“I worry that one of them will end up killing the other before the day is through.”
“Really?” Yvette frowned as she watched the two, who were now in a back corner of the room, still arguing. “I think they like one another.”
“Emily and Theodore? They loathe each other.”
She gave him a wry smile. “Maybe. But I would not be surprised either way.”
Her father was the next to greet them, and Yvette was pleased to see that he had remained sober. Better still, there was no sense at all that this would change anytime soon.
After that came more friends of Alistair’s, lords and ladies all, and each was beyond pleased to finally meet the bride. None were condescending. None were rude. And no one seemed to mind that she was born of common stock, not worthy of such a place among them.
It was a relief to be sure. While Alistair had long since accepted her, she still worried about her place among his peers. And as was always a fear, that her world was not this one, and until it was proven otherwise, Yvette could not be certain how this new life would look. Would she be a pariah? Trapped at home and unable to go out because nobody accepted her? Or, as was now being proven, would her world become this one?
We are more similar than we realize, and once the expensive clothes are removed and the fancy homes are left behind, once we learn to accept one another for who we are and not what we want people to think about us, this is proven as true.
She smiled at the thought and looked at her husband.
He saw her smiling and frowned. “What is that look?”
“I just realized how happy I am,” she said.
“Only just now?”
She laughed and leaned forward and kissed him on the lips. It was just a peck, but she loved that she could do that now, just as she loved how right it felt.
Yvette’s life had been far from perfect. With her mother dying when she was young, with her father’s drinking problem, with her having to keep her father and everything else together lest it fall apart, she had struggled more than she might have been willing to admit. And in this struggle, she had never considered that she wanted to be happy – she had not even known what that might look like.
She had that now, the happiness, the love to share with others, the life that she did not know she wanted and would now not know what to do without.
It was still early days. There was the rest of her life to look forward to. But if this last month was any indication, this was not something that troubled her. Yvette’s happily ever after was there for the taking, she planned to snatch it with two hands, and then she would never let it go.
The End?
