Page 1 of Four of Hearts

ONE

The room was silent, still. Harry could hear his own heart beating. In one of his huge, calloused hands, he was holding a rather fragile looking fountain pen. He’d not used a fountain pen in years. He had vague recollections of trying one when he was at school. He remembered the sound of the nib scratching on paper, the blotter, how his writing had ended up looking like a drunk spider had crawled across the page, and how, in the end, with only his name written down, he’d ended up with more ink on his hand than anywhere else.

Harry was sitting at a leather-topped desk in the registry office in Leyburn, Grace at his side. Only Ben and Liz were with them, they hadn’t brought anyone else along. Not even the dogs. They’d all agreed that their marriages, the legal part anyway, should be just for them; nice and quiet, and private. The fun bit, the celebration, that would be in a few weeks, when they would celebrate the couples they had become. Right now, they hadn’t wanted the noise, the fuss, the emotion. This was their moment.

‘You okay, there, Harry?’ Ben asked, leaning in conspiratorially. ‘Only, Liz and me are getting married, too, remember?’

Harry heard Ben’s laugh, understood his younger brother’s playful impatience, but right then, time seemed to be both stretching and contracting all at once. He wasn’t nervous, he was damned sure of that. The speed he’d driven him and Grace to Leyburn earlier was proof of that, as was the double-time speed at which he’d marched them to the registry office to meet Ben and Liz outside the main door.

No, this wasn’t hesitation, Harry realised. Neither was it fear or nervousness.

It was disbelief.

The path he had taken through his life had been a confused one, angry and violent and dark, so how the hell had he ended up here? What good deed had he done to deserve any of this? Not that he was complaining.

Harry felt a squeeze on his shoulder. He looked up into Grace’s eyes, a gentle smile creasing their corners just a little.

‘I’m assuming I don’t need to check if you’re having second thoughts about any of this?’

Harry reached up with his free hand and rested it on Grace’s. She interlocked her fingers with his. He knew that whatever expression he was wearing, or at least trying very hard to, it could never communicate what he felt inside. An IED had destroyed any chance of that. With his nerves ruined by the explosion, his face forever scarred by the razorblade shards of metal that had sliced his flesh like meat for a stir fry, his was a face that reminded everyone, and not just himself, of where he’d been, what he’d done, what he’d been through. Sometimes, he wondered what it would be like to be able to just smile, without it looking like he was about to rip someone’s head off.

He shook his head at Grace’s question.

‘Oh, you don’t need to worry about that,’ he said.

‘Then why the hesitation?’

Words were not Harry’s forte, and he wasn’t about to start baring his soul. Grace knew him better than anyone ever had, sometimes better even than he knew himself.

‘I guess I just never imagined that I’d be doing anything like this, with someone like you.’

Grace squeezed Harry’s fingers.

‘Makes two of us.’ The warmth in her eyes played a tune in Harry’s soul that almost had him singing. ‘Now, are you going to sign the register, or am I going to have to go and find myself another husband who looks like a loveable rockface?’

Harry laughed at that. To have found someone like Grace was the very definition of luck. That she somehow not only loved him for who he was, but for how he looked as well? He’d never been able to get his head around that, doubted that he ever would. He was well aware that how he looked was something he’d used as a wall, something he’d hidden behind for decades. He was safe there, and it had the added advantage of terrifying anyone who came close.

Grace, though? She’d seen through that immediately. Harry wasn’t sure she’d even mentioned it when they’d first met. It was as though, from that first chance meeting, she’d actuallyseenhim. And ever since that moment, he’d been in a state of bewilderment.

Harry rested the nib of the pen on the paper, and at that very moment, Grace leaned forward to whisper into his ear.

‘Just in case you’ve forgotten, we’re already married. This signing bit? It’s just a formality.’

Harry cocked his head back.

‘So, there’s no getting out of it, then?’

‘Nope.’

Harry hesitated just long enough to get a gentle punch on the arm. Then, noticing the flip of his stomach, he signed the register.

With Grace’s signature then done, Ben and Liz stepped forward to witness it. Ben took hold of the pen. As he placed the nib against the paper, Harry noticed that his brother’s hand was shaking.

‘Means a lot, you doing this,’ he said.

‘Sorry, Harry, I shouldn’t be nervous,’ Ben replied. ‘It’s just my signature, isn’t it?’

Harry said nothing for a moment, then whispered, ‘Yes and no. It does mean that if I die, you have to marry Grace as well, but I can’t see that being a problem, can you?’