For a moment Anne's heart fluttered queerly and for the first time her eyes faltered under Gilbert's gaze and a rosy flush stained the paleness of her face. It was as if a veil that had hung before her inner consciousness had been lifted, giving to her view a revelation of unsuspected feelings and realities. Perhaps, after all, romance did not come into one's life with pomp and blare, like a gay knight riding down; perhaps it crept to one's side like an
old friend through quiet ways; perhaps it revealed itself in seeming prose, until some sudden shaft of illumination flung athwart its pages betrayed the rhythm and the music, perhaps... perhaps... love unfolded naturally out of a beautiful friendship, as a golden-hearted rose slipping from its green sheath.
So, when is the wedding?”
Laughter greeted the question, and there was a hint of a smile on
Casteel’s lips as he leaned toward me. “There is no side of you that is not as
beautiful as the other half. Not a single inch isn’t stunning.” His lashes
lifted, and the intensity in his stare held me captive. “That was true the first
time I said it to you, and it is still the truth today and tomorrow.”
My lips parted on a sharp inhale. I almost reached for my face again
but stopped myself. Somehow, in the process of getting used to being seen
without the veil of the Maiden, I’d forgotten about my scars—something I’d
never thought possible. I wasn’t ashamed of them, hadn’t been for years.
They were proof of my strength, of the horrific attack I had survived. But
when I was unveiled in front of Casteel for the first time, I’d feared hewould agree with what Duke Teerman had always said. What I knew most
thought if they saw me unveiled or looked upon me now.
That half of my face was a masterpiece, while the other was a
nightmare.
But when Hawke—Casteel—had seen the pale pink, jagged streak of
skin that started below my hairline and sliced across the temple, ending at
my nose, and the other that was shorter and higher, cutting across my
forehead through my eyebrow, he had said that both halves were as
beautiful as the whole.
I’d believed him then. And I’d felt beautiful for the first time in my
life, something that had also been forbidden to me.
And gods help me, but I still believed him.