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Sister Evangelina stood red-faced and unimpressed clutching the dismantling bouquet. The bride caught her groom's eye and immediately got the giggles. "Go on Fred, there's your chance!" she exclaimed, shocked at her own cheekiness. Patrick tried desperately not to laugh, keen not to ruin his new-found approval from the brusque older nun.
"No thank you," harrumphed the Sister, glaring daggers at the pair of them. "Even if I was at liberty to, I could never marry a man who once named a pig after me."
"It was supposed to be an honour!" put in Jenny, biting her lip to stop herself from laughing.
Sister Evangelina merely groaned, and roughly pushed the bouquet at a bemused Jane, who was proudly arm in arm with her Reverend Appleby-Thornton. "I think this young lady needs this more than me."
...
Later that evening, Patrick fumbled with his keys as he unlocked the front door. Shelagh stood timidly behind him, her hands clasped in front of her, her eyes trained on his back. The snow had eased off, save for a few flakes which swirled in the air, tickling her face and spotting the lenses of her glasses. She grew tired of wiping them and took them off, blinking rapidly. When Patrick succeeded with the door and turned round to his wife, his mouth fell open in surprise at how different she looked. "I don't think I've seen you properly without your glasses," he explained. "That's one change I'd never get used to."
"Well, luckily for you, you won't have to," she replied. "I'm as blind as a bat without them." He moved forward and took the glasses from her hands, placing them gently back in their place, his hands lingering behind her ears and moving down to her neck, holding her as he had done at the altar only a few hours ago. "We're letting the cold in," she murmured after a few moments of blissful silence, gesturing to the wide open door. Patrick noticed then that she was shivering, and cursed himself for being so forgetful of her still fragile constitution. Swiftly, he swept Shelagh up in his arms. She gasped in surprise, then giggled shyly as he carried her across the threshold. She melted against the warmth of his body, feeling safer than ever encircled by his strong, caring arms. When he came to put her down, she found her heart protesting, longing for her body to be close to him again, to feel his heart pounding in his chest in time with her own.
They walked hand in hand to the living room. Shelagh removed her coat and placed it over the arm of the settee, revealing once more her exquisite wedding dress. It looked somehow out of place in this drab modern setting; it was made to be worn against a backdrop of flowers and in the glimmer of candlelight.
"Wait there," breathed Patrick, leaving Shelagh to her thoughts. She was forced to steady herself against the back of a chair, absently tugging at a tendril of hair that had come loose and lay across her forehead as she prayed for courage with all her might. Patrick returned within minutes with a handful of small candles, which he placed around the room and lit, before turning to look intently at his bride. "That's better," he smiled, and Shelagh's stomach flipped as his eyebrows tilted upwards in that oh so familiar expression of compassion and love. There was questioning in that expression too, and Shelagh did not need to be told the reason - it was their wedding night after all. She let out a jagged breath and swallowed hard, not knowing what to do next. She was fixed to the spot, and could only manage to gaze openly into Patrick's eyes as he walked across the carpet to take her hands in his. He brought them to his lips and kissed them, lingering over the spot where a gold wedding band now joined the diamond he had kissed so many times before. "I'm the luckiest man in the world," he whispered, sweeping the honey-toned tendril away from her face, hungrily taking in every last detail of her looks while she clung helplessly to the waist of his jacket. He kissed her then, gently opening her lips with his. She kissed him back, moving her hands to cup his face. At the feel of her soft hands on his skin, Patrick quivered and began to kiss his trembling bride with a greater urgency than ever before.
Shelagh gasped at this new level of intensity, but could not hold back. She did not want to hold back. Suddenly her knees turned to jelly, and they sunk onto the settee, flushed and breathless, revelling in the kiss as if it was their first. Patrick discarded his tie and broke away to carefully place Shelagh's glasses on the sideboard, not wasting a second in returning to her mouth, his hand brushing the soft curve of her waist. With shaking hands he moved to undo the first of the pearl buttons at Shelagh's neck. They proved more fiddly than they had bargained for, and there were so many of them! By the time he'd managed to remove her jacket the pair were considerably flustered and laughing uncontrollably; the ice was broken and Mr and Mrs Turner returned to each other's arms in a happy delirium until the last of the candles flickered and died, and Patrick led his bride reverently upstairs.
Shelagh was the first to wake in the morning. After ten years of waking up at four thirty for prayers her body clock never let her sleep past six. She gazed in wonder at the sleeping form of her husband beside her, still not fully believing that this was all real. She just could not stop smiling; the happiness that she felt was so acute that it hurt. Only this was not the same hurt as the one she had experienced before, where his presence had filled her heart to bursting but left a great gaping hole when he left, to the point where she felt as if she would die for want of him. This time she knew he wasn't going anywhere, and that he was unashamedly and freely hers. She yawned contentedly and went to run her hand through her hair, only to find it still in its updo, if extremely dishevelled. She chuckled as she found a sprig of mistletoe still caught in a hairpin, then disentangled it and twirled it absently between her finger and thumb until she was brought to her senses by a small movement beside her. Gingerly at first, then with greater assurance, she leant gently over Patrick's torso, and when his eyes fluttered open she gave a playful grin, holding the mistletoe above them. "Morning doctor," she beamed.
"Morning, my darling," came his delighted reply. "You know, I think whoever invented mistletoe was the most wonderful person. I intend to thank them." And he pressed his lips onto hers with a sigh.
"I think you'll find that would be God," Shelagh teased. "And I thank Him enough for the both of us, every hour of the day."
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