The Guardian by Diana Knightley

Eighteen - Kaitlyn

This was much like Quentin’s wedding, except different in some key ways — Beaty had been young and silly. Quentin had been caught unaware by the need for marriage, but had stepped up and done it. There had been negotiations for her dowry by the older men of the castle, and while the actual marriage had begun as protection, Quentin took Beaty under his wing, becoming her husband and guardian in a way. Then, from that arrangement, they grew the friendship they now had, full of fist-bumping good humor and a deep abiding loyalty on both their parts. A partnership that spanned centuries and didn’t look at all like Magnus’s and my marriage, but still seemed right.

I sat down in a pew beside Magnus with Hayley on the other side of me.

Come to think of it, Hayley and Fraoch’s marriage was different from mine, too. She and Fraoch had fallen in love and had, without any input from anyone else in the world, decided to join forces together. They weren’t planning to have children. They were completely content to live hand in hand together, a perfect union in a way, because it was just the two of them without all the stresses that the larger commitment of family brought. They were the perfect aunt and uncle, devoted and true and fun, because they could do what they wanted to do without consideration of all the people that counted on them.

Though they didn’t mind being counted on.

Then there was Zach and Emma’s marriage, fully modern, a loving partnership and friendship that had grown over many years. They had overturned some of the roles, but had made a classic, traditional marriage with kids that they doted on. I remembered him standing up and saying she and Ben were the greatest thing that had ever happened to him, and tears welled up a little. Then I chuckled to myself at how irritated Zach would be to know I thought his was a traditional marriage. I glanced at where he was sitting farther down the pew, holding Emma’s hand, his tattooed arm exposed.

Emma smiled at me with a look that said, ‘I’m thinking about all our weddings too...’

And then there was Magnus and I.

We were all of these things and more. We had fallen in love and our marriage was arranged. We had mutually rescued each other and had logically partnered. He protected me, and I took care of him too. We had grown a family and friendships and he guarded over an extended family and a kingdom and... our commitments were huge.

Again, like always, there was one word to describe it, entwined.

James and Sophie had something different. He was very handsome there at the altar, that hot quarterback I had once loved more than anything. What my young self wouldn’t have given for James Cook to stand beside me at the front of a church. He had been so cruel to me, but in the ensuing years he had grown, I thought, settled down a bit. And when I considered it, he didn’t want a partnership so much as something more traditional. He wanted a woman to be his wife.

I had always been a little too independent, a little too strong. Or maybe I had grown into that too.

I had once wanted to be a ‘wife’ in the sense of a picture-perfect marriage, but it took Magnus, a man not afraid of my personality with all my faults and exuberant modern-ness, to take me on as an equal and to love me as a partner, and to ask me for advisement as a friend.

God I loved him. He took my hand and we smiled at each other as the wedding began.

James held Sophie’s hands and smiled down into her eyes as he repeated the vows. He looked nervous, his hands shaking. He kept flipping his head to get his hair back from his eyes. Hayley held my other hand. She whispered. “I can’t believe the boys didn’t fix his hair for him.”

I chuckled.

She added, “And I can’t believe he’s freaking doing this.”

I whispered, “Me either, but here he goes, marrying a poor widow astronomer in the eighteenth century. You owe me five bucks by the way. He did not back out of the church.”

She said, “Remember when this would have been all your dreams come true?”

I shook my head. “I was just thinking that, but no, that young girl seems a million years ago.”

Sophie said her vows, and I said, “This is amazing to watch. It’s like my brain doesn’t believe my eyes.”

Quentin leaned over to whisper, “Our boy is doing it.” He wiped his eyes with a chuckle.

There was a long sermon, then a great deal of follow up prayers. The one thing we had learned living here, was that though our family church was presided over by a kindly, open minded man, he did very much like to hear himself talk.

Magnus exhaled long and low.

I knew prayer was important to him. He visited the altar here every day that he could, but even he grew tired of listening, and his exhale caused me to giggle quietly. He looked at me and smiled, his brow raising, that lovely crinkle at the edge of his eyes.

I read his look — it was saying, Och, this is going long, and m’arse is pained, but listening is the least I can do,

and so he did.

And then the minister pronounced James and Sophie man and wife and they turned around to the congregation, their smiles wide.

We gathered in the courtyard, hugging and kissing James, and welcoming Sophie to the family. Quentin pretended to cry, and it quickly crossed over into an actual tear rolling down his cheek.

James said, “Dude, you crying?”

“Hell yeah I’m crying, you got married, you’re all grown up.”

Fraoch laughed. “Daena get me started, I winna be able tae stop.”