Chapter Fourteen JITTERS Keir #2
At least this one moment had been preserved.
Keir hadn’t seen the portraits since the beginning of the latest feud with his father, having been unwelcome from Weldan House for all those years.
Seeing her face again after relying for so long on his imperfect recollection was deeply gratifying.
It soothed some aching part of him he had forgotten existed but that was always there, gnawing at his peace.
Keir wondered as he carried the portrait of his mother alone—the smallest of the prints, one made to fit exactly into the kind of locket he’d given Alison—whether Alison felt the same way thinking of her father.
She had known him much longer than Keir had known his mother, and her feelings regarding him must have been more complex than the simple longing he’d felt for a woman whose absence had shaped his entire life.
Did she forget his face in the same way?
Could she remember his voice?
Keir would have given anything to remember his mother’s voice.
But he also wondered that if he did, if he remembered more of her in his own memories apart from the ones the servants had shared with him, if it would have been harder on him when he thought of her.
If knowing her more would have given him more to miss.
He knocked on the cottage door; an unnecessary formality, he knew, but it didn’t feel right to intrude on Alison’s private space unannounced.
She had shed her flannel nightgown in favor of the pretty slip with yellowing lace she often wore beneath it, and Keir could see why: it was quite warm in the cottage with the fire going now that they’d repaired all of the cracks and gaps in the floors and walls.
“Charlotte stopped by and told me you were back late, but the baby came alright,” said Alison as she took his cloak. It was the same cloak he’d given her the first time they’d met, a night not much warmer than this one nearly a year earlier.
It had been such a shock seeing her there in his stream. Her stream, really, she had been right about that. She’d been so small and pale in the moonlight when she’d taken the cloak, shivering. So fragile.
Of course, he’d later learned she wasn’t very fragile at all, but the moment had awoken something else in him he’d kept buried: the need to care for someone.
She had needed him so rarely since then. Would she ever need him like that again?
“Is that the portrait?” asked Alison, spotting the envelope in his hand. “May I see it?”
Keir nodded, handing it to her wordlessly.
“Oh,” said Alison. “She was blonde! I had always pictured her with darker hair like yours or mine. You know, I always thought you and Charlotte resembled your father, but now that I’m looking at her, I can really see her in—”
“Charlotte, I know,” said Keir. “I had forgotten too.”
Of course, his memories of Charlotte ended so abruptly and with such a different version of her. He felt a pang of regret to have not known a younger Charlotte.
“She was so beautiful. And such a lovely smile. It was rare back then to take a smiling portrait like this. You’re lucky to have it.”
“Do you remember your father’s smile?”
Alison took the portrait of his mother and put it with the locket.
Then she led him to the couch to sit together in front of the fire.
“I do,” she said, smiling herself. Keir wondered how much of her smile was shared with her father.
“He had a little gap between his front teeth. It was barely noticeable, but he liked to whistle through it to make me laugh.”
She turned to Keir, a serious look in her big blue eyes. “Are you certain about not having your father at the wedding? I know it’s complicated, but when he finds out—”
“I don’t care what he thinks when he finds out.
I’m certain.” Keir had given a lot of thought to whether or not to attempt reconciliation.
The last time he’d seen Lord Ainsley, he had punched him in the nose.
He hadn’t regretted it—it was long overdue, if anything—but he imagined it would make achieving anything beyond the peace they’d struck then, a peace built entirely on Keir’s demands which Lord Ainsley had been too shocked to deny, difficult. To say the least.
“There’s also the matter of Charlotte,” he said. “She doesn’t wish for him to know she’s alive, which I’ve told her is something we won’t be able to keep secret forever, but there wouldn’t be any denying who she was if she showed up at the wedding.”
“No, certainly not,” said Alison, glancing at the portrait on the desk. The family resemblance was unmistakable.
“And if I have to choose who I’d rather have at my wedding, it would be my sister every single time.”
“Of course,” said Alison. “It’s a shame about your father, but I understand.”
“Your mother’s still coming though?”
Alison laughed. “As if Violet Lennox would ever miss her only daughter’s wedding,” she said, putting on a voice with a high degree of enunciation that Keir imagined he’d be hearing much more of soon.
“She arrives the week before. And hopefully leaves directly after. I love her, but there’s only so much of her I can take. ”
Alison shifted back to look at Keir more directly. “There was another thing I wanted to discuss. The vicar—”
“—is horrible,” said Keir.
“No, not horrible!” said Alison, laughing. “He’s just—”
“Old-fashioned, judgmental, impersonal, aggressively unpleasant to be around, and a bore.”
“Keir!”
Keir usually reserved his vitriol for his father, but he had overheard the vicar speaking about “preserving the natural order” and “not defying the vision of the Gods” recently, and it had rubbed him the wrong way.
Alison, who had not grown up around here, had been willing to give the vicar the benefit of the doubt, but now that she was seeing him for who he was, Keir felt he could no longer hold his tongue. “I’m sorry, darling, but I’d really rather he didn’t marry us.”
“That’s what I was thinking too,” admitted Alison. “But who else could do it? The wedding is in less than a month.”
Keir groaned. “There’s always Idris,” he said.
Truthfully, he wasn’t concerned about Idris grandstanding or taking away attention from them.
In fact, he wouldn’t mind it much if he did.
“But in case you haven’t noticed, I don’t have a surplus of friends around here.
You have your maid of honor. I’d feel odd without a best man. ”
“Do you know any judges? Any of the nobility who wouldn’t mind?”
Keir’s father could do it, he supposed, although he was certainly the last person they would ask.
“We could have an anvil wedding,” Keir realized.
“A what?”
“An anvil wedding. Some couples from Loegria come up here when their families don’t approve of their marriage.
Anyone who owns property can technically marry a couple here, as long as there’s a witness and the banns have been read.
It’s often the blacksmith that does it. We’re pretty far from the sea here, but Weyland may have even done it before. ”
Alison’s eyes lit up at the mention of Weyland. “Really? Why didn’t you mention it earlier?”
“It’s not viewed as particularly honorable. I didn’t want to shame you.” Keir felt as though it was shameful enough marrying in secret without his father knowing. “I didn’t want to rob you of the traditional wedding experience if that was what you wanted.”
Alison laughed. “I don’t care about tradition. I don’t care about any of it really. I just want to marry you. Let’s have an anvil wedding. If Weyland is too shy to do it, I’m sure Gwenla wouldn’t mind. She’s a property owner.”
She kissed him on the cheek, and it soothed any worry he had felt.
He could make her happy. Maybe Genn was right.
Maybe it wouldn’t always be easy, but maybe all he needed to do was keep trying.
“An anvil wedding, then. But perhaps at the town hall rather than the forge. I don’t think everyone we’ve invited will fit. ”
“Perfect,” said Alison, this time kissing him on the lips. Gods, she was so soft and lovely. This beautiful, perfect woman who would be his wife. “You know,” she said, her voice dropped low, “there are other things I’m not traditional about.”
“I know that, and I love it,” said Keir, slipping the lace from her shoulder.