Another pause followed, though this one carried something quieter, something more settled, as though the conversation had shifted without either of them needing to mark it explicitly.
“I am glad,” Edmund said then, more simply than anything he had said thus far.
Harper’s gaze flickered, just slightly.
“For what?”
“That you did not talk yourself out of it.”.
“As am I,” he said.
It was not something he would have said, once. Edmund seemed to recognize that, because his expression shifted enough to markthe moment. “Well, it would have been an intolerable waste otherwise, and I am not prepared to endure that on your behalf.”
Around them, the room quieted further, the last threads of conversation falling away as attention drew, collectively and without instruction, toward the doors.
It was time for him to marry the woman he loves.
“You may walk at a reasonable pace,” Albina said quietly, as they paused just before the doors, her hand resting lightly at Temperance’s arm, not guiding, not restraining, but present in a way that suggested she would intervene if necessary. “There is no need to make an occasion of haste.”
“I had not intended to,” Temperance replied, though there was a trace of amusement in her voice, the kind that came not from nervousness but from a familiarity with being managed at precisely the wrong moment.
“One never knows,” Albina said. “You have been known to make unexpected decisions.”
Temperance let that pass, her attention already settling on the doors before them, closed still, though no longer distant, no longer something she could observe from afar and consider at leisure, but immediate in a way that required no further thought.
“Are you steady?” Albina asked after a moment, the question quieter now, stripped of its earlier sharpness.
“Yes,” she said as the doors opened. Temperance stepped forward and for a moment, she did not look at him.
Instead, she allowed herself a single, measured glance through the room. Her friends were in audience.
And then, finally, she looked at him.
Harper had not moved.
He stood as he always did, but there was something different now, something she would not have recognized if she had not learned, over time, where to look for it. He was simply waiting.
For her.
Temperance held his gaze as she approached, and whatever distance remained between them seemed to narrow without effort, without awareness, until she was standing before him and the room, though still present, no longer required her attention in the same way.
“You are on time.”
“Only just,” she replied.
“I was not concerned.”
Their hands met and the ceremony began.
Temperance heard the words, though not in sequence, not with the kind of attention that required her to follow each one precisely, because the meaning of what was being said did not depend entirely on the order in which it was spoken.
Her name was spoken, and then his, and though she heard both, it was not the sound that held her attention, but the way the room seemed to settle around them as it happened. He was already watching her.
“You look very composed,” she said quietly.
“I am,” he replied.
“This is not as complicated as it should be,” she said. “How unusual.”
