Chapters (41)
Zivon nodded, squeezed her fingers. “It will dissolve after this, yes. A secret to be kept and protected at all costs. But the work cannot stop, milaya, and the Admiralty knows this. They have decided . . .” He paused, looked about. Drew close enough that he could whisper into her ear. “They are starting a school. A cryptography school. I have been asked to join it as an instructor, along with several of the chaps. And Margot, after she finishes the schooling she desires.”
“That’s wonderful!” She slipped an arm around him. “Right? Isn’t it? Is this what you want?”
“To stay here in London, with the people I most admire, close to the family I call my own, doing the work I love?” He shrugged, held his lips tight. “It will suffice, I suppose.”
She laughed and settled at his side with a happy sigh. “You must be so relieved to know what’s next.”
“Mm. But I confess it is not that next to which I have been giving the most thought.” He lifted her hand—the left one—and dropped to a knee.
She gasped and brought her other hand to her lips. She had to have known it was coming. But he hoped he managed to surprise her in the moment, at least.
Smiling, he slipped the ruby off his finger and onto hers. It was too big, of course. But she’d forgive it. “I offer you all I am, Lilian Blackwell. All I have. All I have ever fought for or stood for or been willing to die for. You already have my heart. I offer you also my life and every most precious thing in it. Will you be my wife?”
“Yes!” She curled her hand to keep the ring in place and then dropped to her knees beside him and pressed her lips to his.
He kissed her there in the twilight, not caring who saw. And he laughed when she pulled out her camera. “I do not know how you mean to capture this one, milaya.”
“It might require your help. But I think we can manage it.” Grin in place, she fiddled with a few of her dials and levers and then held the camera out as far as her arm would allow, its lens facing them. “You do the push-pin.”
He breathed a laugh. And reached for the cord that led to the pin.
A click. A whir. And a moment he never would have forgotten anyway, now captured forever on her film . . . as she was captured forever in his heart.