Page 106 of A Fragile Enchantment

“I said I wasn’t going to repeat myself.” There was no bite to his words now. His expression was unbearably earnest. “Marry me. I never got the chance to ask you again yesterday, but I assume you’ve had enough time to think about it by now.”

Niamh burst out laughing, but she teetered on the knife’s edge of tears. Those words stabbed through her with a longing unlike any she’d ever known. One proposal from a man like him wasmore than she could’ve ever hoped for. But a second, upon being rejected and betrayed and humiliated? No creature on this earth could be so stubborn, so… so…

“That is a cruel joke, Kit Carmine!”

“I’m still not joking.”

He was frowning at her with mounting concern. Hewasserious. Her eyes welled with tears. She tried to blink them back, but they escaped despite her best efforts. She scrubbed at them, but they slipped down her cheeks faster than she could keep up with.

He cradled her jaw, angling her face up to his. His touch and expression were so uncertain, she couldn’t bear it. “Did I say something wrong?”

“No! It isn’t that.” Niamh curled her fingers weakly around his wrist. Of all her terrible fears, there was one she had yet to vanquish—her constant companion. “I just don’t understandwhy. You have always seen the heart of me. Ihavebeen running, and now that I’ve stopped, I see exactly what was waiting for me. I am afraid to be loved. I don’t know how much time I can give you. Right now, I have more good days than bad. But I may decline. I may leave you suddenly. I don’t want to hurt you that way. It’s not fair to ask you to undergo that kind of pain.”

“I can’t avoid pain. I’m done trying.” He made a soft, frustrated sound and tucked the strand of white behind her ear. “You are so full of life, Niamh. The wide-open way you smile. The way you dance through empty rooms. How you put all of yourself into everything you do. I feel like I’ve lived a thousand years in the time I’ve known you. I feel like I’m awake for the very first time. Even if you were gone tomorrow, even if you took my heart with you when you went, I wouldn’t regret a single moment I’ve spent with you. How could I? You’ve changed me. I will carry you with me forever.”

Nowthatwas the proposal she’d dreamed of as a girl. “I love you, too.”

She stood on her toes and kissed him. His eyes widened, andhis mouth was slack against hers as his mind caught up with his body. But then he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her tight against him. When she finally released him, he regarded her dazedly. “So… Is that a yes?”

“Yes,” she breathed. “Yes.”

It was the easiest decision she’d ever made.

32

Not an hour later, in the Cathedral of Saint John, they were married.

It had seemed a shame, after all, to let such meticulous preparations go entirely to waste. And so, the guests were called in like cows from the courtyard, drenched from the waning storm and with glasses of lemonade in hand. They were inordinately merry. Their laughter and chatter filled the cathedral to bursting. It suited Niamh fine. She was a bit merry herself. Even in her stained gown, even with her bloodshot eyes and her hair half a ruin, everything was perfect. Well, almost everything.

The bishop presided over the ceremony with a pinched expression and his peculiar hat knocked askance. He looked as though he were there under duress and spoke as though he were about to perform some mortal sin. Perhaps both were true. When they’d foundhim in his office, he had been sprawled on the floor in supplication, a thread of prayer beads wound tight around his bloodless hands.

“This is most irregular, sir! Never in my fifty years of service have I seen the like. It is scandalous! It is unnatural! God, surely, is loath to see one of his favored children debase himself in such a manner! I should refuse you. Iwillrefuse you!”

Kit had glared at him implacably. “Will you now?”

The bishop’s passion had fizzled as it occurred to him exactly who he was speaking to. “Erm… Iwould,that is, Your Highness, if you were any other man. But you are not. And so. Shall we, then?”

It was all Niamh could do to keep a straight face as the bishop carried on with the interminable, grim business of an Avlish wedding.

“Now,” he said, with a vague wave at the chalice on the table between them, “we shall commence with the blessing.”

Niamh turned over the glass vial in her hands. Kit uncorked his and poured it into the chalice. The gentle slosh of liquid was the only sound in the cathedral. “I, Christopher Carmine, thee wed. With my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow.”

Niamh’s hands were trembling as she uncapped the vial.

Don’t drop it,she prayed. As she emptied it into the chalice, she held his gaze. By some miracle, not a drop spilled. “I, Niamh Ó Conchobhair, thee wed. With my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow.”

She lifted the cup and sipped. The water tasted as cool as spring—like honey and heather. She passed it to Kit, who watched her over the rim with lovesick golden eyes.

This time, Sinclair had the cloak ready. Niamh did not miss the misty look in his eyes as he helped Kit into it.

“Kneel,” the bishop said.

They did. The floor was cold and hard against her knees, but when Kit snuck his hand into hers, a flame kindled within her.

“Those whom God hath joined together,” the bishop said wearily, “let no man put asunder.”

Before the words were fully out of his mouth, Kit tugged her close and folded her into his cloak. She pressed her hands flat to his chest to steady herself. With a faint smirk, he kissed her. A few in the audience gasped. Niamh grinned like a fool against his lips. It was bold and irregular and contrary—exactly as he was. Her cheeks ached from smiling.