He turned. It would have been strange not to turn, because it was simply what one did—and then he stopped thinking about what was natural or unnatural or strategic or managed, becauseshehad walked through the door. The grey morning light found her, and everything in his carefully organised mind briefly went quiet.
She was wearing ivory. Simple ivory silk that fell without excess, without the elaborate architecture of fashionable dress. The simplicity of it, the absence of ornamentation, had the effect of making her entirely, unavoidably herself. Her hair was styled neatly, one small arrangement of flowers at the side of it—ivory, he noted, against the light brown—and she was holding her mother’s arm with deliberate composure.
She was looking straight ahead. Her face was calm. Not the calm of someone controlling her emotions. But the real kind, the kind that cost something, the kind one arrived at after a difficult few days and chose to wear because the alternative was worse.
He had seen that kind of calm on his own face often enough to recognize it in someone else.
Then he reminded himself that this was an arrangement. A practical resolution to a situation neither of them had sought. That the ivory dress and the morning light and her stillness were entirely beside the point, and that the point was a register, a signature, and the end of a particular problem before it became worse.
He straightened.
Her mother brought her to within two feet of him and then stopped.
For a moment, before Lady Moreland stepped back, her eyes slid over his face with a swift, thorough assessment. Whatever she found seemed to satisfy her. She stepped back.
Cecily turned to face him.
He had told James that hers was the kind of face one looked at and then found oneself looking at again, and standing before her now, he understood that he had not fully appreciated the accuracy of his own description.
Her blue eyes were clear and slightly brighter than usual, which he thought was probably the effort of keeping her composure rather than emotion, and she was looking at him with the expression she had worn in the drawing room.
He offered his arm.
She placed her hand on his sleeve. Cool and light. Barely there, and yet he was aware of it with a disproportionate clarity that he found irritating and filed away.
The vicar began the ceremony.
“We are gathered here,” he said, in a calm, unhurried voice, “in the sight of God, to join this man and this woman in holy matrimony.”
The words filled the small stone space. William looked at the altar when he could. When he could not, he looked at the vicar.
He did not look at Cecily more than necessary.
“William Edmund Whitmore,” the vicar said, turning to him with that expectant look, “wilt thou have this woman to thy wedded wife? Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honour and keep her, in sickness and in health, and forsaking all others, keep thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall live?”
The church was very quiet.
Say the words. They are just words. They are what the situation requires and nothing more.
“I will,” William replied. His voice came out clear and level, which he appreciated, because what was happening in his chest at that particular moment was neither clear nor level.
He looked at the words he was saying and not at the face of the woman beside him while he said them, because looking at her face while he made promises he had not chosen to make to a woman who deserved better than the circumstances she had been handed seemed like more honesty than either of them had agreed to.
The vicar turned to Cecily. “Cecily Anne, wilt thou have this man to thy wedded husband? Wilt thou love him, comfort him, honour and keep him, in sickness and in health, and forsaking all others, keep thee only unto him, so long as ye both shall live?”
A pause. Not a long one, but a breath’s worth, which a stranger would not have noticed, and which William, standing close enough to feel the slight shift of it, did notice and could not stop himself from noticing.
“I will,” Cecily murmured.
The ring was produced from his breast pocket—a simple gold band, chosen that morning with practical efficiency.
He understood that the gesture required an object, but had not permitted himself to spend more than ten minutes on the selection, and had then stood in the jeweller’s shop for twenty-five minutes before choosing the one with a single small inset stone that he told himself he chose because it was tasteful and not because it was the color of her eyes.
He took her left hand.
It was the first time he held her hand, as distinct from her hand resting on his arm, and the difference was immediate and inconvenient. Slim fingers, cool skin. She was very still.
It is a ring. You are placing a ring on a finger. This is legally and socially necessary, and it does not mean?—
