Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
The church was no St. George’s, but it was an attractive if small building. Genevieve clung to Kendrick’s arm in the shadow of its edifice. Behind them, Etienne, Addie, Dominic, Robbie, Elspeth, and Sparrow waited. Next to the church, the parsonage had a light burning in the window.
“The vicar should be waiting for us. I was specific about the time,” Kendrick murmured.
Genevieve chewed on her lip.
“Trust me?” he said quietly.
“I do,” she said.
He knocked on the parsonage door and it swung open, revealing the sleepy and somewhat glassy-eyed human vicar.
“Come in, come in,” he said, ushering the group of vampires into his sitting room, a cozy enough space with overflowing bookshelves and a fire burning down to embers on the hearth.
He asked no questions, merely directed them to join hands.
Genevieve held on to Kendrick like a lifeline. The vicar opened his prayer book and began. “Dearly Beloved.”
The ceremony went quickly and without issue until the giving of rings. Dominic placed a gold band in Kendrick’s hand. It was made of many strands intertwined in a complex braid pattern. She knew instinctively that it was not something he had seen in a shop window.
He had made it himself. A giver of rings. But a special one just for her.
Her long-dead heart wanted to thump. It wanted to leap. The back of her throat ached.
Genevieve stared down at her gloves. She needed to take them off to put the ring on. The ring would not fit over her glove.
You can do this. You have to do this. She fumbled at the buttons, but she couldn’t make the loops come free. Her hands shook. A second more and she would tear the silk.
Kendrick stilled her trembling fingers. “May I?”
Miserably, wretchedly, she nodded.
Carefully, he undid the buttons at her wrist and slid the left glove free.
Genevieve stared down at her hand, the long fingers all fish-belly pale…
and the ruined nailbeds on all fingers save the smallest. The empty places where nails used to be made her curl her hand into a fist. Shame crawled up her throat.
How strange it was that this, after all that had happened to her, was what she was most desperate to hide.
Kendrick took her hand with his own strong, calloused one, with its own nicks and scars.
He gently uncurled her fist before slipping the gold ring onto her fourth finger.
“With this ring, I thee wed, with my body, I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods, I thee endow in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.”
The vicar said, “Let us pray.”
And then they were married. And before Kendrick dipped his head to kiss her lips, he lifted their entwined hands and kissed her fingertips first—every ruined one of them.
Elspeth and Sparrow embraced her on the steps of the parsonage, squeezing Genevieve tightly. “I’m so happy for you,” Sparrow said in a thick voice, looking beautiful in a claret-colored gown.
“Don’t worry about the boy today,” Elspeth assured her, her smile lopsided. A rose-colored hat had been pinned carefully to her hair. “I will look after him, and so will Robbie and Joseph.”
“What do you mean?”
Her friends exchanged an amused glance. “Genevieve, every bride deserves a honeymoon, even a short one.”
A hand rested on the small of her back. Kendrick’s.
“What have you all conspired on?” Genevieve asked, even as her heart thumped at the contact.
“We have a reservation at the Langham before sunrise.”
“The Langham?” It was the largest and most modern hotel in the city—she heard it had electric light in some portions now. “But the risk—” The expense, she added internally.
“Don’t worry.” Kendrick took her hand—he had helped put her gloves back on after the ceremony—and tucked it in the curve of his elbow. “I’ve taken care of everything.”
He assisted her out of the hansom cab as the sky was greying in the east. The entrance to the Langham shone bright and yellow; she could hear the hum from the light bulbs that illuminated the portico.
Bellboys dashed forward to accept the luggage from the cab driver as Kendrick escorted her through the entrance and over the plush carpet to the front desk.
A large tree festooned with ribbon and baubles took center stage in the lobby, one of the Queen’s fads that had gained popularity.
Elsewhere in the hotel, greenery and holly had been artfully placed for the Christmas season.
“Welcome, sir, madam,” the night concierge said, a small furrow between his brows at a guest’s arrival at six in the morning. His eyes widened at the sight of the sword hilt over Kendrick’s shoulder.
“We have a reservation, under Kendrick,” Kendrick rumbled, catching the man’s eye and holding it.
“Ah—yes, here it is.” His face smoothed out into a smile as he produced the information in the reservation book. “Fuller will show you up.” He indicated the waiting gentleman. “Your luggage will be delivered momentarily. Will you require a maid or valet’s service?”
“No,” Kendrick said. “And we request not to be disturbed. Should we need anything, we will ring.”
“Very good, sir,” the concierge said. “We strive to accommodate all our guests.”
As she and her new husband followed Fuller up the grand staircase, Genevieve whispered, “Did you magic him?”
“I’m tired. I wanted to stop answering questions,” Kendrick replied in an undertone.
“Hmph.”
When he opened the door to the room, Kendrick immediately did a circuit through the suite, making sure all the window curtains were closed.
Genevieve waited in the main room, after glancing into the bedroom at the massive, four-poster bed.
The luggage arrived momentarily, and after refusing help to unpack, Kendrick kindly sent the man away with a tip.
“Did I tell you that you looked beautiful this morning, Genevieve?” he asked, propping the sword against the bed and divesting himself of his coat.
“You did,” she said, swallowing. “But it’s nice to hear.”
“It’s true. I think there ought to be a nightgown in the luggage. I told Elspeth to pack one. Do you want to change before the sun comes up?”
“Are we not going to…?”
“Have a wedding breakfast? Not if you’re not hungry.”
She stared at him blankly.
“The breakfast is me, Genevieve. And there’s no rush. Let me know if you need help.”
She opened the trunk and found the white, silk gown and matching robe inside, carefully packed with a small note from Elspeth: “Enjoy it.” Genevieve disappeared behind the screen with it.
