Going to him, she raised her face to his as he circled her in his arms. “Even if your mother asked for double the going rate,” he said against her lips, “I’d want to do it.”

Melting against him she gave herself to the deepening tenderness of his kiss, until it became the sort of kiss that wasn’t going to allow them to stop there.

Because no one else was at home, they didn’t.

An hour or so later, as they lay together on the bed that was now destined to become theirs, she said, “You know, I was thinking, if you do move in . . .”

“When,” he corrected.

“When”—she smiled—“We could reconfigure things so that Mum’s sitting room becomes your study, and maybe we could add a sunroom to the kitchen and build the deck out from there. That way we’d have a place for you to read and me to embroider while we listen to music, or just watch nature . . . Did I ever mention that I wouldn’t mind building a small studio out there for a kiln?”

Rolling over to face her, he turned her to him and said, “Yes to everything, and now how about this? We could make one of the rooms into a nursery and see what we can do about filling it?”

“HERE WE ARE, two gin and tonics,” Marcy declared, sitting down beside Henry on the comfy conservatory seat that overlooked his garden, the rooftops that staggered down to the sea, and the golden sunset a long way out on the horizon. “I’ve made yours extra strong because you might need it when I tell you what I have in mind.”

Blithely he said, “Whatever it is, if it involves you I’m up for it. Oh, unless it’s having to sing at this blasted karaoke night. I thought that went out in the eighties—and it was cheesy then.”

Leaning over to plant a kiss on his cheek, she replied, “It’s only you who’s calling it karaoke, the rest of us are referring to it as a music event. Anyway, what’s wrong with cheesy?”

He eyed her skeptically.

With a laugh, she said, “Jasmine has probably got something new she wants to play for us, and by the sound of it there’ll be an entire orchestral backing. Should be wonderful.”

“I won’t disagree with that.”

She sat quietly, thoughtfully, for a moment. “If we are expected to perform, and no one’s said yet that we are, maybe we can do a duet. ‘Don’t Go Breaking My Heart’?”

“I couldn’t if I tried,” he responded dryly.

Laughing, she kissed him again and said, “No, it’s not about the party that I want to talk to you, it’s about whether or not you feel you could wake up to this awful face of mine every morning.”