Part 7 (2/2)

Wow, she thought. Her mother had an old saying she was fond of: ”Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.” This is definitely one of those moments, Lina thought, immobilized in the doorway.

Had she ever thought Jude had worn that suit well? The lengths of dark wool draped and hugged Brandon's form as if they had been custom tailored to fit him. He looked immaculate, the white s.h.i.+rt and dove-gray silk tie beneath crisp and striking complements to the black planes of the suit. He'd combed his dark hair back, tucking it behind his ears, leaving wayward strands to droop loose and lay against the high arches of his cheekbones.

My G.o.d, he's a beautiful man, she thought.

She realized she was gawking at him, and to judge by the way he was staring at her, he was aware of it, too. She forced herself to tear her eyes away, to blink across the room toward her television set, the empty fish tank in the corner, anywhere else. ”I...

uh... it fits,” she said. ”The suit, I mean. The shoes, too?”

He blinked, giving his head a slight shake, and at last, cut his eyes away. Yes, he signed, miming a nod with his fist. The shoes were a little big, but I shoved paper towels in the toes. It will work.

He kept stealing curious little glances in her direction, and feeling self-conscious, Lina crossed her arms over her bosom, frowning slightly. ”What?”

He shook his head again and motioned toward his face, drawing his fingers in a counterclockwise circle. Beautiful, he said. He gestured again, pointing to her, then turned his palm first outward then in, finally letting his fingers sweep around his face once more. You look beautiful.

She couldn't remember the last time a man had said that to her, not with the earnest candor she saw frank and apparent in Brandon's eyes. Lina felt her face flush all the more, and she smiled, caught off guard and utterly charmed. Thank you, Brandon, she signed.

”Where in the world did you find him?” Melanie's maid of honor, Sonia Woodford, whispered to Lina, poking her head out through the antechamber door and peering into the church vestibule beyond. Brandon sat patiently out there, as few, if any, other guests had yet to arrive. He dropped pleasant nods and polite smiles to family members, bridesmaids, and groomsmen as they filtered past.

Lina bit back the urge to tell Sonia, I found him in my brother's bathroom, stripped naked and dripping wet, as a matter of fact. ”I told you. He's one of Jackie's former students. He's just visiting.”Each of the bridesmaids had taken turns peeking at Brandon since he'd arrived with Lina. One by one, they had lined up at the door, knocking shoulders and jockeying for position as they looked outside. ”Stop already,” Lina said, hooking her hand against Sonia's arm and pulling her away from the door.

”How's he going to know?” Sonia asked, flapping her loose. ”He can't hear us. You said he was deaf.”

”And mute, too, right? How sad,” said another bridesmaid, a doughy-faced girl named Dawn, her expression softening as if Lina had just told them Brandon was dying of cancer or something.

”Who wants to carry on a conversation with him anyway?” Sonia asked, laughing. Bottles of champagne had already been uncorked, and several members of the wedding party, including Sonia, were already feeling giggly. ”I just want to...”

There was more, but Melanie, the bride, caught Lina by the arm and pulled her aside, causing her to miss it. Melanie, too, was slightly into her cups, and she leaned toward Lina, speaking in a forced stage whisper. ”I just wanted to tell you I'm sorry about the whole Jude thing, Lina.”

Which whole Jude thing? Lina thought of asking, but didn't. The one where I dated him in the first place or the one where you invited him to your wedding even after he'd dumped me for another woman?

”Look, you know how I feel about him, on account of everything he did,” Melanie said. ”I'd like to nominate him for the a.s.shole of the Year award, but he and Joel are golf buddies, and he really helped Joel out that one time with the civil case after his car got totaled.” She shrugged, looking somewhat sheepish. ”It was Joel's idea to invite him and I didn't argue about it because I didn't want to fight about the guest list.”

”It's alright,” Lina said, even though it really wasn't, and she was admittedly p.i.s.sed not only at Joel for inviting Jude, but with Melanie, too, for allowing it to happen. It's your wedding day, too, Mel, she thought about pointing out but kept mum.

”You probably won't even see him,” Melanie said, hopefully. ”There's going to be three hundred people here today, and he'll be lost in the crowd. But if you do, promise me you won't make a big deal out of it, OK? Just don't pay any attention to him or what's-her-name if he brings her along. I want you guys to have fun today-all of us to have fun, OK?”

”OK,” Lina said, because Melanie looked really anxious about the whole prospective situation and Lina figured she had enough on her mind without that particular worry nagging at her. Jude would make a point to find Lina, be it a crowd of three hundred or three million, of that she had no doubt. He'd walked up to her on the street only the day before; nothing was going to stop him at the wedding.

Melanie smiled brightly and leaned forward, kissing Lina's cheek. ”Thanks, sweetie,” she said. ”I knew I could count on you.”

She started to walk away, then paused, turning to Lina again. ”Your makeup looks so pretty, by the way. Did you do it all by yourself?”

”Yeah, imagine that,” Lina replied. ”No training wheels or anything.”

Melanie laughed, and Lina laughed with her, wis.h.i.+ng like h.e.l.l all the while that they'd never shared jump ropes in third grade or sat together in homeroom, so that she could have avoided the entire d.a.m.n day.

Chapter Ten.

By the time the ceremony was over, Lina's feet were screaming in pain. She managed to keep upright on them for another hour thereafter, forcing wide smiles while the photographer took shots of the wedding party. When that was finished, she stepped out of her sandals and limped toward the back of the church where Brandon waited for her.