Unpinning her hat and doffing her gloves, Genevieve started unbuttoning her dress. She hadn’t worn a nightgown in twenty years. This one was beautiful, if filmy. The silk was thin enough that she could pull it through her wedding ring.
She stared at the ring that glinted on her ruined finger.
Once she had taken off her new gown and corset, she removed her shift and pulled the nightgown over her head. Belting on the robe, she emerged from the screen and said, “Did you really make this?” She held out her hand.
Asking about the ring had been a conscious decision to leave off the gloves. He had already seen the left hand. There was no point in hiding the right, with its missing three nails and a deep gouge in her thumb.
“Yes.” Kendrick had stripped to his shirtsleeves, his braces hanging loose from his trouser waist, and had removed his shoes and socks. He unbuttoned the collar of his shirt. She could see the line of his neck, and she remembered his comment about a wedding breakfast. She swallowed.
“Do you like it?”
He’s talking about the ring, Genevieve. “Yes.” Her gaze dropped back down to the braided gold. “You were planning on me saying yes even before we found Fletcher? That was when you made it, wasn’t it?”
“Planning, no. Just hoping. And I did make plain rings to give away.” He took her hand in his and chuckled. “After working in that heat, I felt like I had absorbed enough to be a great wyrm belching forth fire. It was enough to wish I could sweat again.”
“You’re no dragon,” she said. “A lion, maybe, but no dragon.”
He smiled. “Lion?”
She nodded as a wave of exhaustion washed over her. He steadied her when she swayed. “All golden mane and roar,” she murmured.
He ran his thumb over her cheek. “You’re tired. Come.”
“But what about—” she mumbled as he led her to the bed and pulled back the coverlet.
“It will keep, Genevieve. We have all the time in the world. You really have no patience, do you?”
That roused her enough that she frowned up into his face. “It isn’t about time. It’s about importance, and making sure important things are not forgotten.”
“I won’t forget,” he promised. “Go to sleep.”
“You need to sleep, too,” she said, sinking into the soft mattress.
“I was planning on it. Scoot over.”
The last thing she remembered was resting her head on his shoulder instead of the pillow. It felt…good. And she didn’t flinch.
As light appeared and strengthened around the edges of the curtains at the far end of the room, Kendrick listened to the sounds of the hotel and London at large waking to greet the day.
Cabs ran to and fro, maids entered rooms to make the beds, guests prepared to check out or embark on their daily excursions.
The rhythms of the city that they had no part in.
As he lay there, sometimes slumbering, sometimes waking, the weight on his arm was unfamiliar but welcome—because it was Genevieve. His wife.
He was married.
New experiences, after so long. He ran his fingers through Genevieve’s hair, the soft strands a lovely sensation on his fingers. Life can still surprise you, he told himself. There is still wonder to be found in the world.
Genevieve curled her face further against his shoulder. “Don’t,” she mumbled.
“Hmm?” He paused his motion.
“My hair,” she whispered, drugged with sleep. “Too short.”
“I think you look beautiful with short hair, sweetheart.”
One eye cracked open. “Really?”
“Yes. Your hair frames your face, and it’s soft. I like watching it move.” He ran his fingers through it again. “And it’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“’M not ashamed. People just… think poorly of it.”
“Were you ill, Jenny?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No. I sold it.”
“There’s a story there,” he murmured.
She opened one eye again.
“I like a good tale.”
“My friend Hetty,” she said. “She had the loveliest red hair. And then one day, it was all gone. She didn’t tell anyone why, but anyone who bothered to pause half a minute to think could realize.
And then…the next Sunday, our vicar preaches on a woman’s hair being her glory and covering.
” She growled in the back of her throat.
“If I could have, I would have slain him on the spot. I went after her and got the story out of her. That her family was close to ruin and desperate, and she had sold it to the wigmaker for only a few coins. I marched her back to the wigmaker’s and demanded he pay her a fair sum, and then I cut mine, too, and gave her the money. ”
She sighed. The words seemed to have exhausted her. “It was just hair.”
Kendrick tightened his arm around her and pressed a kiss to her beautiful hair. “People will think what they like, but you gave your hair to help a friend. There is nothing nobler. And you were right to be angry.” He snorted. “By that vicar’s estimation, I should cut my hair.”
“Don’t you dare,” Genevieve said darkly.
“Oh? Why not?”
“Cut your hair and I’ll get an annulment,” she muttered.
He burst out laughing, his whole body shaking with the force of it, so much so that she shot him an irritated look, like a sleepy cat annoyed at being disturbed.
Now the truth comes out, he thought. He got himself under control and assured her, “Never fear, sweetheart.” He stroked his hand over her head again. “All of it is yours.”
“Feels nice. Your hand,” she said, her lips against his chest. She gave more of her weight to his side and relaxed into sleep again.
Kendrick kept up the motion. She was a precious thing, fierce and intelligent and starchy, but full of love and care and belief.
Some part of him felt like he knew her already, but maybe that was because her father had penned those novels Kendrick had loved so well, windows to a past he could no longer reach.
He and Genevieve shared that common bond.
But another part of him thought he could spend the next hundred years discovering new things about Genevieve Dryden.
Not Dryden, he reminded himself. He didn’t know what she would like to use as married name. As changing centuries and shifting language had modified his name, he simply kept both versions and used them as given and surname interchangeably when required. She might not like that.
Perhaps she’d like to pick a new one for them both. A new start. He would not go so far as styling himself setting up a dynasty.
But a new start. That had promise. It might be just the thing for a new direction for the Ossuary, and vampires at large.