Chapter Seventeen Sins of Mary Beth Blackthorn #3
“Ambrose, I knew before I invited a single person into this house. I knew Thursday night while I was angry with you. I knew when I wrote ordering you back. I knew before Benedict ever touched my bank credit. I am not asking because they are watching. I am asking despite them watching.”
His grip tightened.
“Then yes.”
It was almost quiet.
Mary Beth blinked. “That is all?”
“You have already made the speech.”
“I expected more from a self-educated engineer.”
“I love you. Yes, I will marry you. And if you ever summon thirty people without warning me again, I will reconsider the wisdom of sharing a roof with you.”
She kissed him.
It was not a discreet kiss. Mary Beth had done discreet. She had done locked doors, dark corridors, and lamps in windows. She had done desire that knew exactly when to leave before breakfast.
This one happened in daylight with Ambrose’s hand warm around hers and half the county close enough to count the seconds.
When she drew back, his ears were red.
“You are blushing,” she whispered.
“There are hospital ladies six feet away.”
“You survived quarry work at fifteen.”
“Quarries are less judgmental.”
Behind them came the deliberate scrape of Benedict setting down his untouched glass.
Mary Beth turned.
He was pale now, but composed again.
“You will regret this.”
For once, she did not feel obliged to answer beautifully.
“Perhaps. I have regretted plenty. You won’t be one of them.”
He gave Ambrose a brief, cold inclination of the head and walked out.
No one tried to stop him.
The room remained awkward for approximately four seconds.
Then the elderly widow lifted her cane toward the sideboard.
“If we have all been dragged here for an engagement,” she announced, “someone ought to give the man champagne.”
The tension broke.
People began speaking at once. Not everyone came toward Mary Beth.
Several left within minutes. One of the hospital women crossed the room and asked, with painful formality, whether Blackthorn’s carriage might still be available twice monthly if the committee reconsidered its earlier letter.
The bank manager requested a private appointment Monday to review the seasonal line in light of the documentation presented.
The York representative said his firm would write after speaking with its partners.
The afternoon did not magically restore anything Mary Beth had lost.
She had not expected it to.
But the county, which had spent weeks closing doors, had at least stopped pretending nothing had happened.
Ambrose remained beside her through all of it.
He did not retreat to the edge of the room when landowners approached.
He did not make himself smaller when one gentleman called him Tavener without a title and then, after an uncomfortable pause, asked a sensible question about the north culvert.
Ambrose answered the question and charged him nothing, which Mary Beth considered excessively generous.
By five, the last carriage had gone.
The house seemed enormous after the noise.
Mary Beth stood in the entrance hall amid abandoned teacups and one forgotten glove that did not belong to Benedict this time.
Ambrose closed the front door himself.
Then he faced her.
“You are impossible.”
“You left me.”
“I know.”
“Without a note.”
“I know.”
“After promising to return for dinner.”
“That portion has been repeated to me in Leeds by my own conscience with impressive regularity.”
She folded her arms, reconsidered, and let them fall to her sides.
Ambrose’s mouth twitched.
“What?”
“I decided not to give you the satisfaction of knowing exactly how angry I am.”
He laughed, and the sound traveled up into the quiet stairwell.
Mary Beth’s anger did not vanish. She did not want it to. Love had apparently failed to turn either of them into saints.
“You do not get to leave when my life becomes inconvenient,” she said.
“I won’t again.”
“You cannot promise never to be frightened.”
“No.”
“Or never to think you know what is best for me.”
“I can promise to keep that thought inside my own skull until I have asked what you think.”
“That will do.”
He came closer.
“And you cannot solve every disagreement by inviting Yorkshire to watch.”
Mary Beth considered it. “I can promise to attempt restraint.”
“Terrifying.”
She touched the nick near his jaw.
“You shaved on the train?”
“At an inn in Leeds before I left. The mirror was hostile.”
“You could have written that you were coming.”
“I decided I had done enough writing.”
“That is the first sensible thing you have said all week.”
Ambrose drew her closer by the waist.
“Are you truly going to marry me?”
The question was quieter than anything he had said in the crowded rooms.
Mary Beth answered just as quietly.
“Yes.”
He rested his forehead against hers for a moment.
“Good.”
“That is still not a proposal.”
“You proposed.”
“I may require one in return for balance.”
“Tomorrow. When there is no audience.”
“There will be servants.”
“I am learning to live dangerously.”
Mary Beth laughed and kissed him again, this time with no one to applaud, condemn, withdraw credit, or carry the story to York.
When they finally went upstairs, Ambrose did not turn toward the blue room.