He'd sat patiently through the ceremony, even though she knew he had to have been bored out of his mind. Because so much of the vows and readings were offered at a distance, or out of his direct line of sight, he hadn't been able to do much lipreading, and without that, she imagined he was pretty much clueless as to what was going on. But he'd tried to take his cues from the other guests, and stood when appropriate, bowed his head when required. At one point, however, he'd left, slipping quietly from the pew and stealing out the back, and she'd been worried about him. He hadn't returned until the ceremony had ended, and a majority of the crowd had filtered out of the church nave.

He smiled as she approached, rising from his seat against the pew. Are you OK? she signed to him. I saw you leave during the service.

He nodded, offering a sheepish shrug. Just a headache, he signed to her. I'm better now. Are you finished? he asked, holding his hands up toward his face and turning his palms out in a quick, flipping gesture.

”Not hardly,” Lina replied. ”There's still the reception.” He looked briefly puzzled at this, and she added, ”You know, dinner, cake, liquor, dancing. The whole nine yards.”

He still looked at a loss and she realized he had no idea what she was talking about. She didn't know what weddings were like among his family. On the cab ride from her apartment, Brandon'd only cryptically offered that they were ”nothing fancy,” which had surprised Lina, considering how wealthy they were.

She smiled, slipping her hand against his arm and turning him about, steering him toward the door. ”Come on,” she said. ”You'll see.”

By the time the ceremony was over, Brandon's head was screaming in pain. He'd been fighting a pretty persistent headache the last several days, a recurring, throbbing ache that had bothered him ever since he'd fled Kentucky, but that afternoon, as he sat in the church surrounded by several hundred wedding guests, it had felt like his poor skull would simply split open like a rotten melon.

He'd felt a maelstrom of thoughts whispering and whipping through his mind, coming at him in a relentless and overlapping flow as his telepathy had somehow picked up on fleeting, fluttering fragments from everyone around him. They'd flooded his head, causing what had only been a dull ache to that point to blossom into a full-blown, shuddering pain behind his eyes, in the recesses of his sinuses. It had scared the s.h.i.+t out of him.

I don't know what that was, but I hope it doesn't happen anymore, Brandon thought, as he held a cab door open for Lina while she ducked inside. Ever since he'd left the great house, it felt to Brandon as if his mind was coming unglued. He'd spent his entire life there feeling as though he'd carried some kind of heavy cowl within his mind, that his telepathy had been weak and worthless, like the Grandfather and Caine had always told him. The Wellbutrin had always helped with that as well, keeping even his modic.u.m of ability in check. But now, all of a sudden, it seemed as if it was growing, coming upon him in waves that grew stronger and stronger with each incident.

As they rode in the cab for the wedding reception, he reached for his inside blazer pocket, where he'd tucked an emergency Wellbutrin. Lina watched him tear open the square of foil he'd wrapped the pill in and slip it into his mouth. ”Your hands are hurting you again?” she asked, her expression softening with gentle sympathy.

He swallowed the tablet dry and nodded.

”Do you want to go home?” she asked. ”We don't have to-”

He shook his head. He wasn't quite sure what a reception entailed, but it seemed like an important part of a wedding, and Lina was expected to be there. Besides, he wasn't so sure he was ready for the day to be over. He hoped to enjoy some time with Lina at the reception; that she wouldn't be distracted all the while with the wedding party. She looked absolutely stunning; when he'd first caught sight of her at the apartment, he had lost his breath in amazement. My G.o.d, she's beautiful, he'd thought then, and as she smiled at him in the taxi, reaching out and draping her hand against his, her dark eyes filled with concern, he thought it again. You're beautiful, Lina.

To his disappointment, Lina left him again once they reached the reception hall. ”Only for a little bit,” she'd promised him, and she'd rolled her eyes. ”I'm supposed to make some sort of 'grand entrance' with the rest of the wedding party. Save me a seat?”

He'd smiled for her and nodded, watching her walk away. An open bar had been set up at the back of the ballroom, and apparently the liquor was all offered for free to wedding guests. Brandon had brought along his bra.s.s-plated notebook for the occasion, and wrote out an order-a shot of bourbon. He took his drink in hand and tucked himself into a far corner, hoping the liquor might help numb his mind. The crowd, whose thoughts had so accosted him in the church, had reconvened in the ballroom, and he'd been terrified from the moment of this realization that the stabbing pain in his head would renew. He downed the bourbon, shuddering slightly as it burned a path down the back of his throat and into his gullet. So far, so good, he thought.

He didn't quite understand the pomp and circ.u.mstance of weddings among humans. He'd seen the ceremonies portrayed on television, but they'd always struck him as being rather bizarre, extravagant, and unnecessary. Among the Brethren, marriages were arranged by mandate of the Elders, who dictated them based on careful and rigorous scrutiny of the Tomes, voluminous accounts of each family's records, to ensure that overbreeding among particular sects did not occur. Brides were most often wed shortly after their bloodletting ceremonies and in the prime of their youths; Brethren males were wed when they were much older. Brandon, for example, was due to marry Elita Giscard one day. Elita was currently the same age as his brother, Daniel- only four years old.

There were no wedding ceremonies among the Brethren. Marriage wasn't something that was celebrated, merely accepted.

Brandon remembered helping Tessa carry her belongings downstairs to the foyer of the great house, where Martin Davenant had waited for her. That was all there was to it; the lugging of heavy suitcases, some brief hugs farewell, and then the bride would be off for her new clan's home. Only Brethren sons remained in the homes to which they were born, and here, they were expected to spend the entirety of their lives, in the near-constant company of all their kith and kin.

The bar served only top-shelf selections and ironically, Brandon had been given two-fingers worth of Bloodhorse Reserve, one of the bourbons his family's distillery produced. As the initial bitter flavor of the liquor settled to a sweet, somewhat breadlike aftertaste in his mouth, Brandon smiled. My grandfather might be a son of a b.i.t.c.h, but he makes a mean batch of bourbon, he thought.

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