I looked at it suspiciously. "Is this a trap?"
Sebastian signed: Possibly.
I stopped in the doorway. "Your Grace..."
He smiled. "Clarabel, you once dropped sheets on my staircase and called me your handsome tyrant."
I looked at the linen. "I remember. I suffered."
Sebastian wrote. I smiled. I pointed at him: "You betrayed six years of marble behavior."
Sebastian signed: Gladly.
My heart began to beat faster. Sebastian took my hands: he wore no gloves—he had stopped wearing them with me weeks ago because sign spoke better skin-to-skin. His palms were warm. He spoke slowly—not because he needed to, but because the words mattered:
"Before you, I survived. I watched. I waited. I mistook endurance for life. You entered my silence with falling linen, dangerous honesty, and the worst hiding strategy any wardrobe has ever suffered. You gave me anger when I needed it, laughter when I had forgotten its shape, and companionship that did not demand I become hearing again to be whole."
I swallowed hard. He lifted one hand and signed as he spoke:
"I love you. I love your voice, your hands, your courage, and every unsuitable thing you say when you think I cannot understand. Will you marry me?"
A small velvet box sat on the linen stack. Inside was a gold ring set with a pale blue stone, clear as a winter sky.
I looked at the ring, then at the sheets. I looked at the ring. "Did you place the ring on linen because of our first meeting?"
Sebastian answered, "Yes."
I studied the linen. "That is either romantic or deeply threatening."
Sebastian smiled. "I hope for both."
I laughed, and he watched the sound with such open happiness that my answer became simple. I answered clearly: "Yes."
Then I signed it, because some words deserved every language we had: Yes.
Sebastian's breath left him. He slid the ring on my finger with hands that shook only once.
I touched his cheek. "My handsome tyrant."
He smiled. "My impossible maid."
One guest whispered, "Former maid."
Another guest whispered back, "Future Duchess."
A third voice murmured, "Still impossible."
Mrs. Kettle murmured, "Thankfully."
When Mrs. Kettle learned of the engagement, she cried for exactly nine seconds, denied it for nine minutes, then reorganized the entire house by supper. Cook made a cake so large it required two footmen and a moral argument. Sir Lionel sent congratulations. Abelard sent a potted fern, which Mrs. Kettle declared suspicious but acceptable.