CHAPTER 24
The early morning sun rose rapidly, its strong light swinging slowly across the room, waking up its occupants. Three beds were revealed as empty, but the fourth was satisfactorily filled.
‘I think,’ said Henry. ‘I think I should feel at least a little bit ashamed of what I have done to you, but I’m not. I can’t accept any feeling of wrongness about it.’
Lynn snuggled in closer still. ‘Neither can I. You’ve made me very happy, Henry.’ She sighed in contentment. ‘I’ve done so many things for the first time with you. Dancing. Fishing. Now this. I’m glad it was with you.’
‘I didn’t intend it, you know,’ he said. ‘Maybe it’s inevitable, considering the circumstances, but it wasn’t why I brought you out here on holiday.
‘I know. Nor was it why I agreed to come with you. Not at first. But I’m glad I did. Say you love me, Henry. I know you did already, but say it again. It doesn’t have to be true. Just say it.’
‘I don’t tell you lies, my dear,’ said Henry, stroking her hair and nuzzling her cheek. ‘I never did. Yes, I love you. It’s a strange sort of love perhaps. Hardly conventional at any rate, but it’s real enough for all that. Nor is it a transferred love. There’s nothing second hand about it. You are no more a substitute for Catriona than I am a substitute for a father for you.’
‘Thank you, Henry,’ sighed Lynn, snuggling in to him. ‘That’s all I wanted to hear, although I knew it already. Now I’m happy.’
It was early in the afternoon that Henry slowed the car by a yellow painted wooden church of significant proportions, reading the words on a small signpost nearby, that pointed along a narrow track. He turned the wheel and followed the sign, stopping outside a brick built office.
‘Why are we here?’ asked Lynn. ‘What is this place?’
‘It’s a church office,’ explained Henry. ‘I thought that, under the circumstances, you might like to make it legal.’
She looked at him steadily. ‘You don’t need to, you know,’ she said. ‘I’m modern enough for it not to matter.’
‘And I’m old fashioned enough for it to make a difference. I’m sorry, Lynn, that’s not a very romantic proposal. Will you marry me?’
She regarded him with a serious expression on her face. ‘Yes please. I’d like that. It really doesn’t matter, but I’d like it just the same.’ Her features relaxed in a broad grin. ‘As a modern young woman, I’m allowed to have Vile Thoughts of my own. Apart from that, though, I can only repeat, yes please. There’s nothing else I would rather have right now.’