Page 60 of Coronation (Royally Forbidden #1)
Thirty-Seven
Benedict
M y first wedding was an affair of state.
In attendance were foreign dignitaries from around the world, and every living member of the royal family.
We’d posed for pictures, sliced an eight-layer cake, and a famous rock band performed at the reception.
Preparations took months, and when the time came, I’d felt nothing but hollow dread and resignation.
Now, with only minutes to go before I marry a second time, memories of that day feel closer to the hazy recollections of a fever dream, rather than actual events that I participated in.
At that point in my life, agreeing to the arrangement felt like the right thing to do.
I still wanted to measure up then, to be the man everyone expected me to be.
Marrying Zelda is an act of defiance against those expectations.
I stand in the doorway to the little church, watching my harassed-looking secretary light candles and set out vases of white lilies amidst the flickering tapers. It’s a modest arrangement, hastily thrown together at my behest, and yet it also feels so very right.
Tomorrow, we’ll step together into the light and allow the cards to fall where they may.
The most important thing will already be done, though.
Zelda will be my wife, and I feel the weight of the vows I will make tonight in a way I didn’t when I married Julia.
The sense of duty I feel isn’t to an institution, it’s to a person—to two people. My family.
“Sir.” The voice of Harrold, my private secretary, has me turning to face the man, who wipes his palms on the sides of his pants.
“Everything is arranged as you requested it. Is there, ah , anyone you’d like to notify?
” There’s a hysterical edge to the question, a note of pleading which makes it clear the man isn’t at all sure the order for him to remain silent about what transpired tonight is something he ought to follow.
“You’re free to go.”
Panic flares in Harrold’s eyes. “If I may, sir. All of this is quite hasty and perhaps?—”
My irritation mounts. “There are a grand total of four people who are aware this marriage is taking place, apart from myself and Zelda. Two of them are my brothers, and one is the priest, whom I have promised a new roof for his parish in exchange for his temporary discretion. Rest assured, if news of this reaches anyone before I’m ready, I will know exactly where the story originated. ”
Lips pressed into a flat line, he hurries off toward the car parked at the side of the church. The door has only just closed behind him when headlights flood the road, and the crunching of gravel signals another vehicle approaching.
My heart is in my throat as I turn, watching as one of the royal fleet comes into view and slows to a stop right before the church. I don’t give the driver a chance to get out. In seconds, I’m striding toward the back door, and my heart is in my throat as I grasp the handle, pulling it open .
The warm summer evening seems to still as I stare down at the beautiful young woman seated just inside.
It’s only been a few hours since a laughing Zelda banished me from our bedroom at Fernmoor, insisting that some traditions ought to be followed. I haven’t seen her since, and somewhere in that time, she managed a feat that seems to have robbed me of my ability to speak.
Amidst all the other hastily thrown together details, I felt a pinch of sorrow at Zelda not having the opportunity to find a wedding dress. It wasn’t the most important thing, though, and if she wanted to throw a lavish vow renewal after all this was over, we could do that.
Apparently, my bride took matters into her own hands.
“Hi,” Zelda whispers, her face splitting in a smile as she looks up at me, her features framed by a lace-trimmed veil.
My eyes are burning. I can’t remember the last time I shed tears over anything, but seeing this woman in white, flawless and beautiful, prepared to marry me… Christ . I might. It’s old-fashioned and traditional, and wholly unnecessary, but I know I will treasure the memory of it forever.
Slowly, as my good sense begins to return, I hold out a hand to help her out of the car.
The dress spills onto the dark road like liquid moonlight, and Zelda steps out of the way so I can close the door again, adjusting the veil, which is so long it skims the ground as well.
I’m not sure that I’ve blinked since I laid eyes on her, and I’m still in such a daze that I’m barely aware of the car driving off.
I remember the day of the garden party, when we left the hedge maze, and it dawned on me that someday, I would see a picture of Zelda on the cover of a magazine, wearing a white dress to marry a man who wasn’t me.
At that moment, I had no hope, none at all, that there could be any alternative for us.
Now, she’s standing before me, glowing with happiness beneath the night sky, and she’s here to become my wife .
“You look so beautiful, darling,” I manage, drawing closer to touch her waist, trying to memorize the feeling of the silk beneath my fingers. “So, so beautiful.”
Zelda’s eyes are shining as she looks back at me, radiating such obvious joy as she smooths her hands over the lapels of my coat. “You look very handsome yourself. I’ve never seen you in this.”
In truth, I hadn’t been at all sure whether I ought to pick the dark blue ceremonial uniform to wear tonight. God knows The Crown has caused the pair of us nothing but trouble. It’s considered a sign of respect for me to wear it, though, and it hadn’t felt right not to. Now, I’m glad.
