At the altar, the Duke of Ravenshire turned to watch his bride walk toward him. And this time, nobody whispered that he looked like a man at a funeral: he was smiling; he could not stop.
The old village vicar read the service in his soft, slow voice. And when he came to the moment when he raised his eyes and said, "If any man can show any just cause why these two persons may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak, or else hereafter forever hold his peace"—the whole church went perfectly silent.
And then, from somewhere near the back, old Mrs. Pike said loudly, "Not a chance!"
The whole church burst out laughing, even the vicar.
When the vows were spoken and the rings were given, and the vicar said, "I now pronounce you man and wife," the servants of Ravenshire Hall rose to their feet in the pews and cheered so loudly that they frightened the rooks out of the yew tree.
Clara Hartley, daughter of an honest man, became the Duchess of Ravenshire.
That night, after the feast was over and the dancing had finished, and the last guest had gone home, the great house fell quiet at last.
In the old Duke's study, by the fire, the new Duchess of Ravenshire sat on a low stool with her back to her husband. And the Duke sat behind her in the big armchair, holding a worn silver-backed hairbrush in his hand.
Slowly, gently, he drew it through her hair.
"One," he said softly.
Clara closed her eyes.
"Two."
The fire crackled. Outside the window, the spring night was full of stars.
"Three."
Clara smiled. She thought of her mother's hands; she thought of her father's letter in the cold cell in Newgate, and the long walk through the rain with a muddy cap held to her chest. She thought of a great hall, a silver pair of scissors, and a long chestnut braid burning in the fire. All of it seemed very far away now, like a story about someone else.
When Henry reached one hundred, he set down the brush. He gathered her short, shining hair gently in his hands and kissed the top of her head.
"Do you know," he said quietly, "that night on the gallery, when I watched them cut it, I thought it was the most terrible thing I had ever seen."
"It was," said Clara.
"And now," he said, "I think it might have been the luckiest night of my life, because it was the night I knew."
Clara turned around on the stool and looked up at him, her eyes shining in the firelight. "Knew what?" she asked.
The Duke of Ravenshire smiled down at his wife. "That every strand," he said softly, "was worth waiting for."
And somewhere in a small churchyard, beneath an old yew tree under a white stone with a promise carved upon it, Thomas Hartley's broken promise was finally made whole.