“No,” Camelia said serenely. “I only remember yours, Margaret, because you kept winking at me from the pew as if we were sharing a joke.”
“It was very funny,” Pamela whispered, and the two young girls giggled.
“I am glad to know my wedding was a comedy for you,” Camelia muttered.
Their chatter washed over Iris in a warm, ridiculous wave. Once, she might have told them to hush, to behave themselves, to remember they were in church. Today, she only smiled, a little helplessly.
The doors finally opened, and the congregation rose like a field of wheat before a gust. Iris walked with them slowly.
Marcus and Blaise stood beside the pew. She had seen Blaise in every imaginable state now: sweating and bloodied from a fight; sprawled and laughing in a chaise; naked in candlelight, his scar catching the glow like a line of silvered flame. Still, the sight of him today, dressed in sober black and immaculate linen, waiting for her with his head held high, scattered her composure in a single swift gust.
He looked… like her future.
He saw her at once. His gaze snagged on her and stayed. The corner of his mouth lifted. Not his practiced, charming rake’s smile. The smaller one, the real one that tilted his cheek and softened his eyes.
As Blaise came to stand opposite her, the world narrowed to the span between them: the width of the chancel rail, the distance of one step, and a lifetime.
“You are late,” she murmured.
The corner of his mouth ticked higher. “I was waylaid by a duke in existential distress.”
“Another one?” she asked. “How many can you collect before breakfast?”
He inclined his head slightly towards Marcus. “This one insists I introduce him to Lady Pamela, who, I am informed, hates him.”
“You are incorrigible.” She almost laughed.
His gaze dipped just as the priest began the sermon. “You are exquisite.”
Color raced up her neck. “This is church, Blaise.”
“I noticed,” he said. “There are rather a lot of pews.”
The vicar coughed delicately. “The rings?”
The ceremony unfolded in words, and they repeated the words they were told. The ring he slid onto her finger was cool for a moment, then warmed against her skin. It fit perfectly.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I now introduce to you Mr. and Mrs. Vale.”
The congregation threw petals as they stepped out of the church.
Blaise bent his head to her ear. “How do you feel, wife?”
The title curled strangely in her chest. Once, she would have flinched from it, fearing the weight of new expectations. Now it felt like something they had made between them, rather than something imposed.
“Hungry,” she said. “These ceremonies are very long.”
He laughed, and the sound slid into her bones and settled there.
“Luckily for you, there is a wedding breakfast awaiting us,” he said. “Toasts. Speeches. I am told Alistair intends to recite an ode he has written in our honor.”
“Do not jest about such things,” she protested. “He might actually do it.”
“I would never underestimate his capacity for dramatic excess.” He tucked her hand firmly into the crook of his arm as they walked toward the waiting carriage. “But we are not staying.”
She blinked. “We are not?”
“We will make a polite appearance. We will endure the toasts. We will prevent Alistair from unleashing any poetry upon theunsuspectington. Then”—his fingers flexed lightly over hers—“we will go home.”
