There were more greetings, more embraces, more words than Aurelia could properly take in. She received it all with grace, but somewhere beneath the composure was a girl who had once watched her mother fade beneath disgrace, and who could scarcely believe that admiration, when it came, could feel so strange.
At last, Owen came to her side again.
“My love,” he said low enough that the guests nearest them would not hear, “may I steal you for a moment?”
“You are my husband now,” she replied. “I suppose theft is unnecessary.”
His mouth curved. “Even better.”
He offered his arm, and she took it. Together they moved a little away from the press of guests, toward the path that curved beside the church toward the front gate.
He looked down at her then, and the tenderness she had noticed before deepened. “There is one more matter I have been waiting to share with you.”
Aurelia slowed. “One more matter?”
“Something I wished to arrange only once your family’s name had been cleared beyond dispute.”
A small unease passed through her, though it was not fear exactly. “What have you done?”
“You shall see.”
He led her toward the church entrance. At first, Aurelia saw only the road, dappled with sunlight, and the waiting carriages lined neatly beyond the low stone wall. For one confused moment, she thought perhaps Owen meant to show her some arrangement for their journey, some change in their route or destination.
Then the carriage door opened and a woman stepped down.
Aurelia stopped breathing. The figure was slender and graceful, dressed in soft gray silk with a bonnet tied beneath her chin. One gloved hand rested briefly on the footman’s arm, but not with weakness.
Lady Arabella Finch looked toward the church. For one impossible second, mother and daughter simply stared at one another across the sunlit path.
Aurelia could not move. The bouquet slipped in her hand. Owen caught it before it fell.
“Mama,” she whispered.
Her mother’s face changed at the sound. All composure vanished. Her eyes filled.
“My darling girl.”
Aurelia still did not move. Joy, disbelief, shock, and old grief all rose together so swiftly that she felt rooted to the earth by them. Her mother was in France. Her mother was too frail to travel. Her mother existed in quiet rooms and shaded afternoons, in letters written with trembling hands, in memories of beauty dimmed by sorrow.
Yet she was here, in England, on Aurelia’s wedding day.
Owen stood close beside her. “When the truth was made public, I wrote to her at once. I thought she should hear it from one who had seen the evidence placed beyond denial.”
Aurelia could not look away from her mother.
“She recovered some strength,” Owen continued softly. “More than even her physician expected, I am told. Enough to wish to come home.”
Home.
The word struck Aurelia so deeply that a sound escaped her.
“I arranged for her journey to be made safely,” he explained. “Every comfort I could think of and every protection. And I asked her, if it was her wish, to come and live with us.”
Aurelia turned to him then. He held her gaze.
“She should never again have to face the world alone,” he vowed. “Nor should you be kept from caring for her as you have so long wished to do.”
There were no words for it, none that could possibly hold the fullness of what he had given her. He had not merely restored her name, or offered her his love, or made her his wife. He had understood the one wound beneath all others: the separation, the helplessness, the guilt of having left her mother behind even for duty’s sake. And he had mended what he could.
