Chapter 29
The vicar cleared his throat. He was a small man with spectacles and the weary patience of a clergyman who had seen stranger things than a bloodied groom, though perhaps not many.
“Dearly beloved,” he began. “We are gathered here in the sight of God, and in the face of this congregation, to join together this man and this woman in holy matrimony.”
Valeria kept her eyes on Edward. He was looking at the vicar now, standing very still, his hands hanging at his sides. The blood on his knuckles had dried to a dark rust. His coat was dusty. His cravat hung loose. He looked nothing like a duke and everything like the man she had chosen.
Caroline was crying behind her. Quiet tears, the kind that came without sound.
Richard had moved closer and was holding her hand.
John stood by the door with his arms crossed, watching Edward with an expression that was equal parts respect and warning.
Bridget was sitting in the second row, calm and steady, her son on her lap.
Evan stood beside her, face unreadable, as if standing at attention rather than attending a wedding.
The vicar asked whether anyone present knew of any just cause or impediment. The chapel was silent. Valeria half expected George to walk through the door. He did not.
The silence held. The candles flickered. Mrs. Grady blew her nose into her gravy-stained handkerchief, and three people in the back row turned around.
The vows followed. Edward turned to face her.
His jaw was tight. His eyes were green and raw and steady, and he was finally looking at her the way she had been asking him to look at her for days.
Not through her. Not past her. But at her.
As though she were the only person in the room.
As though the chapel, the guests, the vicar, and the roses had all dissolved, and what remained was just the two of them standing in sunlight, about to promise each other everything.
“I, Edward Langton, take thee, Valeria, to be my wedded wife.” His voice was low, rough, the burr heavier than usual. “To have and to hold from this day forward. For better, for worse. For richer, for poorer. In sickness and in health. To love and to cherish, till death us do part.”
He said love. He said it in front of the vicar and the guests and Caroline’s tears and John’s crossed arms and God and everyone.
He said it as though it were a fact, not a feeling.
A thing that existed outside of him, solid and immovable, the way a mountain existed or a river or the ground beneath one’s feet.
Now it was her turn.
She took a breath. The chapel was warm. The sunlight danced across the floor.
She could hear Caroline sniffling. She could hear the vicar turning pages.
She could hear her own heartbeat, steady and sure, and she held onto that steadiness the way she had held onto it in Gordon’s chapel, except this time the steadiness was not a defense. It was a foundation.
“I, Valeria Hughes, take thee, Edward, to be my wedded husband.” Her voice did not shake. She was proud of that. “To have and to hold from this day forward. For better, for worse. For richer, for poorer. In sickness and in health. To love and to cherish, till death us do part.”
The ring. He had a ring. She had not known that. It was gold, simple, warm from his pocket. His hands were steady as he slid it onto her finger. It fit. Of course, it fit. He was the Hound. He noticed everything. He had probably measured her finger while she slept.
The vicar pronounced them man and wife. Edward looked at her.
She looked at him. The chapel was quiet except for Caroline, who was now weeping openly into Richard’s shoulder, and Mrs. Grady, who was weeping into her handkerchief, and Mary, who was standing in the back row with her arms crossed and her jaw set and her eyes suspiciously bright.
“You may kiss the bride,” the vicar said.
Edward did not move. He stood there in the sunlight, with blood on his hands and dust on his coat, and looked at her as though he were asking permission.
Not because he had to, but because he wanted to.
Because he understood that this woman had been kissed once without her consent in a cold chapel, and he would not add his name to that memory.
He stood and he waited, and the waiting was the most tender thing she had ever seen a man do.
She closed the distance between them, cupped his face in her hands, and kissed him.
Gentle. Deliberate. A kiss that said, You came back.
A kiss that said, I chose you. A kiss that said, Whatever happened this morning, you are mine now, and I am yours, and that is the only truth that matters in this chapel.
He kissed her back. His hand found the small of her back and pulled her closer.
The kiss deepened just for a moment, just long enough for Caroline to sob harder and John to clear his throat and the vicar to close his Bible with a snap that suggested this was quite enough physical contact in a house of God.
