Marian looked up at the man who had traded his armor for absolute honesty. She did not hesitate, and she did not retreat behind her composure. "Yes," she said softly, her heart full.
Sometime later, after they returned to Rentham Hall, they were walking together through the long, quiet corridor of the ancestral portrait gallery when Marian paused.
There, perfectly lit and correctly placed among generations of his family, hung Richard's former portrait. The heavy gold frame caught the afternoon light, and the cold, authoritative Duke stared out at them from the canvas, impeccable and commanding.
"It is an excellent painting," Marian observed, tilting her head to study the brushwork.
Richard stopped beside her, his arm resting comfortably against hers. He looked up at the canvas, then down at the woman standing beside him. "It was me," he agreed softly. "Just not all of me."
Later that morning, they found themselves in the same bright morning room where it had all begun. Richard was standing near the open French windows, bathed in the crisp morning light as he read through a stack of correspondence. The soft rustle of paper and the distant chirping of garden birds filled the quiet space.
Marian was seated in her favorite chair, her sketchbook resting open on her lap. They were formally engaged now; the quiet certainty of their future settled comfortably between them. Marian picked up her pencil and began to draw him.
Almost immediately, Richard looked up from his letter. He caught her gaze across the room. "Am I performing again?" he asked, a faint, knowing smile touching his lips.
Marian observed him with mock critical intensity. "A little."
Richard shook his head in amusement and attempted to return his attention to the paper in his hands. Marian continued to draw, the soft scratch of graphite the only sound in the room.
A moment later, the door flew open, and young Thomas bounded across the carpet, the same energetic spaniel trotting faithfully at his heels. The boy paused halfway across the room, looking from his uncle by the window to Marian with her sketchbook. Thomas offered a casual, entirely innocent observation:
"You are doing it again, Uncle."