He looked at Aria.
"When Damien came to me," he said. "I looked at his face and I saw what I had at twenty three. Someone who had been decided about by a woman who knew what she wanted." He paused. "I put the ring on the desk because Eleanor would have wanted it there." A pause. "And because I could see that you were the same kind of certain she was. That you'd decided. That you weren't waiting for permission."
She looked at the ring on her finger.
Single stone. Eleanor Blackwood's choice. A twenty one year old woman who knew what she wanted before she had language for it.
"I wish I'd met her," she said.
"She'd have liked you enormously," Richard said. "She'd have found you completely insufferable in the specific way she found insufferable people she admired." He paused. "She'd have told Damien within twenty minutes that he didn't deserve you. She told me that about every person she loved."
Aria laughed.
Surprised. Genuine. The kind that came before she could stop it.