Unable to resist, I lower my lips to meet hers, my chest full to bursting. “Did you happen to have a wedding dress lying about?” I manage to ask when we part, and Zelda laughs, shaking her head.
“I spent a small fortune having a selection brought in from a shop in Dalmore.” She smooths her hands over the front. “You like it?”
“I love it.” Another soft, worshipful kiss as we listen to crickets chirp from the field beyond the church and birds rustle in the tree to our right. We really ought to go in, and yet we stay huddled together at the end of the Church’s little pathway.
It seems correct in a way, that our marriage should take place at night.
Zelda and I met under the cover of darkness, and every significant moment in our relationship has followed suit.
The first time I laid eyes on this woman, kissed this woman, confessed my love to this woman, all of it happened by starlight.
So too should the last great secret we share.
“Are you sure about all this?” Zelda asks softly, her warm breath on my cheek as I lean down to kiss her jaw.
My response comes without hesitation. “Yes.” I raise my head to look at her. “Yes, I’m very sure. Are you? ”
She doesn’t need to think about it either. “I’m sure.”
Well, then.
Hand in hand, we walk up the steps and into the church, which is illuminated by only the light of hundreds of candles arranged at the altar.
Above them, a darkened stained-glass window looms over the scene like a fragmented work of art, and from the corner, the priest I shamelessly bribed is emerging from a back room.
“Welcome. Shall we begin?” the man asks, offering a tentative smile.
There is no music, only the steady drum of my heartbeat and the occasional splutter of a candle as we take our place before the altar, hands joined in the space between us.
The air in the church feels heavy as the man begins, speaking the same words that have been said for generations, and joined together the lives of countless other couples before us.
I listen, allowing the significance and meaning to settle beneath my skin as I look into the eyes of the woman I truly never believed would be mine.
It doesn’t take long before Zelda’s tears begin to trail down each of her beautiful cheeks, but she makes no attempt to wipe them away or hide them. No person who looked at her could imagine they were from sorrow, either, not with the incandescent joy shining in every part of her face.
“Do you have rings?” asks the priest, and I produce them, handing mine to Zelda. My heart begins to beat faster, knowing that the moment is very nearly upon us.
When the time does come, though, my throat is so tight that I find it difficult to repeat the words that no man on earth has meant quite as much as I do. “ I, Benedict, take you, Zelda, to be my wife. ”
A quiet, disbelieving noise of joy falls from between Zelda’s lips as she listens to me say the rest and finally slide the simple gold band onto her ring finger.
Then it’s her turn, and as I listen to her profess the same things I just did, the sense of gratitude that washes over me is almost too much to bear.
“ I, Zelda, take you, Benedict, to be my husband. ”
I am a flawed man, a man who has made so many mistakes, and I cannot fathom how I could ever be worthy of something this good.
However worthy or not, she is here, choosing me as fiercely as I am choosing her.
As I listen to the rest of her vows and allow her to slide a ring onto my left hand—my chest so full it seems a miracle it doesn’t actually burst—I resolve to do everything in my power to ensure she never regrets it.
Time seems to be moving unevenly tonight, surging forward in great waves, then slowing to a crawl in others. When the ceremony comes to an end, and the priest declares us— finally —husband and wife, it seems to stop altogether.
Zelda’s face is warm and damp with tears as I cradle it in my hands, staring down at the awe-inspiring woman who is now my wife.
My wife.
My queen.
The mother of my child.
The love of my life.
Our kiss is soft, almost chaste, yet below the surface lies a bottomless well of meaning. I once thought I would drown in it, in her , but I know better now. Loving someone this much doesn’t make you sink; it makes you rise.
“My congratulations to you both,” the priest tells us quietly when we part, and it’s difficult to tear my eyes away from my new wife to thank the man properly.
“I very much appreciate your time and your discretion.” The subtle reminder doesn’t seem to surprise him, and he inclines his head slightly, shaking my offered hand.
At my side, Zelda offers him a watery smile. “Yes, thank you so much. It was so kind of you to agree to do this for us.”
While his motivations for signing the last-minute license and holding a wedding under the cover of night weren’t entirely altruistic, the priest doesn’t correct her. “It was an honor, Your Royal Highness.”
Pressed against me as she is, I feel Zelda recoil slightly at being addressed thus. It’s an effort not to laugh when I look down and see her shock. “Are you only now realizing?” I ask, lifting our intertwined hands to kiss the back of hers.
My wife seems to shake herself. “I mean, I knew , but I guess I forgot? That is so weird.”
“Let’s go home,” I suggest, unable to hold back a quiet chuckle. “We can discuss your title in the morning.”
Tonight, the only one I’m interested in is my wife .