to the wedding.” He looked to Penny. “I’m hoping to be a part of it. Might I have the honor of walking you down the aisle?”
She couldn’t speak.
“This past year, I haven’t kept my distance out of anger or mistrust, but out of shame. I’m your older brother. I should have paid more attention. I should have … known somehow. I wasn’t there when you needed me, and I know I can never make amends for the past. But if you’ll allow me, I promise to be there from this day forward.”
“You don’t have to say yes, Penny,” Gabriel said.
“I know.”
She took her brother’s hands in hers. The space between them couldn’t be bridged in one morning. But if he’d taken the first step—several thousand first steps, considering the distance from Cumberland—she could make the next.
Before speaking, she paused to reflect. “Bradford, I’m glad you’re here. So very glad. But I don’t want you to walk me down the aisle this morning. I’m not yours to give away.”
Bradford looked disappointed, but he took it well. “I understand. I’ll fetch Aunt Caroline, then? She’s just outside.”
“I’m not Aunt Caroline’s to give away, either. Or anyone’s. I’m my own person, marrying the man of my choosing.” She reached for Gabriel’s hand and looked up at him. “Why don’t we walk down the aisle together?”
“Rather a break with tradition,” Bradford said. “But if it’s what you want.”
“It is.”
“Then that’s how it should be. I’m happy for you, Penny.” Bradford kissed her on the cheek. On his way out, he leveled a finger at Gabriel. “You’re not good enough for her.”
“Neither are you,” Gabriel returned.
Bradford nodded. “What do you know, we’ve already found some common ground.”
When her brother had left, Penny turned to her groom and smiled. “I suppose we should go be married.”
“No hedgehog in your pocket?”
She shook her head. “And no shilling in yours, I hope?”
His reply was strangely hesitant. “No.”
Suspicious, Penny skimmed her hands over the silk of his waistcoat and the hard planes of his chest beneath. When her fingers encountered a hard, flat object in the region of his breast pocket, she gave a cry of displeasure. “Gabriel.”
“What?”
“You know very well what.” She worked her gloved hand under the superfine wool of his lapel, delving into the concealed pocket.
He shied from her touch. “Brazen woman.”
“You promised me.”
“And I kept my promise.”
“Truly?” She pinched the coin between her thumb and forefinger, wiggling it free of its satin-lined hiding place. “Then how do you explain this?”
“Spare change. Can’t imagine how it got there.”
She tipped her head in reproach.
He exhaled, sounding resigned. “It’s not what you think.”
She turned her hand palm-up between them, letting the coin serve as its own accusation. “I think I know a shilling when I see one.”
“Look again.”
She looked down at the coin in her gloved palm, where its embossed face stood out in sharp relief against white satin. Light glinted off the surface, revealing the color to be not the expected dull silver, but a coppery hue instead.
Oh.
A sharp pang of surprise caught her heart. He’d been telling the truth. It wasn’t a shilling after all.
It was a penny.
A bright, newly minted penny. One he’d been keeping tucked in his breast pocket. Right next to his heart.
She drew a shaky breath. “Gabriel.”
His hands went to her shoulders—but it was his low, husky voice that reached out and drew her close. “You know the squalor I was born to. And you know I promised myself I’d never be that barefoot, starving boy again.”
She nodded.
“I have every luxury a man could desire. Hundreds of thousands of pounds in my accounts. I worked like hell to build a fortune, and yet …” His thumb met her cheek with a reverent caress. “Now I’d sell my soul for a Penny.”
She stretched up on her toes and placed a soft, lingering kiss to his cheek, nuzzling as they drifted apart. They stared into each other’s eyes for a time. She couldn’t have guessed whether it lasted seconds or hours, but she knew it was a sliver of always.
He held out his hand. “I’ll take that back, thank you.”
She surrendered the coin gladly, tucking it back into his pocket before straightening his lapels and smoothing his coat flat. “I’m going to walk down the aisle with a reddened nose and watery eyes. I hope you’re happy.”
He replied simply, “I am.”
Several years later
“I love you,” Penny said sweetly, as she did at least once an afternoon. “I love you.”
“Pretty girl.”
“I love you. I love you. I love you.”
“MRS. ROBBINS!”
Penny sighed and offered the bird a bit of crumbled biscuit. “Oh, Delilah. I’m not giving up, you know. One of these days, we’re going to get it right.”
Over the past few years, Delilah’s repertoire of phrases had indeed expanded, in many of the same ways that Penny’s life had grown.
In the first year of their marriage, Delilah had learned to mimic Bixby’s barking. She’d also mastered, “No, George! No!” which amused Gabriel no end.
By the following winter, Delilah had learned to imitate a newborn’s wail with such startling accuracy that she’d drawn both of them out of bed on many an early morning, after many a sleepless night. Gabriel found this significantly less amusing.
A few months more, and Delilah could hum the first strains of a lullaby. She’d learned to call out “Mummy!” mere weeks after little Jacob did.
For whatever reason, however,
