Chapter Eight
Gareth blinked his eyes open. He saw candlelight and shadows and unfamiliar bedhangings. Where was he? He turned his head and found Cecily, seated at the dressing table, writing, and memory returned: this was his wedding night.
A wedding night that had been far, far worse than he’d imagined it could be—and also far, far better.
He watched Cecily for several minutes. Candlelight gilded her tousled hair and played across her cheek. My wife. He felt drowsy, and contented, and more than that, he felt whole. Not in the way he’d been before Waterloo, but in the way he was now. And Cecily had given him that.
The luckiest day of his life, the day that he’d met her.
He watched her write, watched the candlelight and shadows move across her face, watched her frown slightly, purse h
