The frustrations of the last weeks had stretched Marcot to the breaking point.
Percia had asked him to find her childhood friend, Lemle, whom she’d expected to see when the family arrived in Cascada. Marcot had sent his personal manservant, who reported that the Type and Ink was boarded up, and no one knew what had happened to the owner or the workers; in fact, the neighbors acted skittish to even discuss the subject. Marcot had broached the topic with his father, who had shown concern and vowed that he would look into it. But Marcot had learned to doubt such reassurances, and indeed, no tidings about the printer’s apprentice were forthcoming.
Then he had been shocked by the way his father’s associates had treated his new relations. He shouldn’t have been—he’d known these gentry all his life—but the wedding had brought to the surface their snobbiest behavior. Marcot missed his mother, with her unfailing grace. She would have known how to protect Percia from the likes of Inrick or Lolethia. She would have pressed his father to take a stronger stand. She would have understood.
In the Church of the Waters this morning, however, all his worry of the last weeks melted away. All he saw was Percia’s smile; all he felt was her hand in his; her waist against his arm. Lit by the sunbeams shining through the church’s windows, she looked so radiant; and Brother Whitsury smiled at them so benignly that Marcot’s heart lifted. The cup of Nargis Water they shared quenched a thirst that Marcot hadn’t even known he suffered. Marcot wished he could stand forever in the center of the church with just Percia and the cup.
He only became aware of the audience in the pews when Brother Whitsury led everyone in the traditional hymns “Happy Be the Life Entwined” and “May You Fill One Another’s Cups.” Then he caught sight of Stahlia, Wren, and Tilim sitting together in one section of the church, singing lustily; and the duke and duchess of Maritima, who looked so frail, holding each other’s hands tightly, their eyes closed, with Duke Favian leaning his head on his wife’s shoulder.
Marcot searched for his father and found him sitting alone in a front pew, his eyes hooded.
When the wedding party moved into the Great Ballroom, Marcot walked in a daze. People asked the cost of Percia’s lovely pink gown, which he didn’t know and wouldn’t discuss if he had. So he merely smiled. Stahlia said something about wishing her husband could have been present. Naven kept bragging about being the one who had brought them together. His father hissed furious comments about Lolethia missing the ceremony.
But Marcot floated above it all, his ears attuned only to the sound of Percia’s laughter. He looked to see what pleased her at this moment and discovered that she and Tilim were giggling at the way the champagne tickled their noses.
Their long and painful separation was over; now she would be close by. During the days I will hear her laughing, and at night I will hear her breathing.
After the opening toasts and courses, Marcot roused himself from his reveries. He moved to another seat to concentrate on having a substantive conversation with his new sister, noticing that today she wore a tight cream-colored kerchief, twisted in the front of her forehead. This was the way peasants wore their hair while working in the fields and it clashed with her dressy gown, but Marcot was prepared to use his dinner knife to gut anyone who so much as looked at her askance. Or anyone who pointed out that she seemed to have put on essence of roses with too liberal a hand.
“Are you enjoying the goose?” he asked.
“It is tender,” she replied, “but this is too emotional a day for eating.”
“I know. I hardly taste a thing.” Marcot beamed at her. “You know, Percia is so overjoyed to have you here.” They both glanced across the table at the bride, who caught their eyes, lifted her cup in their direction, and then turned to answer something Stahlia said to her.
“Wren,” Marcot confided, “I was an only child. One of the many wonderful things Percia has brought me is a little brother; I am delighted to now have a sister too!”
“And I am delighted to have an older brother, Lordling Marcot. But if you are not kind to Percia every single day you will face my wrath.”
They both laughed, but Marcot heard her deep loyalty to Percia and liked her the better for it.
Marcot was well content to sit next to someone who shared his appreciation for his bride. He waxed on about Percia’s delightful qualities for several minutes, letting the food grow cold on his plate.
“Tell me stories about her childhood,” Marcot begged, and Wren related the whole tale of how Percia’s dancing talent had become apparent when she was very young. Marcot noticed that as she talked she tore the bread into smaller and smaller pieces that she rolled about and toyed with; he chalked this up to nervousness about being suddenly thrown into a palace and amongst gentry.
His intuition turned to certainty a few moments later when Wren broke the flow of their conversation. “One boon, I beg of you. I am frightened of the Lord Regent. If your father engages me in conversation, could you find a way to interrupt?”
Perchance over his shoulder she had seen his father working his way through the room, because only a few moments later he and Prigent swooped down upon them. Both Wren and Marcot rose to their feet at their greetings.
“Ah, lad,” said Councilor Prigent, with a hearty friendliness that Marcot did not share. “What are your plans for your nuptial retreat? Somewhere conducive, I trust.”
Marcot wondered if Prigent had drunk too much, because he was certain he had told the whole Circle Council that Percia and he would leave this evening by coach for a seaside estate the duke of Maritima had offered them. But politeness demanded that he repeat the information to the councilor, who kept peppering him with more queries.
