They Sold Me in My Sister's Place, So I Took Their House novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Courthouse

Eden and Cormick marry at the town hall with her family crashing the second row, and Davis whispers that she was always going to end up here.

We were married on Friday at ten, at the Greenwich town hall.

The room had a flag in the corner and nine folding chairs.

Cormick's assistant stood up as his witness. A clerk from the print shop stood up as mine, still wearing her lanyard, because I had no one else to ask.

The chairs in the back filled at five to ten.

My father came in first, in his navy blazer, with the Rotary pin on the lapel and his public smile fixed in place.

Russell followed him. Colette came last, in a cream coat, with her eyes already pink.

Nobody had invited them. All three sat down in the second row.

"Don't turn around," Cormick said, beside me.

"I wasn't going to."

"Your hands are cold."

"It's eleven degrees colder than it looks."

The corner of his mouth moved. It was the first time I had seen it do that.

The judge opened her folder.

I had been through this once before.

The first time, my father held my arm so tightly that I had a bruise by evening.

I had said my vows to the carpet.

This time my arm was my own.

"Do you, Cormick Eberly, take this woman?"

"I do."

He said it to me, not to the room, and he kept his eyes on mine while the judge went on.

"Do you, Eden Lowry, take this man?"

"Lowry," my father said sharply from the second row. "Her name is Hadfield."

"Sir, please," the judge said.

"She's been a Hadfield for eighteen years."

I turned around.

"I was a Lowry before that," I said. "And I'm going to be one after."

He stopped talking.

Behind him, Russell's jaw had gone tight, and Colette was pressing the back of her wrist to her mouth.

I turned back to the judge.

"I do," I said.

Cormick took a plain gold band out of his pocket and held it ready. His fingers were not quite steady.

I looked at his hand. The scar through his eyebrow had gone paler in the light.

He had never been a cruel man. He had been a man nobody explained anything to.

I slid the ring on his finger myself, and I felt him breathe in.

"By the power vested in me," the judge said. "You may kiss your bride."

The room went quiet.

We had agreed on this.

He wouldn't touch me unless someone was watching.

Three people in the second row were watching.

Cormick lifted one hand and set it, very slowly, against the side of my face.

His palm was warm. It covered my cheek and the corner of my jaw.

"Eden," he said, so low that only I heard.

"Yes."

"If you want me to stop, tell me to stop."

"I won't."

He kissed me.

I had expected a courthouse kiss, short and polite.

It was neither. His mouth was careful for the first second and then it wasn't, and my hand went up on its own and closed in the front of his coat.

I heard Russell make a noise in the second row.

When Cormick pulled back, we were both short of breath.

He didn't let go of my face right away. His thumb moved once along my cheekbone.

"For the audience," I said, because someone had to say it.

"Of course," said Cormick. His voice was rough. "For the audience."

The clerk from the print shop clapped alone in the quiet.

In the hall afterward, Colette caught my wrist.

"Eden." Her eyes were wet. "I'm so happy for you. I didn't think you'd really do it, and I'm so sorry I put you in this."

She pressed a lace handkerchief into my hand. It smelled of her perfume.

"Be careful with him," she whispered. "People say things."

"They do."

"I just want you safe."

Her moonstone ring caught the light from the high windows.

I put the handkerchief in my pocket.

The last time she told me she wanted me safe, she said it at the foot of a staircase.

My father stepped in front of me then, and Cormick moved a half step closer without touching me.

"Congratulations, Mrs. Eberly," Davis said, and gave me the warm smile he used on donors. He bent his head toward my cheek.

His mouth was beside my ear.

"You were always going to end up here," he said, low and pleasant. "Remember that I told you so."

Then he straightened, shook Cormick's hand, and walked out with his son.

I stood where I was.

Cormick had been close enough to see my face when it happened.

"What did he say to you?" he asked.

"He said I was always going to end up here."

His eyes narrowed on the doors where my father had gone.

"Then why," Cormick said, "did it sound like he'd planned it?"

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