Chapter 211: Rewritten
The officiant began to speak, his voice carrying through the garden, but Alina hardly heard a word. Her world had narrowed down to the man in front of her.
Austin held her hands, enveloping them. When his hands touched hers, she felt a slight tremor in them. Those were the hands that signed military orders without hesitation, the hands that fought against armies and won, and now they were trembling because of her.
Alina squeezedhis fingers, her thumb brushing over his knuckles, silently comforting him.
When the officiant paused and gestured for Austin to speak, he did not reach into his coat for the parchment he had spent three weeks agonizing over.
"You spoke first," Austin began. "You always spoke first. Every important moment between us began with you saying something you weren’t supposed to."
A quiet stillness settled over the garden.
"I was the man who told you to go to sleep," he continued, looking into her eyes. "I was the man who lay down a few inches away from you in a room, pretending you weren’t there."
He let out a short laugh.
"In the beginning, I lied to myself and called it duty. Because the truth scared me. The truth that a woman I bought under a contract walked into my life, and I couldn’t stop looking at her. The way you held a needle like a weapon, fought with me always, and talked to my sister through a locked door when I didn’t have the courage to do it myself."
Austin took a step closer, closing the distance between them. A tear slipped down Alina’s cheek.
"You are my trouble, Alina," Austin whispered, his voice breaking a little. "My life’s most beautiful trouble. And I choose this trouble for the rest of my life."
Alina’s vision blurred. She hadn’t spent weeks drafting the perfect response. So when the officiant turned to her, she decided to speak everything she had in her heart.
"When I arrived at this castle," Alina began, her voice trembled a little but eventually steadied, "I had one bag, a locket, and a desperate plan to survive. That was it. Get through each day. Don’t cry. And don’t ever let the duke see you break."
She let out a small laugh, her eyes wet.
"And when I heard you breathing in the dark, I hated you. I hated you for sleeping so easily when I couldn’t sleep at all," She looked at the crowd for a moment, then back to him. "You fell asleep in a minute every night, while I lay there for hours, counting your breaths."
A ripple of laughter spread through the garden.
"I counted everything," Alina confessed. "Your breaths, your footsteps, the time between the door opening and the mattress dipping. But I could never account for my feelings the same way."
She squeezed his hand tightly.
"You made those feelings unavoidable, Austin. And you didn’t do it with grand gestures. You did it with small things nobody else noticed. Warning me of the food with a note, a lord quietly reassigned because he insulted me, a blue hairpin that you bought for me because I couldn’t afford it."
Austin’s lips curved into the most heartwarming smile. She reached up and softly brushed her fingers against his jaw.
"My mother wrote me a letter before she died. I read it when my father gave it to me just a few weeks ago. She told me to find a man who stays in the room. And I realized she was describing you...a man she never even met," Alina took a shaky breath.
"You stayed with me in the room through every fight, through every... impossible thing. And I am so grateful you did."
Austin was trying his best to control his emotions but was failing miserably. The officiant spoke the formal words, gesturing to the rings.
Austin let go of her hands, picked up a simple gold band, and slid it onto her finger. From outside, it looked like simple gold ring. But on the inside, he had engraved the first words he had ever spoke to her.
Come to bed.
Alina picked up her ring and slid the gold band onto his finger, claiming him just as fiercely as he had claimed her.
"You may kiss now," the officiant finally said.
Neither of them moved for a moment. They just stood there, their hands entwined. Slowly, Austin leaned forward, as if this moment deserved to be felt at every point.
His hand cradled her face while her hand rested against his chest. Under her palm, she could hear his erratic and wild heartbeat betraying the calm exterior he was showing to everyone.
He kissed her softly and slowly. It was the intimate showing the love between two people who had already laid their souls bare and were now only sealing their promise. It was warm, tasting slightly of tears, whether it was hers or his no one could say but it didn’t matter at all.
When Austin finally pulled back, he rested his forehead against hers. It had become kind of their safe spot. It was the position they returned to after every storm.
"Finally!" Austin whispered.
"Finally!" she whispered back.
The garden erupted in applause. Everyone stood up from their respective seats, cheering for them. Some even shedding tears of joy as they witnessed two people who had fought so many challenges to finally reach their destination.
Alina slowly turned her head, looking beyond the sea of applauding guests. Her eyes wandered across the castle. It was the same castle that had once welcomed her with cold stares but it now stood draped in flowers.
The same garden where she had once sat alone, believing she would never belong here, now had become the place where she promised forever to the man she loved.
She looked at Marguerite who was wiping away her tears without bothering to hide them. Cecily now stood with trembling hands beside the piano, smiling more brightly than Alina had ever seen her. Elspeth was crying openly in the front row,laughing through her tears. Even Maren’s usually unreadable face had softened a little.
This was no longer the lonely castle she had arrived at. It had become her home. She looked at the gold band resting on her finger and smiled. The contract that had once chained them together had long since lost all meaning. Their love had rewritten every line.
As Austin gently lifted her hand to his lips once more, Alina smiled through the tears gathering in her eyes.
She had entered Ravenmoor as a woman bought by a contract. But today she was standing there as a duchess, and most importantly as a woman who had never once allowed the world to decide her worth.