Page 83 of Someone to Cherish
Just a week ago, Lydia thought, she had come close to being made a pariah. There was no sign of it tonight. And perhaps the danger had always been far less than it had seemed at the time, and confined to just one element of the village. But she would not think of that again tonight—or ever again if she could help it.
She smiled about her while Harry’s hand gripped hers and her hand gripped Harry’s, and saw her brothers across the room with Hannah and Tom Corning. She saw Denise Franks with her husband, and the Reverend and Mrs. Bailey, and all of Harry’s family, most of whom she could now name without having to stop too long to connect a name with a face. She saw her father standing with Harry’s aunt Louise, the Dowager Duchess of Netherby.
She had never been happier in her life.
The orchestra played another chord and silence fell again.
“The ball will begin with a waltz,” the Earl of Riverdale announced, “to be danced by Mr. and Mrs. Westcott. Step forward onto the floor, please, Lydia and Harry. It is all yours.”
“Oh dear,” Lydia said.
Harry had turned his head and was grinning down at her. “I will try my very best,” he said, raising his voice so almost everyone would hear, “not to tread upon my wife’s toes.”
Oh.
“And I will very definitely,” Lydia said, matching Harry’s voice in volume, “keep them from being trodden upon.”
“That is telling you, Harry,” a voice called out—Tom’s— amid general laughter.
And then they were standing on what seemed a vast expanse of empty ballroom floor while the laughter faded and very little conversation took its place. Harry released her hand, and she withdrew her arm from his so they could stand face-to-face. His eyes, smiling, burning, looked steadily into hers as he set one hand behind her waist and took her right hand in the other. She set her left hand on his shoulder.
And the music began.
Oh, brave words that she would keep her feet from beneath his when both her legs felt as though they were made of wood, and if she had ever known how to waltz, all memory of the steps and the rhythm had fled without a trace, and at least a million eyes were riveted upon her.
“My love,” Harry said softly, “it is our wedding day. Here and now. Our happily-ever-after is beginning. And you are my someone to cherish every moment for the rest of our lives. My darling.”
He had sensed her sudden fright. Oh, how foolish to be afraid. Thiswasher wedding day. ShewasHarry’s love, just as he was hers. And he had called her, for the first time ever, his darling. No one had ever called her that before now.
Lydia smiled at him.
And suddenly her legs were her own again, andof courseshe knew the steps of the waltz, and he was the partner of her dreams. Literally. Of her dreams.
Harry twirled her about one corner of the ballroom floor, drawing her closer to him as he did so, and Lydia tilted back her head and laughed.
The waltz was without any doubt the loveliest dance ever invented.
She was Harry’sdarling.
Ah, and she was his cherishedsomeonefor all the rest of their days.
As he was hers.
