Chapter Ten The Proposal #2
‘I thought we could go for a walk,’ he said, over breakfast. ‘There’s a trail I want to show you. It’s about an hour up, but the view is worth it.’ ‘I’ll bring a flask of hot chocolate. The proper kind, made with actual chocolate, not the powdered stuff.’
‘You know how to make hot chocolate?’
‘I know how to ask the caretaker’s wife to make hot chocolate. Same result.’
Anastasia laughed. ‘All right. Show me this view.’
They set out mid-morning, following a trail that wound up through the forest and emerged onto an alpine meadow high above the valley.
He was carrying a small backpack containing the hot chocolate, some pastries, a blanket and deep in his trouser pocket with a handkerchief jammed on top for extra security, the velvet pouch with its contents of gems.
His heart was pounding so hard he was sure Anastasia could hear it.
‘This is beautiful,’ she said, as they climbed. ‘I can see why you love this place.’
‘It’s better at the top. Trust me.’
They walked in companionable silence for a while, their breath making small clouds in the cold air.
James tried to compose what he would say when they reached the clearing.
He had prepared a speech; written it out, revised it and memorised it, but now, in the moment, the words seemed inadequate. Rehearsed. Not him.
???
The clearing was everything he remembered.
It opened suddenly from the forest, a natural amphitheatre with a view that stretched to the horizon.
The valley lay below them, a patchwork of colour, with the chateau visible as a small cluster of towers in the distance.
Beyond, range after range of mountains receded into blue haze and somewhere out there, James pointed it out to Anastasia, the distinctive peak of Mont Blanc caught the morning sun.
‘Oh,’ Anastasia breathed. ‘James, this is...’
‘I know.’
They stood there for a long moment, taking it in. James spread the blanket on a relatively dry patch of rock, poured hot chocolate from the flask and handed her a cup.
His hands were shaking slightly. He hoped she wouldn’t notice.
‘Thank you for bringing me here,’ she said. ‘It’s extraordinary.’
‘There’s something I want to ask you.’
She turned to look at him and something in her expression shifted, a flicker of understanding, or perhaps anticipation. She wasn’t stupid. She must have suspected something was coming.
James took a breath. Abandoned the prepared speech entirely. Spoke from somewhere deeper.
‘I’ve spent most of my life waiting,’ he said.
‘Waiting for my father to come back. Waiting to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. Waiting for something to happen that would make everything make sense. And then I met you and I realised: I don’t want to wait anymore.
I want to build something. With you. Something that’s ours. ’
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the velvet pouch.
‘I thought about getting you a ring. Went to about fifteen jewellers, looked at hundreds of options. But nothing felt right. Because you’re not the kind of person who wants someone else to decide things for you. You’ve built everything in your life yourself. So I thought...’
He opened the pouch and poured the contents into his palm. The gems caught the sunlight: diamonds and sapphires, glittering against his skin.
‘I thought I’d give you these, so you can design your own ring.
Or not a ring at all, if you’d prefer something else.
Whatever you want, however you want it. The point is.
..’ His voice cracked slightly and he had to pause to steady himself.
‘The point is that I want to build a life with you. I want us to create something together. Something new. Something that belongs to both of us.’
He looked up at her. She was staring at the gems in his hand, her expression unreadable.
‘Anastasia Kovalenko,’ he said, ‘will you marry me?’
For a terrible moment, she didn’t respond.
Then she looked up at him and there were tears in her eyes, tears that she wiped away quickly, almost angrily, as if annoyed at herself for the display of emotion.
‘You impossible man,’ she said. ‘You absolute...’
‘Is that a yes?’
‘Of course it’s a yes.’ She was laughing now, laughing and crying at the same time. ‘Did you really think I’d say anything else?’
‘I wasn’t sure. I’m never sure about anything. That’s part of my charm.’
She took his face in her hands and kissed him, hard, while the gems sat forgotten in his palm and the mountains stretched out around them and the world, for a moment, was absolutely perfect.
When they finally broke apart, James remembered the gems.
‘Do you want to look at them? Choose which ones you like? I wasn’t sure about the emerald, actually, the man in Hatton Garden said it was good quality, but I couldn’t tell the difference between that and the cheap ones in the window...’
‘James.’
‘Yes?’
‘Stop talking.’
‘Right. Yes. Sorry.’
She took the gems from his hand, examined them carefully, her fingers moving over them like a jeweller’s.
‘These are beautiful,’ she said quietly. ‘And the idea, letting me design my own ring, that’s...’ She shook her head. ‘That’s the most thoughtful thing anyone’s ever done for me.’
‘I wanted it to be right. I wanted it to be you.’
‘It is. It’s very me.’ She looked up at him and her smile was like sunrise. ‘And you’re very you. Which is annoying and wonderful in equal measure.’
‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’
‘It was intended as one.’ She closed her fingers around the gems and pressed her fist to her heart. ‘Yes, James. A thousand times yes. I’ll marry you.’
James pulled her close, wrapped his arms around her and held on as if he’d never let go.
Below them, the valley sparkled in the sun. Above them, the sky was endless blue. And between them, something had changed: a promise made, a future begun, two lives starting to weave together into one.
‘We should celebrate,’ James said eventually. ‘There’s champagne back at the chateau. The good stuff. Been saving it for a special occasion.’
‘This counts as a special occasion?’
‘I think so. Don’t you?’
‘I suppose it might.’ She pulled back to look at him, her face flushed with happiness. ‘Race you down?’
She was already moving, picking her way back down the trail with the confidence of someone who had spent her life navigating difficult terrain. James watched her for a moment, his fiancée, he realised with a shock of joy, his actual fiancée and then hurried to follow.
He slipped once, caught himself on a tree branch and arrived at the bottom of the trail slightly out of breath and significantly behind her.
‘You’re slow,’ Anastasia observed.
‘I was being careful.’
‘You were being cautious. There’s a difference.’
‘Is there?’
‘Careful means you’re paying attention. Cautious means you’re afraid.’ She smiled. ‘You don’t need to be afraid, James. We are together, now and for always.’
‘I’m here,’ he said. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’
‘Good.’ She held up her hand, the gems still clutched in her fist. ‘Because we have a ring to design and I have very specific ideas.’
‘Of course you do.’
‘And they’re going to be expensive.’
‘I assumed as much.’
‘And I’m going to need to test the design before we commit to anything.’
‘I’d expect nothing less.’
She laughed and James laughed and they walked back to the chateau together, hands intertwined, while the winter sun turned the world to gold around them.
???
That evening, as they sat by the fire with champagne and leftover borscht (Anastasia had made another batch, claiming it tasted better the second day) James realised something.
For the first time in his life, he wasn’t waiting for anything.
He had found what he was looking for and against all odds, against all reasonable expectations, she had found him too.
‘What are you thinking about?’ Anastasia asked, noticing his silence.
‘Nothing important.’
‘You’re smiling.’
‘Am I? Sorry. Can’t seem to help it.’
‘Don’t apologise.’ She leaned against him, her head on his shoulder. ‘I like it when you smile.’
‘Then I’ll try to do it more often.’
‘See that you do.’
Outside, the stars emerged one by one, scattered across the sky like the diamonds in Anastasia’s hand. Inside, the champagne bubbled and two people who had never expected to find each other began to plan a life together.
It was, James thought, a very good start.