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Zelda trembled as she told him. “—and the doctors tell us he may not have even weeks at all, much less the months they promised us when he fell ill.” She wrung her hands, avoiding the sympathetic look on Link’s face. It was the same look the doctors had worn that morning when they’d left her father’s room. Her father had been coughing up blood all night, and as soon as dawn broke she had sent one of the servants on horseback to fetch a doctor, despite her father’s protests. When her father hadn’t liked the news the first one gave, she’d sent for another. The second doctor had only agreed with the first. Days, perhaps.
“And no one knows,” she said in despair, “because Father has to appear strong for the business, and the investors. He’s taken two trips to the seaside since he started feeling unwell, but any good that does him is quashed when he must go back to work, and he works twice as hard to make up for the lost time!” She curled her fists at her side, at the injustice of it all. First her mother, and now her father. She was barely even twenty-one. “I thought we would have more time.” She sighed, “I thought I would have more time.”
The foyer of Link’s estate was bereft of his servants. The evidence of her anguish echoed through the wood-paneled room. She’d come in a rush, not even taking the carriage. When Link had seen her state of upset, he’d sent them out immediately, leaving the two of them alone. Another man— another gentleman— would have been far too concerned with the optics of the situation. He would have insisted a servant act as Zelda’s chaperone as she told him of the morning’s news so it wouldn’t appear improper, but Link respected her choices. Zelda was eternally grateful for it— for him, always. She didn’t want anyone else— even the servants— to hear of her plight.
“You know that Father is my only family— I have no brothers or distant male cousins, not even on Mother’s side. I am yet unmarried,” Zelda said, agonizingly. “So when he dies,” she says, “I’ll lose everything.”
Link watched her, silently. He stood rigid before her, still dressed for a ride on his property. He’d only just arrived back home himself when she’d knocked at his door. His windswept hair was tied back, low on his neck, just touching his loose collar, tied with a cravat just above his waistcoat. She knew if he’d been expecting company— even just her— he would have worn something other than just his riding trousers and boots. On another evening, he might have even asked her to join him on a ride.
Oh, how long ago had she thought his silence was evidence of his disdain for her? That he thought he was so above Zelda, and the others in her circle, because he would refuse to speak to them at all? And she had treated him so poorly as such. But that wasn’t who Link was, not at all— he rarely spoke in the company of others he didn’t know well, for the fear of their judgment. He would rather listen, observe, than risk speaking out of turn. It was quite a miracle they had become friends at all. And here she was, he as her last resort.
“So I ask of you—” Zelda trembled, “I beg— that you might consider, as my friend, marriage to me. In order to save me.” She hated this. She hated imposing, being a burden. She hated that she even had to ask someone this monumental favor, if one could even call it that. She’d wished, desperately, that she would have more time. She was so foolish for rejecting the idea of marriage when she was younger. She should have taken Lady Mipha’s ball invitations more seriously. Maybe then she could have married for love. Or at least married someone who wanted to marry her.
“Despite not having any family I—” she swallowed. “I would be alright,” she hurried to say, to assuage any fears he might have at saying no. “My closest friend, Impa, would allow me to stay with her. I wouldn’t be entirely destitute.” Nevermind that Impa had just had a child, and that child would not be one year old when Zelda’s father would pass. Adding another mouth to feed, another burden on her friend, would be unacceptable.
“Zelda,” Link said, so gently she knew he must be rejecting her.
She simply couldn’t bear it. “I know what it would mean,” she said, speaking faster so that he wouldn’t be able to cut her off. She would have to speak her mind, to get it all out before he said anything else. And then she would have no more regrets. She would have spoken her piece. “You wouldn’t be able to marry for love. I know that you have options—” She had never spoken about this to Mipha herself, but she’d heard rumors that Mipha held an affection towards Link. Other women, too. Zelda couldn’t be surprised. Link was handsome, and he had recently inherited a lofty title and estate. “And with how quickly we would need to marry, the optics of the situation would be abysmal. They might think that we rushed to wed because I—” she stumbled over the words, a furious blush overtaking her. “Because I was with child, or— or something of that matter. Your reputation would be at risk.”
He repeated, fondly, “Zelda—”
“I don’t want to take advantage of your kindness,” she admitted. “You’ve always been so kind to me, to my family, even when I was less than kind to you—”
Link spoke louder, “Zelda—” he said, and reached forward to take her hand. His voice was rough, as always. He spoke so rarely, it always meant something when he did.
It startled her so much, the feel of his gloved hand in her bare one, that she stopped speaking. He forced her to look at him. He was looking at her fondly, a soft smile on his face. He always had that sort of indulgent look on his face when he spoke with her— when he let her ramble on a little bit too long about the latest scientific discovery she’d read about in the papers, or when they went riding and he let her point out all the flora and fauna, and called them all by their scientific names, though she was sure he knew them already, since he’d grown up riding in those very woods himself.
