Page 118 of Brother of Sin
“What?” Jamie and Anthony asked him.
“That woman is here. Why would you invite her?”
“There are many ‘hers’ in the church. Care to elaborate?” Anthony asked.
“Talbot’s daughter,” Toby snapped. “She’s rude and opinionated. For a duke’s daughter she has the manners of a hoyden.”
“You’ve never told us why she is now your enemy, when you grew up together,” Anthony said. “One drunken night you even admitted to her once being your closest friend.”
“She’s no longer a friend,” Toby gritted out.
“But she was,” Anthony persisted.
“I am not discussing this further with either of you.”
“I quite like Lady Liberty Talbot,” Jamie said. “She’s forthright, and that’s refreshing.”
“She’s remarkably like my future wife actually,” Anthony added.
They looked at Lady Liberty Talbot. She nodded to Anthony and Jamie, but her eyes chilled when they met Toby’s.
“She and Evie have become friends lately. I’m not sure how I feel about that,” Anthony added, waving to his aunts. Who all waved back from the front pew, looking happy.
“You need to stop that friendship at once,” Toby said looking like a thundercloud.
“Close your eyes, Anthony,” Jamie said suddenly.
“What? Why?”
“Don’t argue. Just do it.”
He did as his friend told him.
“Open them,” Jamie whispered.
And there she was. Evie stood at the beginning of the aisle on her father’s arm, stunning in a soft shade of rose. She wore a circlet of flowers, and a veil fell down her back.
“Take a breath, Anthony, before you faint.”
“Very amusing,” he said to Toby, not taking his eyes off the woman that today would become his wife. She’d move into his house, and he could wake with her in his arms and hold her whenever he wished.
The music carried her down the aisle to him behind her sister and his, both in pale blue, until finally there she was, beside him.
“Hello,” he said.
“Hello,” she replied in a firm voice that told him she was not nervous either. “I’ll be glad when this is done,” she added. “I have a pin jabbing me in the scalp.”
He laughed and drew the eyes of those closest.
“I shall remove it shortly. For now, how about we get married?”
“What a lovely idea,” she whispered.
“I love you,” he said out of the side of his mouth.
“I love you, too.”
And nothing else mattered, Anthony realized, because he now had his champion at his side, and she had hers.
Forever and always.
The End