They broke apart. Edward’s forehead rested against hers. His breathing was ragged.
“You smeared blood on my dress,” Valeria murmured.
“Aye.”
“Mary will have your head.”
“She can try.”
She laughed. She could not help it. She laughed, and the sound filled the chapel.
They were finally married.
The wedding feast was held in the great hall. White roses and candles and the long table set with fine china, the one Mrs. Grady only brought out for occasions she considered worthy. The fact that she considered this occasion worthy said more about Edward than any speech could.
Edward sat at the head of the table. Valeria sat beside him.
His hand found hers under the tablecloth and held it.
He did not let go. She could feel the calluses on his palm, the roughness of his knuckles through the bandage, and she held on as though his hand was an anchor and she were a ship that had been drifting for three years and had finally found harbor.
But his eyes were distant. She could see it in the way he held his glass without drinking, the way his gaze swept across the room, counting exits, reading faces. George’s words were in there somewhere, she was sure of it.
Whatever had happened in the hours before dawn was sitting behind his eyes like a stone in deep water.
“Don’t worry, wife. I’ll keep ye safe.” That was all he had given her on the chapel steps.
It was not enough. It was nowhere near enough. But it was their wedding day, and the hall was full of people she loved. She would not press him here. Not yet.
Mrs. Grady had outdone herself. Roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, and a trifle so elaborate that Caroline declared it a work of art and attempted to sketch it before Richard gently removed the pencil from her hand and reminded her that she was supposed to be eating, not drawing.
The cake had a crack in the icing that Mrs. Grady had tried to disguise with sugar flowers.
It was, Valeria thought, the most beautiful cake she had ever seen. The crack made it real.
John stood and gave a speech that was equal parts humor and threat, managing to congratulate the groom while also making it clear that the entire Hughes family owned pistols and knew how to use them.
“Edward,” he said, raising his glass, “you are the most terrifying man I have ever met, and I say that with the deepest respect and a fair amount of concern for my own safety. But my sister chose you. She has survived things that would have broken most people and came out the other side with her spine intact and her sense of humor sharper than your best blade. If she says you are worthy of her, then I believe her. Because Valeria has never been wrong about anything in her life, except that time she thought she could ride a horse sidesaddle at a gallop, which ended badly for everyone involved.” He paused.
“Take care of her, Your Grace, or I will take care of you.”
The guests laughed.
Edward did not laugh, but something crossed his face. Acknowledgment. Respect. The recognition of a man who understood that love came with conditions and that John’s conditions were fair.
Caroline wept through the entire speech. Bridget smiled. Evan raised his glass and said, “Hear, hear,” which was for him the equivalent of a standing ovation.
The dancing began. Valeria moved through the room like sunlight.
She danced with John, who made her laugh with whispered commentary about the other guests.
She danced with Richard, who was earnest and gentle, and stepped on her feet only once.
She danced with Sir Humphrey, who stepped on her feet twice and apologized three times.
She danced with every man in the room except Edward, and he understood why. She was giving him space. She was letting him sit with whatever weight he was carrying. She was being patient in the way only a woman who had survived three years of patience could be.
Edward watched her from across the hall.
She moved through the room, and the room moved around her.
She laughed at something John said, and the sound carried across the hall and hit him like a blade.
Not because it was beautiful, though it was.
But because it was new. Because three years ago, a man had stolen that laughter and locked it away, and now it was back and it was his to protect.
Not his, but hers. It was always hers. He was just the man who got to hear it.
John appeared at his elbow. “You look terrible.”
“I got married. It’s been a long morning.”
“What happened?” He pulled up a chair. “And do not tell me it’s nothing, because you arrived at my sister’s wedding with blood on your hands and a look on your face that I’ve only seen on men who’ve been in a fight they didn’t want to win.”
Edward looked at him. John was humorous and light, but beneath the humor was the same steel that ran through Valeria. The same iron spine. The same refusal to be put off by silence or evasion.