The Stubborn Miss Butler

17

The ceremony was a beautiful one and in some way, it almost felt as if they were in the eye of the storm. Everything before and after the hour was absolute chaos, but Beau felt himself on the verge of tears once he saw Eleanor treading anxiously down the aisle.

There was a bright red blush to her cheeks and she smiled like she used to when she was a little girl. She looked beautiful. Coupled with the belated realization that she was actually eager to marry him, Beau gave way to the misty haze covering his vision.

As she neared him, he could make out her peal of laughter that was almost teasing. Eleanor knew as well as any that Beau was completely and irreparably in love with her. There was a time when he couldn't imagine himself with her, but now, he couldn't fathom a life without her by his side. She knew that.

He was not an outwardly emotional man and yet, she watched with teasing triumph and adoration as he chuckled and wiped the single tear from his cheek.

Beside him, his groomsmen elbowed one another in jest, but neither Eleanor nor Beau paid them any mind.

Beau bade his time trying to memorize every detail of the moment. From the delicate tones of the string quartet to the way the sun presided over the evening, Beau took it all in, but nothing more than he did with Eleanor's appearance.

In a fashionable French-bustled dress layered in hand-crafted lace, Eleanor felt more regal than the queen of England. No expense was spared in her wedding gown and it was plain to everyone how much Eleanor adored being a bride. The feeling was unrivaled and her smile was radiant as every peripheral worry faded away.

This was her Beau. He was constant as the sun and he was a better man than any she had ever come across. For her, the music and the people faded away and there was only the man she loved and had always loved.

She knew their union would not be without its trials, they were who they were after all.

But the moment, unlike those that partook in it, was perfect. The drama of the days and evenings that lead them here was all a bygone era. This was a new age, where they might be together for all of the havoc they wrought.

The ceremony was chaotic and ill-planned beginning with Rhett's stiff passing of Eleanor to Beau. It earned a few trills of laughter from those that knew the father of the bride well, but it was quickly overshadowed by James' misplacing of the rings he was tasked with bearing. The ceremony continued with Aunt Suellen's gaudy, dramatized reading of Acts that encouraged but a few wide-eyes glances, and the whole affair ended with the senile priest's affirming of the marriage between Ben and Ellen.

While it might have been a nightmare for some, the couple was never more unbothered by their circumstances.

Beau held Eleanor's lace-covered hands in his own, thinking suddenly of a fond little recollection of his brought on the caressing breeze.

It was of a young Eleanor with the same bright eyes and slender smile. He could nearly feel the warmth of that sunrise as they held hands at another point in their lives. The gleam in her eyes was identical and in that moment, it became difficult for him to discern the young girl from the remarkable woman before him. Eleanor was still filled with the same uncorrupted compassion and her face expressed the same extent of unadulterated emotion.

He could almost hear her soft, comforting murmurs, and feel the pressure of her head on his shoulder.

Beau knew exactly from when and where that moment had been plucked from time. She was nothing more than a little girl in her little blue nightgown, comforting him on the anniversary of Melanie's death. To her, it was a small gesture of companionship, but to him, it had meant the world.

Eleanor had always been his comfort and reassurance that he was never alone in his strife.

In a moment of immeasurable joy, she proved that gift of hers a thousand times over. A wellspring of love and unending support that he had been blessed with, he knew Eleanor had always been his great gift.

And by some miracle of Heaven, she agreed to be his wife and he didn't try to figure out why because he knew it might just drive him mad from utter bewilderment.

Under the southern sunset, Eleanor and Beau were wed, and he couldn't recall a happier time in his life than that evening.