He had been wrong to believe it, but not wrong to wish it was so.
To love and to cherish, till death us do part.
The words landed differently than they had before. James supposed they always would from now on.
He was aware, without deciding to be aware of it, that Cori was on the bride's side, two rows back, beside Lady Darling. He hadn’t looked at her. He was aware of her the way he was aware of the east window, peripherally, constantly, without looking directly.
Daniel finished his vows in a voice that did not waver.
Miss Beckett said hers in a voice that did not waver either, which James had expected, because she was, as he’d told Laura, genuinely remarkable.
Thomas Fairleigh pronounced them man and wife with a quiet tone that resonated through the chapel.
Daniel turned to his wife.
And James, who had been holding himself very carefully still for the better part of half an hour, allowed himself to look...
Miss Corinna. Cori.
She was watching her sister, and her eyes were bright with tears she seemed determined not to shed, but she was smiling anyway.
She was lovely.
The thought arrived the way it always did, without permission, and sat in James the way it had done since he’d met her, with a yearning for something he couldn’t act upon. He was fairly certain he didn’t even have the right to feel such a thing.
Daniel took his wife's hand, and a brightness radiated from her. Then the chapel filled with the warm noise of a congregation releasing the breath it had been collectively holding. James looked away.
He stood in St. Wilfrid's Chapel, where his family had worshipped for centuries, where he had buried his father, married Alice, and had baptized Hannah. And he couldn’t help but wonder about his uncertain future.
He thought about what it would mean to want something again. To want someone.
He thought about whether wanting that, wanting more, made him a fool or simply a man.
He didn’t arrive at any useful conclusions before the congregation began to move.
Great Hall
Acklan Castle
The great hall at Acklan had not seen a wedding breakfast in years, and it showed in the best possible way, opened wide for the occasion and catching what thin August light there was through its long windows, holding it the way old stone held warmth, reluctantly and thoroughly.
The table was full and the feeling of celebration permeated the hall. Daniel, it seemed, had left his uncharacteristic solemnity at the altar. He was already holding court at his end of the table, his glass raised and looking as if he’d just been given everything he’d ever wanted and was determined to enjoy every moment.
James was genuinely glad for his brother.
It was, he discovered, possible to be genuinely glad for someone and to feel, underneath the gladness, the weight of his own situation pressing quietly against it. Not envy. He was certain it was not envy. No, no. Something more complicated and considerably less comfortable.
He ate. He spoke when spoken to. He made the toast that was expected of him, which said the things that ought to be said about his brother and his new sister and the future they were beginning, and he meant all of it, every word.
He watched Cori further down the table.
Not obviously. Not in any way that invited remark. She was three seats away and slightly across, enjoying a conversation with Arch Atherton, laughing at something the young buck had said. James watched her laugh. He knew he should look away but he couldn’t.
He thought about Daniel's face when the chapel doors had opened.
He thought about his walk with Cori along the north boundary. The way she'd crouched in the wet moorland grass with no awareness whatsoever that she'd just done in twenty minutes what three years of looking hadn't managed.
He thought about stumbling upon her in the garden at dawn. Her name in his mouth for the first time. The cabbage moth she had worn like a hairpin and the dignity with which she had borne it.
