Felicity inhaled and then appreciated her mother’s embrace. “Thank you, Mama.” She hadn’t called her mother that in years and she suddenly struggled to keep a storm of tears at bay.
Stop, Felicity.She blinked and then dabbed her fingers beneath her eyes.
She’d been in a panic for nothing. He was fine. He was here. He was waiting with Blackheart.
A moment after her mother disappeared, leaving Felicity alone in a space little larger than a closet, Bethany opened the door and slipped inside.
“You’re supposed to carry this.” Bethany presented a bouquet made up of ivy and roses.
“I thought I ordered a much smaller one made up of mostly white daisies and anemones.
Bethany’s blue eyes danced. “Your groom insisted you have roses.”
“Oh…!”
Nothing could halt her tears this time. “They are perfect!” She held them beneath her nostrils.
Her dearest friend, however, while laughing and also uttering sympathetic words, had fished a handkerchief out of her reticule and was dabbing Felicity’s cheeks. “I hardly had a minute to get nervous before my wedding. I didn’t appreciate it at the time, but watching you fall apart like this is giving me cause to rethink my hasty ceremony.”
And then, gripping Felicity’s shoulders, Bethany pulled back to meet her gaze… looking rather stern, really.
“No crying allowed; do you understand me? Because I am this close,” Bethany released her just long enough to hold her fingers up with nary an inch between them, “to coming to pieces myself, and if that happens, there won’t be hope for either of us.”
Felicity nodded and managed a laugh of her own. “Do you know that I love you, Beth? That I don’t know what I would have done without you all these years? You are like a sister to me.”
“I was sorely disappointed when I realized you and Westerley weren’t marrying, but I see that you do love Mantis far more than you ever did my brother. You were far too composed where Jules was concerned. And we are sisters. We will always be sisters in spirit.”
“Yes.” Felicity nodded again and then glanced down at the beautiful roses Mantis had thought of. More tears threatened—happy tears, which she was better able to blink away.
She felt utterly ridiculous but also full of hope and joy.
“Very well. I’m leaving you now to sit beside my handsome husband and my obnoxious younger sister to watch you take your vows.”
“Thank you, Bethany. For everything.”
And then, Felicity was alone again.
She dabbed the handkerchief beneath her eyes and then pinched her cheeks and bit her lips. Any moment, she would be standing beside him, promising to love and keep him in sickness and in health.
Her father would be here any moment.
She hugged her arms in front of herself and paced as much as was possible in the confines of the room.
What was taking so long?
She paced back and forth again.
Something was wrong. With no real reason to keep herself hidden any longer, she opened the door and peaked outside.
Her father met her gaze, frowning.
“Is it time?” she asked. But the expression on her father’s face conveyed that time wasn’t the issue.
“He hasn’t come out yet.” Her father forced a smile. “Greys has gone to check on him.”
But this time, her father’s reassurances weren’t good enough.
Felicity turned to face the sanctuary, every pew filled, people standing along the wall and some in the back.
