shall I tell you the other story about this ring? My granny made my mother put the promise ring on, to make it seem she was already promised to another man. All so my father would become jealous and finally propose to her.”

“Your grandmother was devious.”

“Yes, but also wise too. They, my mother and father, had been acquaintances for almost a year, but my father thought he was too old for her. Too old to love.

“Well, the ring worked its magic. Made my father see he couldn’t live without Mama in his life. They became engaged and married and seven months later, I was born. My mother is embarrassed by that ring now, and the story that goes with it, especially when I was born so soon after they married. I wouldn’t mention that if I were you.”

“I would not dare,” she whispered, her gaze on the ring as she fiddled with it.

“Seeing Mama wearing that ring was the push my father needed to admit his feelings for her. It’s become mine, too. The image of you wearing the ring, and how you couldn’t seem to give it back, lingered in my mind since we came home. You look upon this ring as if it was irreplaceable and instantly treasured. It took me a while to understand the magic in the air was true love,”

He caught her hand in his. “This ring embodies everything I love and hope for. It’s a sign, a pointer, to my best chance of happiness in this world, and that is you, my darling Marian.”

“I can’t marry you.”

“Why not? I have it on good authority that I’m quite the catch.”

“My family are thieves,” she reminded him with a scowl.

“Yes, well. We all have our black sheep in the family,” he admitted. “Even mine has several thoroughly awful scoundrels in our ranks, including me, I must confess. But that was before I met the love of my life, in a seedy inn, and we spent a night together in bed and spoke of our hopes and dreams all night long.

“Say yes, Marian. Marry me, not for the money in my pockets or the title, but because we fell for each other the moment our eyes met.”

Marian stared at him for a long time without speaking.