Chapter Fifty-One
Andrew’s skates danced along the ice with a secret in his pocket, Isla just ahead of him. Spring would arrive soon enough, and it was the last time he would be able to get away with freezing the pond behind the university campus before the locals thought to question how it was still frozen.
The night of the attack, after disclosing all to Harold, the large group of prisoners, including Olivia-May, had all been arrested, and a couple of all-night partiers had needed to have their emotions gently manipulated to convince them in their drunken state that they hadn’t seen a man floating on an ice board.
Andrew had wanted to whisk Isla to a chapel there and then to marry her before another day passed. But he held off; she deserved to be courted. She had continued to read his journal entries, but she didn’t have the visual reality of them. So he waited.
He circled her, and she beamed at him, looking like Bambi on ice. Taking her hands, he skated backward, his movements smooth while she wobbled after him.
“George was right—you really are a show-off,” Isla said.
Her sparkling amber eyes, flushed cheeks, and wide grin warmed him. He would never tire of this incredible woman.
“Perhaps.” He shrugged, nerves tightening his throat, leaving him with only that simple response.
She tilted her head, eyes questioning.
“What, that’s it? No clever comeback? No smooth line ... no academic ...”
“I’ve got a ring in my pocket,” he blurted.
She stumbled, and he barely held on, both of them coming to a stop. Smooth, Andrew. After asking this question multiple times, you’d think you wouldn’t mess it up this time, he thought.
“You have ... a ring ... in your pocket?”
Sighing, he slipped his hand into his coat and pulled out the small jewelry box.
“I do. And ... well, I hope you’ll say the same. You know ... say ‘I do’ ... at the altar, I mean.”
Isla’s eyes sparkled with amusement, a laugh threatening at the corners of her mouth. Andrew let out a small nervous chuckle. Though her reaction eased some of his nerves.
“Amused, are we?” He skated into her space, crowding her a little. “I can tell by that smile you’re going to make this either very easy on me—or perhaps very difficult.”
Her smile grew. He breathed in her feminine scent as she lifted her arms around his neck.
“It’s about time you asked. I was very soon going to ask you myself if you didn’t get on with it.”
He squeezed her closer, her skates making it easy to press her to his body.
“Is that a yes?”
“It’s a yes that I wish I could have given days ago.”
He leaned in close to her mouth, his lips brushing hers as he said, “You haven’t even seen the ring yet.”
“I’m sure it’s lovely, but I don’t need to see it for me to say yes.”
He kissed her gently, savoring the moment and dreaming of their future together continuing on in the twentieth century, but not ending there.