Her thoughts whirled in her head, troubling her. She lifted her face from his shoulder, looked up at him with an anxious look.
‘Max, I still don’t understand. You’ve given me this miraculous gift and I still don’t understand why. Why would you do it when you’ve told me yourself that you fell in love with Haughton and wanted to make your home here? How can you bear to give it away to me like this?’
He looked down at her, his deep, dark eyes holding an expression she could not recognise.
‘Well, you see, Ellen, I’m forced to admit that I am a shamefully devious character.’ He cradled her to him, his hands resting loosely around her spine. ‘Shamefully devious. Yes, it’s absolutely true that I was...devastated...’ his voice was edgy suddenly ‘...when I realised how wrong I’d been about you—about your behaviour towards Pauline and Chloe over this house—how deceived I’d been by their appearance of solicitude towards you, how disgusted I felt at their exploitation of your father and their cruelty to you. It made me absolutely determined to redress this final wrong, to restore your home to you, out of their clutches. But...’
His voice changed again, softening now, taking on a hint of wry humour.
‘But even while I was set on being the one to save Haughton for you, because you love it so much and have been through so much because of it, I also knew perfectly well that I had... Well, let’s say an ulterior motive all along.’
There was a glint in his eyes now, blatantly visible. It did things to Ellen’s insides that even the flood of emotion over regaining her home could not quench—things that took her back instantly to the time she’d spent with Max abroad, setting loose a quiver inside her, a quickening of her pulse that made her all too aware of how Max’s body was cradling hers, of the lean strength of him, the taut wall of his chest, the pressure of his hips, the heat of his body...
‘I told you when you signed my contract restoring Haughton to you how much I was still hoping to make it my home,’ he was saying now, ‘but that it would depend entirely on you. So...’ He raised a quizzical eyebrow. ‘What do you think? Could you bear to share Haughton with me?’
She looked at him, not understanding. ‘Do you mean some kind of co-ownership?’ she ventured.
He shook his head. ‘No, I don’t want you ever to have to worry about not owning Haughton one hundred per cent,’ he said. ‘I was thinking,’ he went on, and now the glint was even more pronounced, and she felt a sudden tightening of the arms around her spine, ‘of a different way to make this my home.’
‘I don’t understand...’ she said again. But her voice was weaker this time. Her whole body was weaker.
‘Then maybe,’ said Max, ‘this will make things clearer.’
He let her go suddenly, and she felt herself leaning back on the desk as his hold on her was relinquished. She clutched the edge of the desk with her hands. Saw him reach into his jacket, draw out a tiny square box. Felt her heart rate slow...slow almost to a standstill. The breath in her lungs was congealing.
Before her very eyes she saw him lower himself upon one knee and look back up at her.
‘Will you...?’ he said, and his eyes pinioned hers as she gazed down at him, her own eyes widening until they could widen no further. ‘Will you, my most beautiful, most wonderful, most lovely and fit and fabulous and incomparable Ellen, do me the honour, the very great honour, of making me the happiest of men? Will you...?’ he asked. ‘Will you marry me?’
He flicked open the box and her eyes went to the flash of red within. She gave a gasp.
Max quirked an eyebrow again. ‘I’m sort of hoping,’ he said, ‘again quite shamelessly, that this might help persuade you.’
He took the ring out, got to his feet, lifted Ellen’s nerveless left hand and held it. His other hand held the ring. The ring she’d worn at the Edwardian ball that had changed her life for ever. The ring that had been her mother’s engagement ring, given to her by her father. The ring that had once belonged to her grandmother and her great-grandmother.
‘How did you get it...?’ Her voice was faint again.
‘I bought the ruby parure you wore to the ball. And by the same token I also bought back all your mother’s jewellery that Pauline and Chloe helped themselves to—it was in the fine print of the terms and conditions of their sale contract. As for everything else—all the other jewellery and antiques and paintings they sold—I’ve got a team searching them out and I will buy them all back as and when we find them.’ And now that glint was blatant again. ‘You see, Ellen, I want to do absolutely everything in my power to persuade you to do what I want you to do more than anything else in the world—and, my sweet Ellen, you haven’t actually answered me yet.’
Was there tension in his voice, lacing through the humour, turning the glint in his eyes to something very different?
She gazed at him. Her heart was suddenly in her throat—or something was. Something huge and choking that was making it quite impossible for her to do anything at all except gaze at him. And force out one breathless whisper.
‘Did...did you just propose to me?’ she asked faintly.
A tidal wave of disbelief was sweeping up through her—the same as when he’d told her he’d gifted his newly acquired share of Haughton to her.
A rasp broke from Max. ‘Do you want a replay?’ he said, and he started to go down on his knee again.
She snatched at him to stop him. ‘No! No—no!’
He halted, looked at her quizzically. ‘Is that no, you won’t marry me?’ he asked her.
She shook her head violently. She could not speak. Emotion was pounding her, crashing in on he
r consciousness, overwhelming her.
‘So, that’s a yes, then, is it?’ Max pursued. He paused. ‘I’d just like to clarify this, if you don’t mind. Because it is, you see, somewhat important to me.’ His expression changed suddenly. ‘It’s going to determine my entire future happiness.’