Page 10 of To Marry and to Meddle
And, as it turned out, it was.
One week later, at eleven o’clock in the morning, Emily, dressed in her favorite gown of sky blue silk, clutching a bouquet of fragrant lilies that Violet had picked from the garden for her that very morning, descended into the drawing room where her friends were gathered, and spoke her wedding vows to Lord Julian Belfry.
Lord James, Lord Willingham, and Penvale had all separately offered to escort her down the aisle, but she had declined, having decided that she was going to walk herself into her marriage.
“I’ve spent far too much of my life being moved about like a chess piece,” she explained to Diana and Violet that morning as they gathered in her room, watching with critical eyes as Hollyhock dressed her hair. “I’ll be taking this step for myself, I think.”
“It’s unconventional,” Diana said, “but I personally could not be more pleased that you’re finally telling your parents to shove their plans for you up—”
“Diana!” Violet laughed. “Not on her wedding day, please.”
“Sheisabout to become more familiar with certain portions of the human anatomy,” Diana said, a hint of laughter in her voice. “She won’t be half as easy to shock anymore.”
“I wonder that I’m easy to shock at all, after all these years with you,” Emily said, gazing at her own reflection in the mirror. She’d asked Hollyhock for a coiffure that was simple but flattering, with none ofthe curls bobbing about her face that were so fashionable these days. Some ladies—like Violet—could carry off the style quite well, but Emily always felt like a particularly fluffy sheep, and the scent of singed hair from the curling iron was one that she would not like to associate with her wedding day.
And, besides: her mother wasn’t here to make her.
So instead her hair was twisted into an elaborate braided knot at the back of her head, her face unobstructed by curls or fringe. Since they were marrying in the drawing room, she didn’t even need a bonnet. She thought she looked quite nice—the blue of her dress matched the color of her eyes, and as she pulled on her gloves, she could not suppress a shiver of excitement.
In less than an hour, she was going to be someone’s wife. Lady Julian Belfry. She found she liked the sound of it.
She could scarcely believe she was marrying a man she’d met barely over a month before—though, given the amount of time unmarried ladies were permitted to spend with gentlemen, she thought she still might know Lord Julian better than she would have known any gentleman her parents would have chosen for her.
“Speaking of being shocked,” Diana said, watching Emily rise from her dressing table and dismiss Hollyhock with a nod, “this is your last chance to ask any questions you might have about the wedding night. I’m certain Belfry will be more than happy to instruct you, but if you’ve any last-minute concerns, voice them now.”
“Should I be concerned?” Emily asked a touch anxiously. Her friends were not the shy and reticent sorts, and as a result she felt that she already knew more about the marital act than any proper young lady of good breeding should—and yet, the fact remained that hearing about it and actuallydoingit were two vastly different things.
“Of course not,” Violet said. “Surely Belfry knows what he’s doing. Look at his reputation!”
Diana frowned. “But has he ever been to bed with someone as sweet and innocent as Emily? His experience likely runs more in the vein of trysts with opera dancers against the wall of a dressing room.”
“Diana,” Violet said, fixing her friend with a sunny smile, “is thatreallythe most helpful commentary you can offer just now?”
“I just don’t want her to be unprepared!” Diana exclaimed.
“NowI am becoming concerned,” Emily interjected, and Diana and Violet immediately plastered identically horrifying smiles of deranged glee upon their faces. “That is not making me less anxious,” Emily added.
Violet’s smile softened into something more natural and less nightmare-inducing. “I feel that we’re bungling this a bit,” she said, reaching out to place a hand on Emily’s shoulder. “It’s just… for so long, I worried we’d be helping you prepare to marry thatodiousman”—she did not name Mr. Cartham, refusing to pollute Emily’s wedding day with even a whisper of his name—“and I just can’t tell you how pleased I am you’re marrying Belfry instead. There’s nothing to worry about in the bedroom—I have the utmost confidence that you two will be able to work out whatever issues may arise. And,” she added, her voice growing uncharacteristically tender, “I think you two will be very happy together.”
Emily realized with alarm that Violet was near tears, and felt her own lip quiver a bit in response. Emily, Violet, and Diana had been best friends for the better part of a decade, and they were not overly sentimental, as a rule, but it seemed there were exceptions.
“Oh, no,” Diana said warningly. “None of this, if you please. I willtruly never forgive you if I am brought to tears for the second time in as many weeks. The first was bad enough!”
“But you were crying over Jeremy!” Violet protested waterily. “It was love, Diana! It was romantic!”
“It was horrifying,” Diana retorted, “and now I’m dangerously close to tears once more.” This being Diana, “dangerously close” indicated that she was entirely dry-eyed and stiff of lip, an occasional rapid blink the only detectable sign of an excess of feeling. Emily nonetheless felt rather touched by this display.
“Diana, I do love you,” she said, utterly sincerely. “And you, Violet,” she added, reaching up to squeeze Violet’s hand where it still rested on her shoulder.
“I am leaving this room in ten seconds,” Diana said, watching in resigned fashion as Violet dabbed at her eyes and Emily sniffled nobly. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but do we not have a wedding to attend?”
They did indeed. And an hour later, Emily was married. She was not certain she’d ever be able to recall the events of that hour with any degree of clarity; the drawing room had been full of fresh flowers and looked bright and cheerful in the morning sunlight streaming through the windows. In addition to Violet, Diana, Lord Willingham, Lord James, and Penvale, only West, Sophie, and the dowager marchioness were in attendance, the other houseguests having departed as planned.
They had been married by the vicar from the small church on the outskirts of Elderwild’s grounds, and Emily recalled not a single word of the entire ceremony, so distracted had she been by the warm, solid presence of Julian at her side. She had noticed before how sometimes Violet would sink against Lord James’s side when standing next to him, seemingly without realizing it, and how her shoulders would everso slightly lower, as though releasing some faint but constant tension. All at once, Emily entirely understood the impulse, because she somehow felt just a small bit braver and more sure merely from the warmth of Julian’s body a foot away.
The rest of the afternoon was a blur—there was a long, chatty wedding breakfast, full of toasts and laughter and free-flowing champagne. And then there was a last round of hugs and well-wishes as they made their way to Lord Julian’s carriage, and with a fair amount of laughter and some undignified waving, they were off. Julian, it transpired, was rather eager to return to London—he had not intended to remain at the house party so long. They were to begin the journey this afternoon; there was a coaching inn a couple of hours down the road that Julian was familiar with, and which he had assured her would be a perfectly respectable place to pass the night. Emily had readily agreed; in truth, the idea of spending their wedding night at Elderwild, under the same roof as all of their friends, had been causing her no small amount of anxiety, and she vastly preferred the idea of being in an inn full of strangers instead.
“Is something wrong?” Julian asked as they rattled along a country lane, the late-afternoon sunlight giving a golden, hazy glow to the rolling hills outside the carriage window. Julian’s valet and Emily’s abigail were to follow them in another carriage with their luggage, so that the newlyweds might have some privacy. She gave him a questioning look, and he added, “You looked a bit concerned.”
