Chapter 8 #6
“That,” she said, staring at the emerald through a blur of tears, “is very like you.”
“The fit?”
“The certainty.”
His thumb brushed lightly over her knuckles. “I was not certain of your answer.”
Genny looked up. “No?”
“No. Hope is not the same as certainty.”
The honesty in that pierced her more sweetly than confidence would have done. Harrison Jones, who arranged rooms and ledgers and emergencies with unshakable command, had not been certain of her.
She stepped closer. “Then allow me to be very clear. I am choosing you, Harrison. Not because you are orderly, though heaven knows someone between us ought to be, and not because you have a title, or a house, or an alarming ability to make footmen tremble. I am choosing you because you see me and do not ask me to become less. Because you make me braver. Because when the world made me smaller, you reminded me I mattered.”
His grip tightened around her hand.
“And because,” she added, smiling through the last of her tears, “you are very handsome when exasperated.”
His laugh was low and helpless. “That is the least dignified reason yet.”
“It is not the least sincere.”
He kissed her then, briefly, because the door was open and her father was no doubt standing somewhere within moral range. But even that brief kiss carried enough promise to warm her to the soles of her slippers.
From the corridor came Esme’s voice, far too delighted. “May we look now?”
Harrison rested his forehead against Genny’s for one heartbeat. “No.”
“You must,” Genny whispered. “Or she will come in anyway.”
“She will come in regardless.”
And indeed she did, arriving in a rush of silk, joy, and complete disregard for privacy. Lady Moreland followed, openly crying now, and Mr. Moreland entered last with the air of a man determined not to become emotional in public and failing nobly.
Esme seized Genny’s hand and gasped over the ring. “Oh, Harrison. You did not choose something sensible.”
“I am capable of taste,” he said.
“Under guidance, perhaps.”
“Do not begin the marriage by instructing my betrothed to doubt me,” Harrison said.
Esme smiled sweetly. “My dear brother, she learned that without assistance.”
Genny laughed as Lady Moreland embraced her, then Harrison, then Genny again. Her father took Harrison’s hand and held it a moment longer than form required.
“Make her happy,” Mr. Moreland said quietly.
Harrison’s answer came without hesitation. “I shall spend my life trying.”
Her father’s face softened then.
Genny nearly cried all over again.
The weeks that followed carried all the expected absurdities of an engagement and several no respectable conduct book had anticipated.
Esme appointed herself unofficial guardian of romantic intelligence and was insufferable for the first three days.
Redford observed that Harrison had become easier to manipulate now that Genny understood the precise angle of his weakness, which Harrison denied while proving the accusation true by fetching Genny lemonade before she had even asked for it.
Lady Dorring attended one engagement dinner and declared the flowers acceptable, which everyone agreed was as close to a blessing as she was likely to come.
Lady Penworth sent roses twice, along with a note so tearfully grateful that Genny forgave the excessive sentiment and placed the flowers in Harrison’s study to annoy him.
He left them there.
That, more than the roses themselves, told her all she needed to know.
Mrs. Fanshawe, discreetly dismissed and settled with a modest allowance in Bath after Lord Penworth’s reluctant mercy and Lady Penworth’s wounded generosity had done their work, sent no word at all.
Genny thought of her once on the morning of the wedding, not with forgiveness exactly, but with a sober understanding. To be unseen could twist a person. Genny had come far too close to letting laughter hide her own hunger to dismiss the danger entirely.
Then the church doors opened.
Harrison stood near the altar in formal black, grave and impossibly handsome, his face composed for everyone else and utterly transformed for her the moment he saw her. The sight stopped her breath.
He did not smile broadly. He did not need to.
His eyes said everything.
Genny walked toward him with her hand on her father’s arm, the murmur of guests fading beneath the sound of her own heart.
She saw Esme wiping tears with no discretion whatsoever.
She saw Louisa smiling as though she had known all along.
She saw Alexandra’s hand pressed over her heart.
She even saw Lady Dorring inspecting the flowers with a critical eye before grudgingly nodding approval.
But most of all, she saw Harrison.
When her father placed her hand in his, Harrison’s fingers closed around hers with steady warmth.
“You are shaking,” he murmured.
“I am thinking.”
His mouth trembled at the corner. “Those are not mutually exclusive.”
The old words, returned to her at the altar, nearly undid her.
Genny looked up at him and smiled.
The past loosened its grip.
Her future stood waiting.