Page 94 of Duke of Moonstone
“I, Malcolm James Frazer, take thee, Eleanor Antoinette Moonwell, to be my wedded wife.”
Frances sat very still. The words filled the small stone church. Beside her, Alexander’s hands rested on his knees. His fingers were not clasped. They were simply there, pressed flat against the dark fabric of his breeches, and they did not move.
“To have and to hold from this day forward. For better, for worse. For richer, for poorer.”
Frances looked at Alexander.
His jaw was set, not tightly but as if he was restraining his emotions. His gaze was fixed on the altar, on Eleanor’s back, on the dress that was simple and lovely and nothing like what a duke’s sister would have worn in London.
“In sickness and in health.”
His throat moved. A single swallow and nothing else.
“To love and to cherish, till death us do part.”
Frances watched his eyes. He was feeling something deeply, and he could not hide it.
The minister turned to Eleanor. “Repeat after me.”
“I, Eleanor Antoinette Moonwell.” Eleanor’s voice was bright. Strong. Not a tremor in it. “Take thee, Malcolm James Frazer, to be my wedded husband.”
Alexander’s hand curled. Just slightly. His fingers pressed harder against his knee, and the knuckles went white for a moment before he released the pressure.
He is watching his sister become a wife.
The realization moved through Frances with a force that surprised her. She had seen him angry about Eleanor’s choices. She had seen him rigid with disapproval, cold with control, sharp with the particular fury of a man who believed his authority had been defied. She had argued with him about it. She had walked out of his study over it.
But she had never seen this.
This was a man watching his little sister—the girl he had raised, the child he had protected, the only family besides his mother who remained—step away from him. Not in defiance. Not in rebellion. In love. In joy. In the most ordinary, extraordinary act a woman could perform.
And it was costing him something.
“To love and to cherish, till death us do part.”
Eleanor’s voice rang through the church. Malcolm held both her hands in his. His face held an expression of such unguarded devotion that she had to look away.
She looked at Alexander instead.
His jaw had softened. The tight line of his mouth had eased into something that was not quite a smile but was close. Closer than she had ever seen from him in any setting that did not involve Emily. His eyes were bright. Not wet but bright in a way that suggested the boundary between the two was thinner than he would have liked.
He loves her. Beneath all the fury and the disappointment and the rigid adherence to what he thinks is right, he loves her so much it is breaking through.
Frances’s chest ached.
“I now pronounce you man and wife.”
The minister closed his book. Malcolm leaned forward and pressed his lips to Eleanor’s forehead, and the church erupted into sound. Applause. Laughter. The rustle of forty people rising to their feet.
Eleanor turned. Her face shone brightly. She looked directly at Alexander and Frances in the front pew, and the smile she gave them was the smile of a woman who had everything she wanted and needed the people she loved to see it.
Alexander stood. Frances stood beside him. Their arms brushed.
“Well,” Frances said.
“She is married.”
“How do you feel?”
