Damn.
That was all right, he told himself unconvincingly. They had their whole lives ahead of them. One encounter with a tub of cold water wasn’t going to kill him.
“Happy?” he murmured, gazing down at her indulgently.
She nodded, but that was all she managed.
He dropped a kiss on her nose, then remembered the papers he’d left on his desk. They weren’t quite complete, but still, it seemed a good time to show them to her.
“I have a present for you,” he said.
Her eyes lit up. “You do?”
He nodded. “Just keep in mind that it’s the thought that counts.”
She smiled, following him to his desk, then taking a seat in the chair in front of it.
Gareth pushed aside some books, then carefully lifted a piece of paper. “It’s not done.”
“I don’t care,” she said softly.
But still, he didn’t show it to her. “I think it’s rather obvious that we are not going to find the jewels,” he said.
“No!” she protested. “We can—”
“Shhh. Let me finish.”
It went against her every last impulse, but she managed to shut her mouth.
“I am not in possession of a great deal of money,” he said.
“That doesn’t matter.”
He smiled wryly. “I’m glad you feel that way, because while we shan’t want for anything, nor will we live like your brothers and sisters.”
“I don’t need all that,” she said quickly. And she didn’t. Or at least she hoped she didn’t. But she knew, down to the tips of her toes, that she didn’t need anything as much as she needed him.
He looked slightly grateful, and also, maybe, just a little bit uncomfortable. “It’ll probably be even worse once I inherit the title,” he added. “I think the baron is trying to fix it so that he can beggar me from beyond the grave.”
“Are you trying to talk me out of marrying you again?”
“Oh, no,” he said. “You’re most definitely stuck with me now. But I did want you to know that if I could, I would give you the world.” He held out the paper. “Starting with this.”
She took the sheet into her hands and looked down. It was a drawing, of her.
Her eyes widened with surprise. “Did you do this?” she asked.
He nodded. “I’m not well trained, but I can—”
“It’s very good,” she said, cutting him off. He would never find his way into history as a famous artist, but the likeness was a good one, and she rather thought he’d captured something in her eyes, something that she’d not seen in any of the portraits of her her family had commissioned.
“I have been thinking about Isabella,” he said, leaning against the edge of his desk. “And I remembered a story she told me when I was young. There was a princess, and an evil prince, and”—he smiled ruefully—“a diamond bracelet.”
Hyacinth had been watching his face, mesmerized by the warmth in his eyes, but at this she looked quickly back down at the drawing. There, on her wrist, was a diamond bracelet.
“I’m sure it’s nothing like what she actually hid,” he said, “but it is how I remember her describing it to me, and it is what I would give to you, if only I could.”
“Gareth, I—” And she felt tears, welling in her eyes, threatening to spill down her cheeks. “It is the most precious gift I have ever received.”