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Kal waved. “Hi, Bea.”
The doors opened at the entry to the church. Everyone turned to see Winston’s brother, Neville, handsome as sin in his tails, walking down the aisle with his mother.
The tears sprung to Rosemary’s eyes automatically. She had known Nev since she and Winston dated at university, when Neville was a spotty, fair-haired teenager who adored his older brother and resented her existence.
She’d watched him grow up. He’d watched her disappear in her marriage.
Rosemary was there on the weekend Nev brought Cath home to meet his parents. She’d seen how he looked at the woman, and she’d seen how Cath lifted her chin and held her own at the dinner table. It was Winston’s treatment of Cath, even more than his betrayal of Nev, that had convinced Rosemary to leave him.
Neville showed his mother to her pew. Winston rose from his seat and joined his brother as best man.
The music changed, and the crowd turned as one, rising to watch Mary Catherine walk down the aisle on the arm of the man who would be her father-in-law. Her hair was dark, cut close to her head, glossy and sharp. She wore a crimson dress, tight to the hips, with a skirt that pooled on the floor and trailed fully ten feet behind her.
She looked absolutely stunning, her eyes locked with Neville’s at the end of the aisle.
They began the exchange of vows.
It wasn’t the traditional service, but the words they spoke conveyed the truths they’d learned about love and partnership in the time they’d already spent together.
Mary Catherine Talarico, do you promise to love this man to the end of your life?
I do.
Do you promise to honor his purpose, cherish his heart, and encourage him through all the challenges of the years ahead?
I do.
Rosemary squeezed Kal’s hand, and he squeezed back.
She hadn’t known they would have this moment together. Nor had she expected she would want it—some version of it—in their future. They’d spoken of weddings only in the abstract, the far-off hypothetical possibility, barely worth thinking about.
Kal ducked his head close to her ear and whispered, “Let’s get married.”
Rosemary could only nod.
—
The reception took place in the ballroom of the Chamberlains’ country estate. Rosemary had never seen quite so many people packing these rooms at once.
She’d never seen quite so much of Richard’s precious art collection on display in the halls, or quite so much champagne being passed freely about.
She’d never seen Evita so effervescent, or Richard so garrulous, or Neville and Cath so purely, perfectly happy.
All she could think of was escape.
“I’ve just realized something terrible,” she told Kal, whom she’d pulled into a recess in the wall in the hope of keeping anyone else from speaking to him.
“What’s that?”
“I’m meant to be sharing a room.”
“With who?”
“I don’t know, actually. One of Winston’s cousins, I think. There weren’t enough rooms for everyone to sleep singly.”
Kal looked around at the vast ballroom, t
he high ceilings. “How is that possible?”