“Yes, Zelda,” he said, voice low, “I’ll marry you.”
She felt such an enormous, overwhelming relief come over her that she threw her arms around him. She heard him gasp, and she heard the rapid beating of his heart, like the fluttering of a little bird trapped in a cage, against her chest. She pulled back, freeing her arms from around his neck. “Thank you, Link,” she said, tears pricking at the corner of her eyes. She would not cry in front of him. He was already doing so much, she would not burden him with her feelings, too. She busied herself by pulling her gloves from the pocket of her long, pale-blue jacket.
She felt flustered as he watched her pull on her gloves. She felt enormously clumsy, struggling even with the basic task. Link reached forward, placing his hand on hers. He helped her slip into the glove. “Zelda,” he said again, “what can I do to help you?”
Zelda shook her head. “You don’t have to do anything, Link,” she said thickly. Though the weight of one problem was foisted off her shoulders, there was another, looming problem that was slowly lurking over her household. “You’ve done enough.”
He nodded, drawing back away from her, to a respectable distance.
“I’ll take care of everything,” she told him. “I must tell father immediately. He will be immensely relieved to know that I will be well taken care of. Perhaps he will rest easier, and it will improve his health. Nevertheless… I think it will be quite prudent that we marry sooner, rather than later.” Link nodded in agreement. “I was thinking Tuesday?” she suggested. That was four days away. It couldn’t be any sooner— the church wouldn’t perform a wedding with so many services that weekend, and she had already made an appointment for her father’s solicitor to come to the house on Monday.
She would have to call on favors from her father’s friends to get a special marriage license to allow them to marry with no notice, but there should be enough time. She knew she would be able to get an ordinary license, so that they might be married in a week, but at the rate her father’s health was declining, and the unexpectedly chilly weather for May, she was afraid he might not make it that long. “I hope that’s enough time for you to set things in order.”
Link nodded again. “I can procure the license,” he said, as though he was reading her thoughts. “It will be at your church?” he asked. She nodded.
Zelda looked at him. “Sometimes I forget that you’ve been knighted.” The licenses were usually only granted to those in high places in society. It was easy to forget that Link, her friend Link, was a knight. Before she could say anything else, the large clock in the foyer chimed.
Looking at the time, it made her anxious to return home. She had rushed to Link’s estate earlier, with little thoughts in her head except the major one. She’d made no plans for if Link had said yes, and even fewer for if he’d said no. Her father was probably worried sick, and when she returned home to tell him of her plans, he would throw a fit at not being consulted about Zelda’s rash plans. But she knew he would see the prudence in it, eventually. If he had raised her to be anything, it was practical.
Link seemed to sense her anxieties. “I will summon the carriage,” he said. “So you don’t have to ride home in the dark.”
“I am very grateful, Link, truly,” she said, pausing to smile at him. Link had been her first choice, and truly her only choice, but in ways, she was glad it was him.
She paused as she reached the door. He was escorting her outside, where she would wait for the carriage to be hitched. She touched his sleeve as he reached for the door handle. He paused, looking back over his shoulder at her. “I want you to promise me,” she said, “that you aren’t just doing this because you’d feel guilty otherwise.”
“I promise,” he said without hesitation. She searched his eyes.
She smiled. “See you Tuesday?”
“Tuesday,” he promised.
Zelda stood nervously in the hall of the church. It was just a few minutes before the ceremony would begin. She could see the priest speaking with her father in the front row. Her father had felt miraculously better that morning. He’d been jovial at breakfast, and had insisted on walking without a cane into the church. She’d made him swear he would carry it anyway, and he had. It was resting against his knee where the priest was kneeling down to hear him.
She hadn’t seen Link for a few minutes. He had already been at the church when she and her father had arrived at eleven that morning, and she’d caught glimpses of him speaking with the priest. He’d looked handsome, wearing a jacket she’d never seen before. It didn’t surprise her. They attended different churches, and there were entire parts of his life she didn’t know. Perhaps it was what he wore to all the balls he was invited to, or the dinners he had with other peers.
He’d caught a glimpse of her when she came in. She’d seen his face go pale, and she hadn’t seen him since. She hoped it wasn’t what she was wearing. She was wearing her best dress, the one she wore every Sunday to mass. There had been no time to get anything made. Her father had gifted her lace ribbons that morning from her mother’s own wedding dress, and she held that far closer to her heart than anything she could have gotten new. She’d have time to get a new dress after the wedding if it offended him so.
