He took her hand. “Shall we do it again?”
She laughed. “I suppose we must.”
The chapel was small—really, it was more a room with high windows and a simple altar carved of weathered wood—but to Frances, it felt like a cathedral.
The vicar stood beside the officiant, grinning as if he knew the whole truth of them. A few curious villagers had gathered quietly outside the window, but no one intruded. The air was warm, touched by late sunlight that filtered in through the panes.
Johnathan turned to face her, his expression steady.
He looked every inch the duke, but he wore none of that arrogance now. Only reverence.
“I am not here because I must be,” he said as they joined hands. “I am here because I cannot imagine a future without you. Because when I think of home, I think of your laughter. When I think of strength, I think of your defiance. And when I think of love—I think of you.”
Frances drew a sharp breath, her gaze briefly dropping as she pressed her lips together, willing them not to quiver. She held his hand tighter.
“I once thought love would be a burden. That to care for someone would be to surrender a piece of myself,” she said. “But then I met you again, and you reminded me that love—true love—does not take. It gives. It makes room.”
Her voice broke.
“You made room for me, Johnathan. Even when I was messy, and frightened, and furious. And now, I want to spend every day making room for you.”
The vicar closed his bible. “By the power vested in me, I pronounce you husband and wife. Again.” He smiled.
They both nodded, smiling through the tears.
“You may kiss your bride.”
He did not wait.
And when his lips met hers, it was not a kiss of triumph or conquest. It was a kiss of peace. Of finally. Of yes.
Outside, the villagers clapped.
Inside, the world spun quiet and slow.
They had chosen one another—again.
Not under duress.
Not under pressure.
But in the stillness of love, where every vow could be whispered, and every tomorrow chosen freely.
They did not leave the chapel right away.
Instead, Johnathan pulled her gently into one of the back pews, lacing their fingers together as the soft golden light slanted through the high windows.
For a long while, they sat in silence.
Frances let her head rest against his shoulder, her gaze on the wooden floorboards beneath their feet, worn smooth by decades of whispered vows and quiet hopes. A tremor ran through her as the thought struck—how close they had come to losing all of this, to letting it slip away like mist at sunrise.
“I cannot stop thinking,” she murmured, “about how close we came to not having this.”
Johnathan’s thumb brushed slow circles along the back of her hand. “We did not have much time to think back then.”
“No,” she said. “Just time to run.”
A pause.