When he glanced over Prigent’s shoulder, he saw his father engaging Wren in conversation. She offered one-word answers and darted a glance in his direction. Marcot had an image of a raptor attacking a small bird.
Without explanation he stepped away from Prigent.
“Excuse me, Father,” Marcot said. “Percia made me promise to bring Wren to her now.” And with no further ado, he tucked her arm over his and walked across the mirrored ballroom. Noticing that Wren’s hand trembled and her face looked strained, a surge of protectiveness rose in his chest.
Percia found gentry eccentric—too stiff to dance, but unabashed about getting drunk, falling asleep in their chairs, saying rude things, and spilling gravy on their expensive gowns. And they stuffed their faces with more food than would feed a Wyndton family for a week.
Marcot’s father had made all the arrangements for the wedding banquet, and Percia knew that precious few of the guests attended out of genuine warmth for the couple. She didn’t like feeling ungrateful, but she would have had a more joyous time at the Wyndton Arms with ale, boiled eggs, and her friends.
Could they make a life separate from these people? Marcot had promised her that if his father made conditions too unpleasant, they would relocate to Maritima. Duchess Gahoa, who had made Percia a present of the antique pearl earbobs Percia wore with her wedding dress, had charmed her. It was too bad that the Maritima couple hadn’t felt up to this showy party after the ceremony, for Percia thought she would have enjoyed conversing with them—but then Percia barely felt up to this raucous party.
Marcot and Wren pulled her aside from the esteemed and (to her eyes) soulless duke and duchess of Lakevale, with whom the officious chamberlain had seated her.
“Do you wish to stay for the rest of the banquet?” Marcot inquired in her ear.
“Oh, no! That is, not unless you do.”
“I can’t take another moment. No more speeches, no more courses, no more toasts. No prolonged farewells from people who don’t truly give a fig about us and really just want to butter up my father.”
“Thank the Waters,” breathed Percia in relief. “Wren, could you find Mother—I think she’s seated over in that direction—and bring her to our chambers?”
Percia excused herself to the Lakevale gentry, saying that she needed to leave the table. The duke made some rude jibe about her bladder not being used to all this wine and pointed toward the relieving room. Percia feinted in that direction but slipped away to her chambers as fast as she could.
Wren and her mother joined her there in a few minutes. While they helped her take off her gown, the Wyndton women discussed the highlights of the wedding.
“The light shining into the church!” Mother enthused. “It made such a warm, soft glow! And the way your gown pooled on the floor! Marcot’s deep blue, Brother Whitsury’s black, and your pink! A picture I will treasure as long as I live.”
“You looked so happy, Percie! Were you nervous?” asked Wren.
“Not nervous, but it all went by so fast. I wish I could have seen the picture you saw.”
“You saw the most important thing—the expression on Marcot’s face as you shared the nuptial cup. He looked so transfixed. And even into the banquet, he was having a hard time focusing his eyes.” Wren clapped her hands. “Percie, I am so happy for you! Marcot thinks you make the rain fall.”
Percie kissed her sister’s forehead. “Someday you will find someone too.”
After unfastening a ridiculous number of hooks, laces, and petticoats, the women laid the wedding gown reverently aside on Percie’s bed. Percia sighed with relief as her mother gently rubbed the red marks the corset had left around her torso.
Wren held out the waiting yellow-and-black traveling frock. Mother pinned a jaunty little hat with yellow feathers onto Percie’s hair.
“Shall we take these off?” Wren asked, lightly touching the pearl earrings.
“No, leave them.”
“You look adorable,” Wren whispered in her ear.
They heard footsteps outside, and Marcot knocked at the door. “Lady-wife, your carriage awaits below. Do you intend to always keep me pacing at your door? I have waited for you for a long, long year.”
Percia threw open the door with a mocking smile, but sparkling eyes. “And pray, whose fault was that? Not mine, I’m sure. I’m ready—my husband, I have been waiting for you. Let me just say farewell.
“Wren, you must promise not to disappear again!” Percia enfolded her sister.
“Percia, I assure you: the only way I would not be here to meet you is if I have joined the Eternal Waters.”
Percia laughed off the dark comment. “Where’s Tilim?”
“He’s with Duchess Naven,” Mother answered, “probably giving himself a bellyache. She’s been very motherly to him; she may enjoy a boy after all those girls. I’ll tell him that you asked for him.
“Come here, lamb.” Mother kissed Percia on both cheeks. “How I wish your father were here to see you!”
Marcot entered the room and bowed over her mother’s and sister’s hands with the gallant grace and manners that always smote Percia’s heart.
“Thank you, Mother Stahlia, for everything. Sister-mine, I look forward to getting to know you better.”
“Enough charm!” Percia smiled a teasing smile at Marcot. “Race you to the carriage?”
Feeling as if they were runaways, escaping not only from their own wedding banquet but also from looming clouds, they raced through the palace corridors, laughingly tumbled into the waiting vehicle, and made their getaway.