“I know so.” He adjusted her bouquet in her hands with the unnecessary fussiness of someone who needed something to do with himself. “Mother would have cried before we even reached the door. Father would have shaken Cecil's hand twice and found some reason to show him the study.”
He smiled. “And they would both have been unbearably, completely happy for you.”
“I wish they were here,” she muttered.
“I know.” He tucked her arm more firmly through his. “But I am here. And I am unbearably, completely happy for you, which I have been reliably told is a reasonable substitute.”
Penelope laughed – a real laugh, helpless and bright – and pressed her cheek briefly against his shoulder.
“Thank you,” she said. “For everything. For all of it – every year of it. I love you, Lionel.”
“I love you too, darling girl.” His voice was slightly rougher than usual. “Now straighten up, because those doors are about to open and I will not have you walk down that aisle with a crooked posture.”
She straightened, squeezing his arm as the doors opened.
The church was full of faces – friends and family and acquaintances and the various aunts and cousins who appeared at significant occasions like benevolent weather – but Penelope registered almost none of them as she began to walk.
She was aware of Nora, in the third pew on the left, who had clearly already been crying and was pressing a handkerchief to her face with one hand while Godric held the other. She was aware of Jane, composed and lovely, who caught her eye and smiled with a gentle assurance that said everything. She was aware of two young women she knew must be Isobel andValerie, Cecil's twin sisters, leaning together with the identical expression of barely contained excitement.
But mostly she was aware of Cecil.
He was standing at the altar, and he was looking at her – just looking, with an expression she had never seen on any other face in her life. Not composure, not amusement, not the careful neutrality he wore as armour in the world. Simply him, entirely himself, looking at her as though the rest of the room had ceased to exist the moment the doors opened.
She walked the length of the aisle as though in a dream – she would not remember it clearly afterward, would remember only the scent of the roses and the feeling of Lionel's arm and the way Cecil's expression did not change, not once, the entire time.
At the altar, Lionel kissed her cheek, then he held her hands for a moment – just a moment, just his fingers around hers – and then he placed her hand in Cecil's, and stepped back.
Cecil's hand closed around hers, and she looked up at him, and the rest of the ceremony passed by in a warm, luminous blur.
The wedding breakfast that followed was everything she had hoped – bright and full and noisy with the particular happiness of people who were genuinely glad to be there – and Penelope moved through it in a state of such complete and unself-conscious joy that she would later have difficulty recalling the order of events.
She remembered Nora embracing her so thoroughly that her carefully arranged hair was left slightly askew. She remembered Godric shaking Cecil's hand with a sincerity that made Cecil look momentarily at a loss, which she found privately delightful. She remembered the cake – lemon and blueberry, exactly as Jane had predicted – and the toasts, and the way the afternoon light came through the windows and turned everything golden.
She was standing with Nora and Jane at the edge of the room, a glass of champagne in her hand, when she found herself scanning the assembled guests with a speculative eye.
“Lord Ashby has been looking in your direction for the past quarter of an hour,” she whispered to Jane, attempting a tone of casual observation.
Jane did not even look. “Penelope.”
“He is very well regarded. Excellent temperament, I am told, and–”
“Penelope.” Jane turned to her with a patient expression. “You were married approximately two hours ago. You are allowed to focus on your own marriage before attempting to arrange mine.”
“I am perfectly capable of doing both simultaneously,” Penelope pointed out, although she sounded uncertain by the time she was done.
“You are not,” said Nora, from her other side. “You are notoriously incapable of leaving well enough alone, which is one of your most endearing qualities, but today is your day and Jane is quite all right.”
“I am quite all right,” Jane confirmed pleasantly. “I believe all good things come to those who wait, and I intend to wait as long as is necessary. Now please enjoy your wedding.”
Penelope was about to respond when a figure appeared at the edge of her vision – tall, unhurried, with the bearing of someone who had made peace with the fact that his presence would be noted and had decided to acknowledge it directly.
Matthias.
He looked well. Older, perhaps, or simply more careful – there was a gravity in his expression that had not been there when she had last known him, and he held himself with the particular air of a man who had done something he regretted and had not yet fully forgiven himself for it.
“Your Grace,” he said, with a bow. “I offer you my sincerest congratulations. And my gratitude, for allowing me to assist in the preparations.”
“It was the least I could do,” she said.
