Bend Her novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: The Wedding

Bess pinned my hair up high at dawn, so that nothing hid the back of my neck.

"They'll see it," she said.

"That is the idea."

"And the ward?"

I pushed back my left sleeve.

The false iron band still sat on my wrist, with Ansel's cut hidden on the underside.

"It closes with a click," I said. "It needs no key."

"Then use it."

"I mean to."

She held my face between her flour-scarred hands and kissed my forehead, which she had never done.

"Go and be a nuisance," she said.

The great hall was hung with white winter roses.

Every lord in Tarnmere stood along the walls again.

The northern envoy waited at the foot of the altar in his grey coat, with a silver ring in his palm.

Aldous sat on the throne with his crown pulled low.

Ansel knelt on the stone beside the altar rail, in cuffs and collar.

I had put them back on him myself, and it still turned my stomach to see them.

He lifted his head.

I could see nothing in his face but his love for me.

I had to look away before it showed in mine.

Gisborne stood behind the altar in a white robe.

He held a book in one hand and kept the other tucked in his sleeve.

He had noticed the missing keys at dawn.

I could see it in the faint pinch at the corners of his mouth.

He had decided it did not matter, and he smiled at me kindly.

I walked up the carpet alone.

"Princess Linnet Carrick," Gisborne said, in his soft carrying voice. "You come here of your own will?"

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