Rolling her eyes, Maeve held up her left hand so that her mother could see the ring that now encircled her finger. Merlin, after all these years of nagging, the redhead would have expected the woman to be pleased, overjoyed even! While Maeve had been prepared for a lack of enthusiasm from some of her relations—her father, in particular—her mother had never graced that particular list.

“I am happy, Mother, and Barnabas is happy—” they had not discussed a great many things, but he had expressed that he was less than enthusiastic about being called “Barney” “—and now you’ve no need to worry about me anymore, or fret that I’ll die a spinster! Really, you ought to be weeping with joy!”