She took a breath to steady her nerve. “I want to give you all my days. And all my nights. I want to give you children. I want to give you a home. I want to give youallof me. Forever.”
What an extraordinary gift it seemed to be able to make Gabriel Marchand look as brilliantly happy as he did now.
“Do you by any chance also want to give me your hand in marriage?”
“If you’ll have me.”
“Oh, I’ll have you, Guinevere Woodville.”
He folded her into his arms, and she latched her hands around his neck, and they clung to each other like a pair of shipwreck survivors who had finally washed up on shore.
The way he kissed her, with a thoroughness that turned her knees to smoke and her blood to lava, made it clear he’d missed her every single moment of every day she’d been away.
“God, I love you,” he whispered against her throat. “I’ve missed you so. And I’ve been carrying something about with me, in case you need an unmistakable, forever sort of sign.”
He released her gently and reached into his coat pocket.
“Hold out your hand, Ginny.”
She’d never yet regretted obeying when he asked her to do that. So she did.
His hand trembled as he slid onto her finger a delicate gold ring.
It was crowned with a little diamond, precisely in the shape of a heart.
Epilogue
“I publish the banns of marriage between Mr. Gabriel Marchand of St. James’s Parish, London, and the Honorable Miss Guinevere Woodville of Balcombe Parish, West Sussex. If any of you know cause or just impediment why these two persons should not be joined together in holy matrimony, ye are to declare it. This is the third and final time of asking.”
A gasp soughed through the church at the first reading of the banns.
Gabriel had been cautious about the notion of being married in Ginny’s parish church, simply because he had more than an inkling of how controversial their match might be viewed. But Ginny wanted to make a bold, unequivocal public declaration. She wanted the people she loved, most particularly Gabriel, and the people who had watched her grow to womanhood to know how proud, how happy, how grateful, how staggeringly lucky she felt to be marrying him. How blessed she felt to have found her heart’s true mate. She wanted Gabriel Marchand to feel irrevocablychosen.
But unease and uncertainty had rustled through the churchafter the first reading of the Banns. The haste of this astonishing engagement struck many as unseemly; most didn’t know Marchand’s name and the few who did were aghast. The Honorable Francis Balfort was known and well-liked and it had long been assumed that Ginny would marry him. It would have been the most appropriate match imaginable.
Ginny and Gabriel kept their heads high and their expressions peaceful.
After church on the first reading of the banns, Guinevere introduced him to the townspeople only as the chancellor of the Marchand Academy, but no one had ever heard of the institution (though it would only be a matter of time before all of England had heard of it). Marchand looked for the most part exactly like what he was, which was someone who had met untold difficult challenges head-on and had perhaps conquered a lot of them by fighting dirty. They found it impossible to fault his manners, however. And many of them found it impossible to look away from him once they’d gotten that first look.
And the man was clearlybesottedwith Ginny.
It was admittedly very difficult not to thaw in the presence of a besotted man.
So in the weeks between the three consecutive Sundays upon which the banns were read, Marchand did what he did best: He charmed and beguiled and impressed. He traveled between London and Sussex, but he spent most of his time in Sussex. He went to the village pub and bought rounds and played darts. He learned and remembered the names of local families and all their family members and servants and even their pets. He held babies and played with children. He askedfor advice about raising sheep, which the Woodville family intended to do at the estate they had inherited, and about a horse he intended to buy. He laid the groundwork for being the perfect husband for Guinevere Woodville with the thoroughness he’d laid the groundwork for becoming a lord of the demimonde.
And then there was her brother, the Earl of Highgrove’s steadfast, quiet, stubborn, unflagging support of their match. “I know of no better man,” Hogarth told everyone at every opportunity.
Her sisters had postponed their own wedding trips to attend Ginny and Gabriel’s ceremony. Their husbands were at first wary of and cold, even disdainful to Marchand, which Ginny found painful. They had grown up with Francis and were loyal to him (who had gone off on a long, soul-searching trip to the Continent). They were, in fact, quite stunned at this turn of events.
They soon found themselves slowly, reluctantly, drawn in by Marchand’s charisma and his obvious good intentions, which had nothing of obsequiousness to them. “I understand how you feel and I don’t expect you to love me,” he told them frankly. “But I love Guinevere, and I would do anything for her family. And that includes you, from now on. I do hope we will one day become friends. And if the notion of that remains unpalatable, then I hope we will abide in mutual respect, as allies. For you can count on me in that regard, in all things.” It was difficult to deny that he looked like the sort of man one wanted on one’s side, rather than the opposite.
By the third and final time the banns were read, all the faces of the churchgoers were nearly as radiant as the bride-to-be’s. Everyone was impressed (and, they told themselves, not surprised) with Miss Woodville’s wherewithal in finding the perfect partner. She’d always had such a level head, that girl!
After all, everyone loved a good transformation story.
The following Sunday, Guinevere Woodville and Gabriel Marchand became husband and wife in the village church. They were surrounded by Ginny’s family and all of their new friends, and it was as joyous an occasion as her town had ever seen.
Mr. and Mrs. Marchand were going to beverybusy in London. So off they went.