If you think I'm going to give up on someone who calls me lovely then you are severely mistaken. She had meant every word that she had said to him that day in the library. And fortunately she had finally made him realise that she was serious. Oh, he complained that he needed a nurse more than a wife but even she could see that as the feeble excuse that it was. As she reminded him, he hadn't hired a nurse, therefore he was completely capable of managing without one.
The war had taken something from him, she could see that. But it had affected everyone; he wasn't the only one to see that they couldn't go back to the way they had lived before. No more carefree garden parties sipping champagne. Most land had been turned over to farming, or sold off. No more endless shopping trips to London. How could one when the whole country was rebuilding and there were maimed ex-servicemen to be seen begging in almost every town in the country.
They were neither of them as young or carefree as they had been that day at the Downton garden party when war was announced. But in her eyes that was all for the better. The war had forced her to grow up, to end her petty squabbles with Mary (for the most part at least), to understand more of the world around her, and to appreciate what she had more than ever. And what she had, finally, was her wedding day. Her main thought on that day, before the war and the proposal that never came, had been how wonderful it would be to be married before Mary, the elder daughter. To have her own house, servants to order about, to sit in her mother's drawing room as an equal, rather than the perennially overlooked daughter in the corner. Now all she wanted was to be Lady Strallan.
Not that she couldn't enjoy the day of course. Something in the house was finally about her and she was going to make the most of it. Not the least her dress. Beautiful, draped ivory silk from Lucille. Mary's lace confection couldn't even compare in her eyes. Not to mention the Grantham tiara on her head.
And beyond today, her wedding night, a honeymoon in Italy, and the rest of her life to revel in the glorious happiness that was to be hers. She turned to take her father's arm and began the happy walk up the aisle towards her fiancé and her future.