The ring arrived a day late by courier, and the rain arrived a day early, and neither of those were in the plan.
Ellis had booked the walled garden for a Thursday evening, before Fernwater meant anything to either of us, back when it was just a pretty place with good light and a bench nobody else seemed to use. The ring was meant to arrive on Wednesday. It arrived on Friday, which meant two days of carrying an empty box and hoping Amara did not ask to see inside it.
The weather had other plans
Friday evening turned out wet, properly wet, the kind that empties a garden in ten minutes. Gerald, who did not yet know either of our names, let them wait it out under the orangery roof with two mugs of tea and no explanation asked for.
The ring was two days late and the rain was one day early, and somehow the evening still worked.
What actually happened
The rain eased for about four minutes around eight o clock. That was the window. Ellis has since admitted the speech he had practised was entirely forgotten, and what he actually said was considerably shorter and, Amara says, better for it.
Gerald later said he had seen the whole thing from the orangery window and had known, right then, that this was the place they would come back to. He was right, by about ten months.
