“I didn’t say it before, when you told me you’d give me away, but I’m going to say it now. I miss your Dad with everything that is me, but I’m so proud you’re here with me now,” she whispered to him, her eyes filling with tears.
Will stared at her a moment then gulped back his emotion, nodded slowly and finally shot a sidelong glance up the aisle.
“Um, Uncle Douglas looks kinda mad,” he whispered, his face bright red.
Julia jerked upright and saw that Douglas didn’t look mad, he looked furious. He’d put down Ruby (she was now standing by a bewildered-looking Lizzie) and was scowling at Julia.
Julia fairly raced up the aisle, pulling Will along with her.
“Sorry, sorry,” she muttered when she reached him, avoiding his eyes, “we were having a moment.”
“Perhaps, in future, you’ll pick the timing for your ‘moments’ better,” Douglas replied dryly and her eyes flew to his.
His were carefully blank.
Julia’s heart sank.
“Er, shall I start the ceremony?” the Bishop asked in a low voice.
Douglas quirked a brow at the same time Julia cried, “Yes!”
After this incongruous start, Will’s performance at giving her away was superb.
With Julia’s hand held firmly in Douglas’s (very firmly) the Bishop started the ceremony.
Julia muttered under her breath, “I’m sorry, Douglas-honey, I got a little overwhelmed with missing Gavin. It just came over me.”
When the endearment came from her lips, the first time she’d ever used it when addressing him, Douglas’s lithe body froze, statue-still and Julia misinterpreted it as anger.
She thought of his father, his mother, their hideous treatment of him and what he likely thought was her disrespect in the aisle.
She turned to him and vowed fervently (if a little hysterically), “If someone was choking you in Sommersgate, I’d spend all night trying to claw my way in, even if it killed me, I swear to God!”
At this dramatic pronouncement, Douglas turned only his head in her direction and she realised the Bishop had stopped talking again.
“Darling, would you care to be quiet long enough for us to get married?” Douglas asked politely.
Julia could have happily had the floor open up and engulf her at that moment.
“Yes, yes, definitely,” she turned to the Bishop and nodded at him encouragingly while giving him a shaky smile.
The Bishop looked at Douglas for a shade longer than was necessary, obviously giving him time to run from the Cathedral, but Douglas stood true.
When Julia looked out the corners of her eyes at her intended to gauge just how furious he was, she saw his lips twitching with humour and her breath left her in relief. She leaned into him, resting her body against his side and she let her head drop to his shoulder.
The Bishop started talking faster, his eyes widening at this new affront to tradition and decorum.
But Julia was finished making a fool of herself and the only thing that caused her to be anything but deliriously happy (and it was only to cause her to be even more deliriously happy) was when Douglas’s deep voice rang out in the cathedral when he said his vows and when he said, “I do.”
It might not have been the near-shout Gavin had used but it was damned close.
And although Gavin had given Tamsin a mighty kiss when they were pronounced man and wife, the entire congregation at Wells Cathedral shifted uncomfortably in their seats when Douglas kissed Julia.
It was not decorous and befitting a church.
It was long and hungry with possession, branding her as his in the eyes of God (literally) and everyone else and it left Julia swaying, dazed and utterly, thrillingly, rapturously, ecstatically happy.
* * * * *