The Chocolatier's Wife (105 page)

“Aye.”
Andrew
looked
at
his
brother.
“How
hard
is
it,
precisely,
to
make chocolate?”

William
placed
a
hand
on
his
brother’s
shoulder.
“As
hard
as
it
is
for
us
to
find
an
honest manager,
and
keep him
honest by watching his every move?”

Andrew
smiled
sadly.
“You
always
did
make
it
sound
too
easy.
But
life
will
never be
the
same.
After
all,
I
have lost
my
ring. Do
you
think she
will even notice?”

“Well. We can only go and find
out.”

Chapter
2
5

Desero 28
th

Sphr.
Mn.
Qtr 1792

Tasmin,

I hope you will find
the enclosed present of use. It is not half
as
lovely
to my
eyes
as
the
woman to whom it belongs.

Still, when
next
I
see
you,
I
suspect that
you
will be
wearing it, and
the
sight
of
you
will surely break
my
heart
with its beauty,
as I hope
your words, when
you
join your fate
to mine,
will heal
it.

Yours,

William

There were not a lot of people present at the wedding of Tasmin Bey and William Almsley, and that suited them perfectly fine. The bride was lovely, of course, in a dress that looked gorgeously familiar, and yet was practically new. The old
dress,
what
was
left,
comprised the
lining,
and
with
the
pearls
and
the
silver thread
that
had
been
rescued worked
into
the
new
dress,
Tasmin felt
that
all
the
women
who
had
been ma
r
ried in
that
gown,
alive
or
dead,
were
smiling
at
her
and
wishing
her joy.

“All
that
satin,”
Bonny
was
heard
to
mumble
to
her
mother-in-law,
“and
they couldn’t have made something a little less fifteenth
century?”

Tasmin
sighed.
It
was
hard
to
get
too
angry
with
Bonny,
who
stood slightly
apart
from
her
husband. Tasmin
had
been
certain
that
tie
was shattered,
but
last
night
she
had
gone
to
visit
Bonny
in
prison
and
had
seen Andrew, sitting
next
to
the
bars
in
an
ever-constant
vigil,
reach
his
hands through
the
bars
to
pat
her
on
her
down-turned
head.
There
was
hope,
she thought,
that
they
would
make
the
best
out
of
what
they
had.
She
wondered where the two brothers got their deep kindness.

Her
gaze
fell
on
Justin,
and
she
remembered
William
had
said
that once,
Justin
had
been
a
young
man
who
had
taken
his
intended
away,
cared for
her until her child was born,
and
refused to put her aside.

Andrew’s
children
(only
one
was
actually
his,
according
to
the
spell she
had
done)
would
go
to
the
North
and
live
with
Tasmin’s
uncle.
He
had no
children
of
his
own, and
it
was
hoped
it
would
bring the
two
families closer.

“I rather
like
the
dress,”
Henriette
said,
and
looked
up
at
her
husband, who
shrugged.
She
smiled
slightly
and
patted
her
husband’s
arm, then leaned forward.
“William,
do stop slouching!”

William, not
allowed
to
turn
around
and
look
at
his
wife-to-be
yet, sighed and
fo
r
bore to comment.

Tasmin
looked
through
the
veil
of
lace
at
William, then
took
a
breath and
began
walking
toward
him,
a
bowl
in
her
hands. Her
mother
placed
a rose
in
it,
her
father
a
handful
of
rice,
her
mother-in-law
a
scroll
of
paper
on which
would
be
written
the
bride’s
prayer,
her
father-in-law
a silver
chain. Cecelia
stepped
forward
and, with
a
smile,
placed
a
perfectly
wrought, heart-shaped piece of chocolate in
the bowl and
winked.

Tasmin laughed
and
tried
not
to
weep
as
the
bowl
was
taken
and
her hand
was
placed
in
her
husband’s,
the
words
that
bound
them
finally
said. The
ring
felt
like
perfection
on
her
finger,
and
the
truth
was,
one
would not
have
rightly
been
able
to
say
who
kissed
whom,
just
that
a
kiss
was exchanged,
and
that
it
was
a
little
too
long
to
be
proper,
and
that
it
seemed very
deeply meant.

The
cake
at
the
reception
that
followed
was
topped
with
a frigate completely
made
of
chocolate.
Chocolate
abounded;
in
fact,
so
much
so
that no
one
noticed
little
pieces
of
it
going
missing, as
invisible
hands
treated themselves to a
well deserved feast.

All
in
all,
Tasmin
thought,
as
her
aunt
and
mother
laughed
at
something William said
and
she
leaned
against
her
father’s
shoulder,
feeling
deeply content, it was e
x
actly the wedding of which she had always dreamed.

Desero twenty-eighth,
Sapphire Moon Quarter 1792

Dearest
William,

Again,
there
are
no
words. The
dress is lovely,
and
the
fact you
took such
care
to re
p
licate
it means
a
great
deal.
You are
a miracle of
a
man.
If
I
had
all the
men
that
had
ever
breathed
to choose
from, you
would still be
the
man
for whom I
would ask.

Yours, Always
,

Tasmin

“So.
Your mother tried to poison Lavoussier?”
She was lying with her head on
his
bare
shoulder,
watching
the
firelight
play
against
the
canopy
of
their bed.
She
was
more
content,
warmer,
and
happier,
than
she
had
ever
been
in her
life,
but
in
their
rush
to
prepare
for the
wedding,
there
were
questions that had gone unanswered.