“Oh, good lord, Ryder,” my sister said. “I’ve replaced the worn, fraying carpet that had been down a half century. You didn’t even notice?”
I guess it seemed cleaner. “Sure. Looks good,” I said, hoping I was saying the right thing.
“You don’t mind that I didn’t ask? I know it’s your house.”
“It’s just as much your house as mine, Darce.” I slung my arm around her shoulder. Was she really worried? “You can do what you like with it. The carpet is great. I know you love this place, and you’re not going to do anything but look after it,” I said. “Things can’t stay the same forever. Grandfather wouldn’t have wanted that. He’d want you to do what made you happy.”
“And about that . . . I know Grandfather ran everything on a skeleton staff, but I really think we need some admin personnel. I know it’s indulgent. It’s just that—”
“I think that’s a great idea. I don’t want you tied to this place. You need to go out and have a life, too.”
Darcy snaked her hand around my waist and squeezed. “Thank you.”
“Come to New York,” Scarlett said. “We can find you a man.”
“I prefer horses,” Darcy said.
“Men smell better,” Violet replied. She cocked her head. “Well, not all of them. But you should come to New York. I hate being the only single girl at dinner. Sometimes I feel like I’m going to be asked to sit at the kids’ table.”
I chuckled. I’d never had that feeling when I was single. I’d always been happy with life as it was until Scarlett walked in and turned it upside down. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
“You never know, I might make it stateside when the baby’s born.”
“I’m going to hold you to that. For now, I’m going to take my wife upstairs and make sure she’s well rested before dinner.” I’d have to share Scarlett for the next few days, but right now I wanted it to be just the two of us.
“It feels good to be back.” She smiled over her shoulder at me as we walked into our bedroom. She kicked off her shoes and padded across the room. “Oh look, someone’s changed things around.” Her eyebrows twitched in confusion as she took in the changes I’d requested to the room.
I’d called Lane earlier this week to ask him to move the two velvet chairs from the summer suite into my room and to put them opposite each other under the window, overlooking the croquet pitch. I didn’t even need to ask her to take a seat—she naturally gravitated to the view of the Woolton gardens.
Despite it being early, the sun streamed through the windows and lit up my already glowing wife. The setting wouldn’t get any more perfect. “You look beautiful,” I said as I followed her across the room and stood beside her as she sat, my heartbeat growing louder with every step.
“You have to say that. I’m pregnant with your child.”
“I have to say that because it’s true.”
She tilted her head to one side, the way she did when I was being a cheeseball. “Do you think we can play a little croquet while we’re here?”
“Yes,” I said, the words forcing their way from my dry throat. She leaned forward and poured out two glasses of cucumber water from the jug on the table in front of her.
“Need a drink?” she asked, offering me a glass as I stood over her.
I shook my head and she took a sip.
“Do you need anything?” I asked, rounding her chair, bracing myself for the moment I was about to make.
“Just you,” she replied.
I took her hand and dipped to one knee.
She narrowed her eyes. “What are you—”
“Scarlett Westbury, when I invited you home the first night I met you, I could never have known how you would change my life. Change me. And when I suggested our arrangement, it was hardly the proposal you deserved.” I fumbled in my pocket and pulled out the navy-blue ring box I’d been carrying since leaving our brownstone yesterday. I squeezed it tight, trying to steady my hands. My wife was the only person in the world who could make me shake.
“It was here at Woolton that I fell in love with you. So I wanted to wait until we were back, overlooking the lawn where we had our first disagreement because that was the moment I realized you were the first person outside my family whose good opinion I desired. In this house that you helped me secure and in this room where I first made love to you as my wife.” The lid creaked as I opened the box, revealing my grandmother’s engagement ring. “I want to ask you to do me the honor of wearing this ring, as my wife, for the rest of our lives.”
She didn’t reply straight away and I shifted slightly, lowering the ring before she caught my hand in hers. “Ryder, I would be as honored to wear that ring as I am to be your wife.”
I captured her face in my hand and stroked her cheekbone with my thumb. “What did I do to deserve you?”
She shrugged. “Well, I’ve had a lot of nice jewelry since I got married to you, so there’s that.” She wiggled the fingers of her right hand in front of me.
I chuckled and took the ring out of its box.
“And you know—you’ve got a huge penis.”
I slid the ring onto her finger, the fit perfect. “You’re so romantic,” I replied.
“And there’s your big heart and the way you love me. You’d stand between me and a bullet, and I know that.”
There was no doubt I would.
“The way you do whatever it takes to make me happy, even if it just means bringing me lunch.”
“You’ve thought about this,” I said as I dipped to kiss the hand now adorned with my family’s ring.
“Every day I think about how lucky I am,” she said. “I’ll never take what we have for grant—” She gasped and her eyes went wide. Grabbing my hand, she placed it on her slightly rounded belly. “Did you feel that?”
A little ripple passed under my hands. “Scarlett?”
“That’s our baby joining in this moment. It’s the first time I’ve felt kicking.”
“That’s unbelievable.” I had the urge to scoop her up and wrap her in a duvet and not let her leave this room for the next four months. Scarlett didn’t like me fussing, but what did she expect? “You’re unbelievable.”
I felt like the luckiest man alive. Scarlett had given me everything I never knew I wanted.
Scarlett
“What are you two talking about?” I asked my brother and husband as I walked toward them carrying Gwendoline on my hip. The sun spilled out of the Connecticut sky and it was only the slight breeze that stopped the river bank from being too hot. They claimed to be fishing, but that was what they always said when the two of them disappeared within thirty minutes of us arriving in Connecticut. I was pretty sure it was just an excuse to gossip.