Page 89 of An Honorable Deception
But then, the two of them hadn’t known each other all their lives. For her own part, she was more than ready for the chapters where she never had to leave the Tower—or Yates’s arms—again.
Alethia emerged in her gown a moment before Papa poked his head in the door, smiling broadly when he spotted Lavinia. “Ready? The organist gave the signal. And Yates is pacing like a lad before the headmaster.”
New butterflies took to flight in her stomach, but these weren’t anxious ones. They were happy ones. Aerialists on their silks and hoops and trapezes, ready for the show to begin. She nodded, exchanged a grin with her bridesmaids, and let her father lead her down the stairs.
She couldn’t have said what faces filled the pews of the familiar church in Alnwick. She couldn’t have said what music spilled out, or how beautifully the lights twinkled on this dark winter eve. All she saw was the way Yates’s smile lit up the whole front of the church when he spotted her. The way his chest swelled as he drew in a deep breath.
Finally, she stood before him, her father blinking back tears, clearing his throat of what she knew was deep emotion. She knew James was there beside their usual vicar, but she didn’t look their way either. Only at Yates. Beautiful Yates. A man unlike any other in the world.
The smile on his face now wasn’t for the crowd. It was just for her. He made a little flourish with his hand and offered her a single white flower, small and perfect, like the ones that grew wild around his home in the springtime. “Zelda said the day wouldn’t be complete without this.” He reached up and tucked the flower into her hair.
She blinked back a few tears of her own. His heart was hers. It had been since they were three years old, Zelda had said, when he gave her a flower that she wore like a crown. She learned forward now, up on her toes, and kissed him on the cheek.
It was a fair exchange. Her heart was his too. And would be for the rest of their never-boring lives.
