The Queen. Tiffany Reisz

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       1

      The First Wedding

      NOW, THIS WAS a happy ending.

      It was all Nora had hoped for, all she had prayed for, and she couldn’t stop grinning as the music began—Jeremiah Clarke’s Trumpet Voluntary.

      She smiled even wider when two elderly gentlemen in traditional servant’s livery opened the great oak double doors with a flourish befitting the exalted occasion.

      After one deep breath, Nora stepped through the open doors and did the one thing she’d sworn she would never do—she walked down the aisle of a church in a wedding dress toward Søren, who waited for her at the altar.

      He hadn’t seen her for hours and this moment was Søren’s first look at her in her wedding dress. It had been twenty years since she’d walked down an aisle toward Søren as a bridesmaid in a wedding he’d performed. Even now, halfway down the aisle, she could see the look in his eyes, a look that said the twenty years had been worth the wait.

      As Nora took her place at Søren’s right hand, she leaned in close and whispered, “Stop looking at me like that.”

      “Why?” he asked as the two hundred assembled guests rose to their feet when the groom made his entrance into the Great Hall that had been converted into a church for the wedding.

      “You’re on duty,” she reminded him. “Father Stearns.”

      “Can I look at you like that after the wedding?”

      She smiled at him as the two grooms joined hands in front of Søren.

      “Today you can do anything you want.”

      “Watch out. I’ll hold you to that promise,” he said as the music faded into silence leaving her unable to retort. She swallowed her words, composed her face and tried not to cry when Søren began to speak.

      “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to join this man, Michael Luka Dimir, and this man, Griffin Randolfe Fiske, in holy matrimony. May your love be blessed by the sacrament of marriage and may we all who are gathered as witnesses rejoice together in the beauty of your commitment to each other as we would bask in the warmth of the sun...”

      Nora made it three whole minutes into the ceremony before the tears started flowing. Luckily all eyes were on Michael and Griffin as they spoke their vows СКАЧАТЬ