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Christopher had had his arrival at the Perilous Gard with Kate's family all planned out in his head for weeks now. He and Alicia and Sir Thomas would arrive at the Perilous Gard, and he'd allow Kate some time to catch up with her father and sister; then he'd whisk her away to a private room where it was just the two of them.
He had planned to start by telling Kate about the manor, and about the gold collar, set with huge rubies, that he and Geoffrey had found in Master John's secret lockbox, and about how Geoffrey had brooked no objection to Christopher taking the collar and using the money from selling it to buy the manor.
"I didn't even know the collar was there," Geoffrey had said to Christopher in his driest tone, and with the Heron look in his eyes. "I don't see how you could say that they belonged to me."
Christopher had known, at that, that there was no point in arguing. Geoffrey could be pliable about many things, but when he got that particular Heron look, Christopher knew there was no reasoning with him. And truth to tell, he hadn't been too eager to argue with Geoffrey either, not when it meant that he could bring Kate something besides impoverishment.
"Oh, Christopher!" he imagined Kate would say at the news that he was buying the manor, her eyes starry. Well -- no. Kate would be more likely to say tartly, "Now we'll certainly have to sort out where to put the new dairy! Didn't I tell you that we'd have to figure out how not to block the gate?" He'd grinned to himself, thinking of it. At least he would manage to surprise her.
And then he'd show her the ruby he'd saved for her, in the plain gold setting that he'd got back from the jeweler only the day before they set out from London, after harassing the man to hurry up with the work. Then, he'd take her hand with the ring on it, like a knight in a romance, and they'd go out to tell their families.
*
Like most things that involved Kate, this plan didn't go at all the way he'd thought it would. Though in retrospect, he had only himself to blame for telling Alicia. He'd known that she was the sort who couldn't keep a secret.
And besides Alicia telling Kate everything about the manor, somehow Kate had got it into her head -- he would never understand how -- that Christopher was marrying Alicia, which was the most completely ridiculous thing he had ever heard. Especially from Kate, who could almost always be counted on to be infuriatingly sensible.
(Alicia had told him about how Kate had been a true sister and gone to the Perilous Gard in her place, and he'd said gallant trifles about how he was glad that it had all led him to meet Alicia in any case, and then he had left Alicia and shuddered. It had taken him a good hour to stop shaking at the thought that Alicia might have been the one to come to the Perilous Gard. Alicia, who was sunlight and warmth and all good things, but who would never have thought to question the Cecily story, nor who would ever have found him under the Hill or over it.)
And now Kate was saying, "I didn't think --" Kate said, her voice trembling, "you never said -- you've never even looked at me as if --"
Christopher knew that Kate was the only one for him, and yet sometimes she exasperated him beyond measure. "Look at you! Geoffrey says that all I did this afternoon was stand there and gawk at you like a mooncalf from the minute I walked into the hall! It was you who weren't looking at me. Everyone else could see it plainly enough."
He hadn't been aware of it when he was doing it, but when Geoffrey said it, his lips twitching with mirth, Christopher knew it was true.
Christopher had known, the way he knew that he needed to breath air and eat food to live, that he and Kate must be together, but what he hadn't known, until he walked into the hall, was whether he would also desire her as a man desires his betrothed. That sort of emotion, like all emotions, had been drawn out of him by the long death-service, and he hadn't seen her after that.
But now: now he knew.
Kate was silent. Christopher had learned, over the months they had been together, to read her silences as well as her voice; she was working something out in her mind, perhaps whatever had been bothering her before. And that was the other reason, he thought crossly, that Kate should have known they would have to get married; how could either of them ever marry someone else, when they knew each other so well?
He wasn't going to ask her now what it was, given that she had already refused to tell him what was bothering her, at the start of their conversation. "Well?" said Christopher. "What more do you want?"
"Nothing," said Kate. There was a pause; then she said, "No, wait, there is something. How do you expect me to have known what was going on, when you never said anything about marrying you, before or after you went haring off to London? When I had no idea, but Alicia and -- how did you put it -- the whole skein of my kin knew? I -- I thought --"
"I would have talked to you, but you hadn't woken up yet!" Christopher protested, feeling this was all rather unfair. Was it his fault that she didn't understand the perfectly obvious fact that once a woman saved a man from being sacrificed as a teind, there was really no going back from that? "And then, of course, Geoffrey and I wanted to get Cecily to London as soon as possible --"
"You could have at least left a letter with your brother," Kate said stubbornly. "Or sent some sort of word. Then I would have had an idea, at least."
Christopher considered this. He reluctantly had to concede that she might have a point, and wondered a little guiltily if it had had to do with whatever had been bothering her when he found her. "I could have. I suppose," he said, in a voice he knew was sulkier than she deserved. "Next time. Though I devoutly hope never to be asking a woman to marry me again." He laughed suddenly, thinking of how ridiculous it all was.
"So, then." He grinned at her. It was dark, without the candles, but his eyes were now accustomed to the low levels of light from the fire, and he could see Kate's eyes, large and dark, looking at him as if she did not quite know what to do with what she was seeing. "Let's start again, shall we? Lady, will you marry me?"
"I will," Kate said, very quietly.
There was something in her voice that tugged at his heart. "Kate, are you --" He checked himself. He had almost said, "Are you crying?" but caught himself in time; he knew that Kate would dislike such a question quite as much as he himself would dislike it. Instead he said, "I have something for you. A betrothal gift. Here." He reached into his pocket, drew out the ruby ring. Really, he thought, Alicia could have kept that secret for him, at least! At least he hadn't been fool enough to let Alicia borrow it, as she had begged; at least he could be the one to show it to Kate for the first time.
The room was dark enough that the ruby did not glow the way it did in the sun, but every so often a gleam of light from the fire would illuminate the crimson depths of the cabochon. He moved over to where she was, on the other side of the hearth, and slid the ring onto her finger, the only thing that day that had gone as he had imagined. But even then, the ring was loose. "I know it doesn't fit yet," he said. "I didn't know what to tell the jeweler about your finger. I know what you're about to say: if only I'd spoken to you about it, yes, I know. But we'll get it fixed."
Without his thinking of it consciously, he had moved into the old position with her, sitting together with their shoulders touching, as they had been every night under the Hill. But now there was no mesh between them, and, greatly daring, he did what he wished he could have done in those days, and raised a hand to cup her cheek. The moisture on it told him that he had been right, about her crying, but he did not pay it much attention; he was too busy looking at her, the firelight flickering on her face. She looked mysterious and regal and entirely desirable, all at once.
"Christopher --" she said, looking at him, her eyes wide, and put her hand over his. She was so dear, so much a part of himself, that he could not help but move nearer still, until their lips were clinging together and he felt her arms tightly around him, holding him close as his other hand tangled itself in her hair.
And, he thought dazedly, as they embraced each other more fiercely, as he felt himself getting lost in the kiss, in the feel of her, this also wasn't anything like he had imagined. Kate would never, ever, be just as he imagined her -- and that was right and proper, that holding the real Kate in his arms was so much better than anything, anything at all, he could ever have dreamed for himself.