Page 56 of Royally Wed
Amelia was transfixed by the engraving on the watch in her hand. She couldn’t make herself look away or focus on anything else.
Say something. Do something, for God’s sake.
She flipped the timepiece over, so she wouldn’t have to see the intertwined letters anymore and could collect herself. It wasn’t until then she realized the back of the watch had been engravedas well. The script on the reverse side was smaller, simpler. It contained just a single word.
Forever.
WITH THE WEDDING ONLYa day away, Westminster Abbey had at last officially closed its doors to visitors. Rehearsals had been moved from Cadogan Hall to the church, and when Asher carried his cello case through the centuries-old arched doorway, it was the first time he’d stepped inside theAbbey since the night he’d first arrived in London.
He lingered just inside the entryway, steeling himself against the memory of playing for Amelia. But everywhere he looked, there were reminders—colorful shafts of light streaming through the stained-glass windows, candles dripping with wax, and the statues that had been their audience. The air felt heavy, swollen with secrets.
How was he goingto play in this place? How could he sit there and slide his bow across the strings of his cello while Amelia married someone else?
Kissing her again had been the worst sort of mistake.
Now that he’d played for her, touched her, watched her fall apart, his music seemed tied to her somehow. He couldn’t lay a finger on the curves of his cello without imagining his hands on Amelia’s waist or hisfingertips gliding down herspine toward the captivating dip of her lower back.
She’d looked like a goddess in that wedding gown, too heavenly to be real. Through its wispy lace bodice, he could somehow see nothing and everything all at once. Every inch of her porcelain skin, all the places he yearned to touch—the elegant slope of her collarbone, her shoulder, her delicate wrists—were barelyvisible through a sheer layer of intricate embroidery.
But it had been the way she looked at him that had done him in. It had been the liquid desire he’d seen in the depths of her emerald gaze.
She wanted him.
For days, he’d told himself he only indulged her friendly overtures because he pitied her, a blatant lie. He’d told James she drove him mad, which she did. Mad with longing.
But allthe while he’d pretended none of it was real. He’d come to the convenient conclusion that the way he felt when he was around her was just a trick of the mind. Darkness made everything seem more intimate, didn’t it? Buckingham Palace was like a playground. She’d taken him places they never should’ve gone, and he’d been caught up in the thrill of the forbidden. She was Princess Naughty, and he was aserious musician. They didn’t have a thing in common.
Lies. All of them.
The moment he’d seen her standing there in a puff of tulle, he’d known the truth. He didn’t simply want her. He needed her. Hecravedher.
“Mr. Reed.”
Asher looked up and found every musician staring at him,including Jeremy.
Shit.
He’d missed his entrance. A rookie mistake if ever there was one.
“Sorry,” he muttered,then launched into the opening bars of his solo.
Beads of sweat gathered on his brow. He wasn’t in any condition to perform. He just needed to get through the piece.
He closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on the technical aspects of the music. But the elegant weight of the cello’s neck in his grasp was reminiscent of the way his fingertips had traced a path from Amelia’s jaw down to hercollarbone, and how his hands had slid in her hair to cradle the back of her head while he kissed her.
The memory was too powerful to be confined to his mind. It lived and breathed in his flesh, like the way his hands knew how to play certain Bach and Beethoven concertos of their own volition. He no longer had to think when he sat down to play them. The notes had become part of him. Muscle memory,they called it.
Likewise, his body had memorized everything about his brief encounter with Amelia, from the softness of her thighs to the honeyed warmth of her center. He’d come to this country to play for her, but not in the way he’d anticipated. And now she was hopelessly intertwined with his music.
He wasn’t sure he could sit there and play while she walked down the aisle toward a man sheso clearly didn’t love. He couldn’t even manage to get through rehearsal. Even afterhe’d begun to play, he couldn’t think straight. Or maybe he was thinking too hard. Maybe he should just play. He knew the music. He’d practiced enough.
But he couldn’t seem to do that either. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw her in that dress. In this church. Standing alongside Holden Beckett in front ofthe Archbishop of Canterbury.
As the orchestra began the anthem, Asher’s hands shook. His bow skidded over the strings too lightly and barely made a sound. He increased the pressure, but overcorrected. A horrible screeching sound echoed through the church. He winced, then realized with horror that he’d been responsible for the god-awful noise.
He somehow finished, then put down his bow and kepthis gaze glued to the floor while the orchestra launched into the next piece. His head throbbed. His tongue felt thick, and his mouth had gone dry as bone. He couldn’t seem to remember how to swallow.
What was happening to him?