“Zelda,” she heard Impa call her. She looked towards her friend, dressed in a modest gray dress. She wasn’t holding her baby. Zelda looked behind her friend, seeing Mipha holding the young child, sitting near the back of the church in a wooden pew.
Zelda had written Impa, and Impa had insisted on coming to the ceremony, which she dubbed a necessary evil. Zelda wasn’t sure how Mipha had heard about the ceremony. Knowing that Mipha might have some level of affection towards Link, Zelda never would have put her through a wedding, but Mipha didn’t seem to mind at all, so perhaps the rumors were untrue. Mipha seemed perfectly content to play with Impa’s child, the child sitting on her knee. Mipha’s parents had finally been graced with a son a few years previously, so Mipha had little pressure to marry until she was ready.
“Your groom is pacing outside,” Impa said, crossing her arms across her chest and looking towards the door. “You should go speak with him.”
The tone of Impa’s voice made her nervous, so she nodded, and pushed the arched doors open, shutting them behind her. Outside, near the low stone fencing, her groom was pacing. When she approached, she could see the pained look on his face. He seemed to be mouthing something to himself. She felt the bottom drop out of her stomach, and she clutched the bouquet of morning glories in her hand.
She reached out to him, touching his shoulder. “Link,” she said.
He looked startled by her presence, his eyes widening. “Zelda,” he said, composing himself. “I have to talk to you about— the wedding.” He looked pale. “There are— considerations. To be made. Before we can go through with it.”
Zelda swallowed, putting the bouquet gently down on the stone fence. She felt lightheaded. “Do you want to call it off? I told you that it’s your prerogative—”
He looked pained, his lips sealed. He looked like so many of the early days of their acquaintance. He didn’t answer. He looked like he didn’t know how.
Her heart raced. There would be no time to find anyone else. Her father’s doctors had warned her about days like these— days that appeared to be a miraculous recovery for the patient— that they often foretold a passing some days later. Worse than an unmarried only daughter would be an unmarried only daughter who had been left at the altar. If Mipha could hear about a wedding that only two people had been invited to, then others could hear of it, even if Link would never speak ill of her. She felt lightheaded. “Is it— is it me?” she hated the way her voice pitched when she asked. “Has something changed?”
“Zelda, I—” Link tried. He sounded strangled, struggling to speak. She reached out to him without thinking, placing her hand on his own.
“It’s okay, Link,” she soothed. “Take your time.” It had been some time since she’d seen him struggle to speak so thoroughly. He’d told her in confidence that it was worse in unfamiliar social engagements, so he often avoided them, or avoided speaking at all.
After a few deep breaths, he steadied himself. Finally, he spoke, “I’m not— I’m not calling it off. There are— I have something to tell you, and I can’t, in good conscience, marry you without letting you know.”
Zelda frowned, and her heart thumped heavily in her chest. What could be so dire that he would think she would call it off, in such terrible circumstances of her own? Had he lost the fortune he’d inherited? Perhaps through gambling debts? She could deal with that— when they married, she would inherit enough money for the both of them, her sizable dowry aside. Or worse, she thought— could he have a lover? Worse yet, a child? She paled at the thought. But Link would not be so callous. She doubted Link would ever encounter a situation where there would even be a child, much less an abandoned one. Link had readily agreed to marry her under undesirable circumstances, she couldn’t imagine he would ever refuse to marry a woman carrying his child.
“Zelda—” he said, weakly. He looked a little sick. “It’s not— bad. At least I hope not. I hope you don’t think so.”
She sucked in a breath. If he told her not to worry, then she wouldn’t. He knew her. He knew her in ways that perhaps even Impa didn’t, and Impa had known her since she was a child. She couldn’t imagine anything he could do that would make him unmarriable in her eyes. He was the only one she wanted to marry.
It struck her then. That there was no one else she would rather marry, in this situation or any other. It wasn’t just the desperation speaking, it was the thought of losing him entirely. She just simply couldn’t bear it.
She watched as he steadied himself, and then he spoke, as clear as she’d ever heard him. “I have to tell you that I love you.” She gasped. “I’ve loved you since you first accepted my token of friendship, I’ve loved you every time you look my way and I— I can’t, in good conscience, marry you without you knowing. You should— you should have the choice. If you aren’t comfortable with that.” He spoke more softly, “I don’t want you to feel as though I’m taking advantage of your situation, and marrying you for selfish reasons.”
“Link, don’t be daft,” she said, throwing her arms around him. He seemed just as surprised the second time. “If anything, I’m marrying you for selfish reasons.” He looked ready to protest, but she smiled at him, and he melted. “Link, I love you. I think I always have.” She kissed him. When she pulled back, he looked dazed. “Is that okay?” He nodded. “Then let's go get married.”