Wrenching off the veil, I throw it on the floor and stare at the tiny flowers snaking through the frothy material. I hereby formally and officially cut all ties with my past self, whoever she may have been, and I choose the future. One with AJ and Cecil in it. I squeeze my eyes shut and the memories cool, retreating into the past, leaving only a vague tingling in their wake.
“Miss Forsythe!”
Oh no.
“Miss Forsythe, the music’s started,” comes a voice from somewhere down the curling staircase.
I bury my face in my hands. Wearing that veil might be the death of me. Can I marry AJ without one?
“Mer?” Cecil’s hand tugs at me.
I will not cry. I willnot.
It will catch up with you one day, Merryn. Not even I can stop it.Years ago Lady St. Laurent spoke those prophetic words.When one cannot outrun the tiger any longer, one must stand and face it—and outsmart it.
But I can’t outsmart what I cannot see. Dread rolls over me.
“Merryn!” The voice echoes from somewhere distant. The fog recedes, leaving jagged pain in the back of my head, a white-hot lightning streak. The past has no hold over me. None. I am wonderfully tangled up in this new story. I’m mere minutes away from belonging to Ansel James Winthrop forever, and all I have to do is walk up that aisle and accept the gift of his love he has offered to me. I can almost taste it.
But some of the sweetest things, like Belgian chocolate truffles, are denied us for our own good.
I force another shaky smile for Cecil, and he smiles back, but he isn’t fooled.
Sabine St. Laurent, daughter to my late employer and reluctant aunt to Cecil, sweeps up the stairs and glares at me. “Compose yourself and come on.” Then she aims that look at Cecil. “You’d best stay with me.” She pulls him along, but I am frozen in place, hot and cold flashes creeping up my scalp. I cannot make myself descend the stairs toward my wedding. Cannot shake the lingering dread that plagues me every time the past comes knocking.
No. No, I cannot marry Ansel. Not this way.
But the music has begun, the church is full, and my groom awaits me at the end of the aisle.
“Merryn!”calls a voice, tight and insistent.
There is no escape now…except through a window. A circular one that appears easy to open. How utterly scandalous! I pop it open and lean out, seeing only shingles and the jutting dormer windows. I scribble a note for AJ.
You coward.
I’d deliver it myself, if he weren’t already in the sanctuary.
Heels tick on the steps. They’ll be scandalized if they find me on the roof. Butmortifiedif another man surfaces with a claim on me later. Which is worse?
It’s time to set aside the Belgian chocolate.
I prop up the note on a table and scramble out the window. There’s a ripping sound. I scoot toward a dormer and hang on, feeling rather wicked as I tuck the torn silk gown about me…but safe. Every person carries baggage into marriage—the trouble is, I haven’t any idea what mine is.
No one tells you how lost and foolish you feel without the library of accumulated experiences everyone takes for granted. They are the lens that clarifies everything, including ourselves. They are accumulated knowledge, distilled down into wisdom.
For months after the accident I scrambled to collect any tiny drops of who I’d been, but memories are elusive. So I swallowedthe loss of myself and walked around in a great dark tunnel, praying someone would come light the way for me.
Then I happened upon Ansel in the park and he made me forget I’d lost anything at all. After several long years, no one expected my memories to return, anyway.
And they didn’t. Mostly.
Tiny, uncertain glimpses. Until I put that veil on my head and the forgotten had risen, a vibrant flash of sunlight in the darkness that left me gasping for breath.
My past self is a stranger, with her own will and experiences. I don’t know anything about her, except that she existed—and that she owns me, in a way.
I have tried, but there is no escaping that hold.
Footsteps echo in the hall just inside. I curl tighter under the eaves, holding my breath. But this won’t be him—he’ll find my note and leave the church through the rear entrance directly below me.
