Enchanted by freckles - Garreth Weasley & Sebastian Sallow x female MC

36th chapter

My mouth fell open. Only now did I realize that I was crying too. Garreth's words touched me tremendously.

"You know the answer. There's nothing in this world that I'd rather be. Yes, of course, Garreth!" I replied, smiling at him.

He took my hand with his hand that was shaking very badly, took the ring out of the box and slipped it over my ring finger. He gave me a kiss on my hand and stood up. I immediately jumped up, put one hand on the back of his head, the other on his cheek and kissed him intensely while there was thunderous applause in the hall.

It felt as if the world had stopped for a moment. Garreth and I held our kiss, while the other guests continued to applaud loudly.

Slowly we broke away and looked at each other in our teary faces. We both beamed while everyone stared at us.

"To Garreth and Caelie's engagement!" Viviane called to us from across the room. Everyone raised their glasses and repeated Viviane's words.

I looked around. Mrs. and Mr. Weasley sat across from us, wiping tears from their eyes. Jennie cried loudly before she jumped up and hugged us both at once. I heard someone blow their nose into a handkerchief and saw that Prof. Weasley was crying a little as well.

One by one everyone came up to us and congratulated us. "Caelie, you've been a part of our family for a long time and we look forward to seeing you take our last name, too," said Garreth's father.

"Thank you very much, Mr. Weasley." I answered through sobs. "My name is Yvain. I already told you about it when you moved in with us. You don't need to talk to us so formally. Especially not now. Gwen, do you always feel old too when people call you by your last name?" he said, smiling at his wife.

"I just always wanted to show enough respect because of my gratitude," I said quietly. Yvain raised an eyebrow.

"Caelie, we took you in because you were already a part of our family. And family members are helped when the need arises," he said, continuing to smile at me.

"And besides, it hardly made any difference anyway. You were always with us in the summer anyway. The fact that you then slept with us all the time didn't cause us much extra work. Besides, Jennie was happy not to sleep alone anymore. And you were always so committed to playing with the little ones or helping me around the house," Gwen said, wiping my tears with a smile, "You've helped us more than the man you want to marry. He should really show us more respect given all the extra work he's given us." added with a laugh.

Adaliz and Gawain approached us. Adaliz hugged me tightly and congratulated us lavishly. And even Gawain hugged me and said in his deep, rumbling voice, "Welcome to the family, little Fayette." He smiled kindly at me before turning to Garreth.

After everyone gave us their congratulations, Viviane opened the meal.

Garreth was carving the giant goose that was placed on our part of the table. During the meal I kept looking at my ring. It was so gorgeous. Garreth noticed my look and said with a smile, "The thing about Marlee's house comes at just the right moment. We won't be able to afford a house for a long time. This ring cost all my savings and even had to sell a few things to buy it."

"Garreth, it doesn't need an expensive ring. A simple, cheap silver ring would have been more than enough." I said softly. "No," Garreth replied, "I chose this ring because it suits you perfectly. It's a genuine ruby from China."

"It's beautiful," I said while looking at my hand.

After the meal, we sang songs together. Garreth and I decided to do some dancing again. We really weren't good at it, but it was nice and very intimate. Garreth and I mostly just stood snuggled up close to each other and wobbled a bit to the beat of the music until I sat down to catch my breath.