"They'll assume. But no one will say anything."
"In my father's house, there would have been a sheet ceremony," she says. Her voice is flat. Clinical. Like she'sdescribing something that happened to someone else. "If I'd been matched with anyone from a traditional family, there would have been an inspection. Proof of consummation. Proof of... purity." The last word comes out edged with something sharp enough to draw blood.
"There won't be any of that here."
She gives me a brittle smile. " Because my father made sure of that. Disclosed it to the council like it was a defect on a property listing." She shakes her head.
The anger that moves through me is slow and deep and very, very controlled. I've known about Alber Savitsky's disclosure since Liam told me. I've had days to sit with it. But hearing her say it, hearing the precise, practiced way she talks about her own father selling out her dignity, makes something in my chest go dangerously still.
"Your father is a coward," I say. "And he will never set foot in our home if you don’t want him here."
She glances at me. Something flickers across her face. Surprise, maybe. Or the beginning of something she isn't ready to name.
"Our home," she repeats.
"Our home," I reaffirm.
She doesn't argue. She turns back to the path, and her shoulder brushes mine as we walk, she doesn't move away.
The main house smells like freshly prepared breakfast and something sweet baking in the oven. I open the back door and the noise hits us immediately, the particular chaos of the Orlov kitchen on a Saturday morning, and I watch Tanya's posture shift. The straightening. The squaring of her shoulders. The mask reassembling itself in real time as she prepares to enter a room full of people.
I touch the small of her back. Light. Brief. Just enough to remind her that she's not walking in alone.
Ma is at the stove. She's got a wooden spoon in one hand and her reading glasses perched on her head, and she's singing something under her breath that might be an Irish folk song or might be Fleetwood Mac. Hard to tell with my mother.
"There they are," she says without turning around. The woman has a sixth sense for her children entering rooms. "Sit down. I've made enough to feed an army and Liam's already had two helpings, so you'd better move fast."
Liam is at the kitchen table with a plate piled high and a mug of coffee the size of a small swimming pool. He raises the mug in greeting. "Morning, newlyweds."
"Don't start," I say.
"I haven't started anything. I said good morning. That's basic manners, Aidan. Ma raised us right."
"She tried too," Killian says from the doorway, appearing with his hair still wet and a grin that I want to remove from his face. "Some of us were harder cases than others."
Grace is sitting at the far end of the table, and the sight of her makes something settle in me the way it always does. My sister-in-law has a way of anchoring a room just by being in it. She's got baby Lorcan cradled against her chest and a muslin cloth over her shoulder. She's nursing him with the easy, unhurried confidence of a woman who's figured out how to do this while simultaneously eating toast and reading something on the tablet perched on the table.
Tanya stops beside me. I feel it before I see it. A slight hitch in her step, a barely perceptible pause. She's looking at Grace and the baby, and the expression on her face isn't the composed mask she walked in with. It's something unguarded. Somethingsoft and surprised, like she's seeing something she didn't expect to find here.
"Tanya, come sit," Grace says, looking up with a warm smile. "Don't mind the chaos. It's like this every morning. You get used to it."
"Or you don't, and you suffer in silence," Iris says, appearing from somewhere with a mug in each hand. She sets one down in front of an empty chair and pushes it toward Tanya. "Coffee. Black. If you want milk, the fridge is behind you and we operate a self-service policy in this house."
Tanya smiles. Everyone smiles when they meet Iris. I watch her fingers wrap around the mug as she sits, and I see the moment the warmth of it registers.
"Iris, you didn't even ask how she takes it," Ma says from the stove.
"Black is the baseline. Everyone starts at black and customizes from there. It's efficient." Iris drops into the chair beside Tanya and props her chin on her hand. "So. You survived the wedding. You survived the first night. How's my brother treating you? Scale of one to ten, one being tolerable, ten being you've already hidden a knife under the mattress."
"Iris," I say, as a bubble of laughter pops from Tanya’s mouth. The sounds surprises me in the best way.
"What? I'm being welcoming. This is my welcoming face." She gestures at her own expression, which is equal parts mischief and genuine curiosity.
Tanya looks at her, then pulls her mouth to one side as though she is really thinking.
"I'd say a six," she says. "But the morning is young."
Iris grins. Wide and delighted. "Oh, I like her," she announces to the room at large. "She's funny. Aidan, you married someone funny. I didn't think you had it in you."
