SHE CAUGHT THE FALLING CHILD FROM THE COLLAPSING BALCONY—UNAWARE THE DUKE SAW EVERYTHING

Chapter 10

They were married in the spring, in the small stone church at the crossroads near Heavenreach. Viven had chosen the location herself. It was not a gesture of defiance — it was a homecoming. She wanted to be married in the place where she had first learned to be brave.

The church was cold and damp, with moss growing between the stones and the smell of old wood and candle wax hanging in the air. Hesper sat in the front pew, wrapped in a gray shawl, her face unreadable. A few of the Duke’s friends had come — the ones worth keeping, as he had said. Mrs. Puddik was there, in her best dress, crying before the ceremony even began. The gardener’s sister was there, holding little Robin on her hip, the child who had nearly fallen, who had been caught, who was the reason any of this was happening at all.

Viven wore a gown of pale blue, the finest she had ever owned. The Duke had bought it for her, and she had let him, because she had learned to let him take care of her in small ways. The brooch he had given her at Christmas was pinned at her collar.

She walked down the aisle alone. She had no father to give her away, no mother to cry in the front row. She had only herself, and that was enough.

The Duke stood at the altar, tall and dark and still. He watched her come. He did not smile, but his eyes — his steady, dark eyes — held something she had never seen in them before. Something warm and unguarded.

When she reached him, he took her hand. His fingers were warm. His palm was dry.

“You came,” he said, so quietly that only she could hear.

“I told you I would,” she said. “In time.”

The vicar cleared his throat. The service began. The words were old and familiar, spoken in the same cadence they had been spoken for centuries. Viven heard them as if from a great distance. She was aware, in a strange, floating way, that she was standing in a church on a spring morning, marrying a man who had seen her at her most invisible and had chosen to see her anyway.

When they emerged from the church, the sun was breaking through the clouds. The moors were green and wet. The wind carried the smell of earth and new grass.

The Duke — her husband, she thought, the word strange and wonderful in her mind — stopped at the churchyard gate. He turned to look at her.

“Are you happy?” he asked.

She considered the question. It deserved a true answer.

“I am not sure I know what happy means yet,” she said. “I have not had much practice with it. But I think I am beginning to learn.”

He nodded slowly. “That is a fair answer. I will spend the rest of my life helping you practice.”

She smiled then, a real smile, the kind that reached her eyes. “That is a very good answer, Your Grace.”

“Callum,” he said. “You have earned the right to call me by my name.”

“Callum,” she said, testing it on her tongue. It felt like a key turning in a lock.

He helped her into the carriage. He climbed in beside her. The door shut. The horses moved forward, and they rolled away from the church, past the crossroads where he had sat on a stone bench and thought about what he had seen, past the lane where he had watched a woman catch a falling child, past the wall of Heavenreach, where the old balcony had once stood and was now only a memory.

She did not look back.