Fic: A Girl in Black (33/33 + Epilogue)
Title: A Girl In Black (33/33 + Epilogue)
Author: mrstater
Fandom: Downton Abbey
Characters & Pairings: Mary Crawley/Richard Carlisle, Diana Manners, Frida Uhl, Mark Carlisle, Jean Carlisle, George Carlisle (OC), Aileen Carlisle (OC), Matthew Crawley, Edith Crawley, Violet Crawley, Evelyn Napier, Harold Levinson, Ruby Levinson (OC), Martha Levinson
Chapter Word Count: 6641 words
Chapter Warnings: sexual content
Chapter Summary: Mary and Richard celebrate their marriage in high style, in the places where their relationship first began, in public with their nearest and (not so) dearest and, of course, in private.
Author's Note: And here we are, the last chapter before the epilogue. I hope the length makes up for the fact that it is the end. But seriously, you might want to make sure you've got a comfy chair and something to snack on. ;) To everyone who has stuck with the story from beginning to (almost) end, I cannot thank you enough. Especially ju-dou, faithful beta. The poems quoted in this chapter are Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnet XIV and Sir Philip Sidney's The Bargain. The fashion-minded among you may be interested in the inspiration for Mary's ballgown, as well as her earrings and necklace. I think I may miss writing about the clothes of AGIB more than anything!
Previous Chapters |
33. The Wedding Party
Richard kisses her in white as the limousine turns out of St Paul's Church Yard to carry them to the Ritz Hotel for their wedding breakfast. Frankly, Mary expected him to do it sooner, to lean down as they marched arm in arm out of the cathedral and claim her lips in front of the guests throwing rice and the photographers flashing pictures for the evening papers, and she breaks the kiss to tell him so.
"Do you really think after the Sketch debacle there's a photographer in this city who'd take a picture of me demonstrating less than proper behaviour?" he asks, incredulous.
She pauses to marvel at his selective memory, which seems to have forgotten how his competitors pounced on the story of him punching Evelyn Napier in his own club, but foregoes reminding him of humiliating episode on his wedding day.
"Maybe there's one as ruthless as you who'd use it as blackmail."
"With a diabolical mind like that, I'm glad you're my partner in crime and not one of my competitors'."
"That's exactly why I expected you to flaunt the fact with a publicity stunt."
"Mmm. I find I'm not in much of a mood for anything of a public nature."
Richard reaches to draw the shade across the front seat, separating them from the driver, then returns to her, swivelling on the seat to more or less face her as his arms go about her waist, beneath the drape of her veil. He tilts her head to kiss her again, but she leans against the hand at her back.
"This from the man who insisted on a society wedding at St Paul's and the Ritz."
Brushing his lips over her temple, he says, "I underestimated how badly I'd want you alone. We could always go directly to our suite. Skip the reception."
It's difficult to resist the temptation presented by his mouth against her cheekbone, but she deadpans, "Wouldn't that dovetail tidily with our previous afternoon tryst."
Richard's low sound of agreement rumbles through her breast as his arms tighten around her, his thigh hard against her as he draws her almost into his lap. Mary tilts her head back to accommodate his lips' path to the sensitive place beneath her ear, but bites her own lip against a moan, summoning the presence of mind to continue.
"However, I'm afraid that is simply out of the question. I wouldn't dream of missing out on all our friends and acquaintances and even a few enemies queuing up for the express purpose of telling me how lovely I look."
"I wouldn't dream of denying you that." Richard is not in the least dissuaded from nuzzling her ear and the curve of her jaw. "Then again, I can compliment you on bits of your wedding ensemble none of them shall have the privilege of seeing. More than a fair-trade, wouldn't you agree?"
"Heavens, no."
Richard huffs and raises his head to meet her eye. "You're terribly high maintenance, you know."
"You knew it, too, when you agreed to maintain me."
"Then let me maintain you."
Mary replies by grasping the knot of his cravat and pulling him toward her, but this time it is Richard who withdraws after the barest touch of their lips and she who sighs in frustration. His gaze fixes just over her shoulder, something outside having caught his eye. Turning to see what, she notices that their route to the Ritz has taken them down Fleet Street, and the limousine decelerates as it approaches the Daily Telegram office. Bunting festoons the brownstone façade, and nearly every window in the four-storey building is open despite the cold, the newspaper employees hanging out, waving, and tossing handfuls of confetti down at the passing car.
Richard leans across Mary to roll down the window, and she finds herself unexpectedly choked when she asks, "You did this for me?"
He shrugs. "If the Queen of Downton Village gets this sort of reception, why not the Queen of London?"
Her lips cannot form words about what this means to her, so she kisses him instead--to wolf whistles and catcalls of the Telegram staff from above. Laughing, she and Richard draw apart, and she waves out the window. Confetti showers down on them, some swirling inside the window onto her skirt. She plucks a bit between her fingers and inspects it.
"It appears your staff have made confetti from newspapers."
"The Mail, I should hope."
~*~
In the receiving line, Mary rues her choice to receive the public compliments of dozens over Richard's private attention, as the faces of sixty distinguished guests melt into a single indistinct form with whom she has same impersonal conversation, like a scratched gramophone record: Your gown is simply lovely, Lady Mary. Lucky devil, Carlisle. Honeymooning in Paris? But Monte's so much warmer this time of year. Residing in Knightsbridge? What about a country house?
Richard's cheek brushes against her headpiece as he leans close, the rasp of his voice drawing her out of her stupor. "How unfortunate I didn't think to have all this printed up in a special edition, so we don't have to keep repeating ours."
His hand at the small of her back guides her through the French doors to their wedding breakfast, where she notices the sweet dull throb of harp strings that must have underscored the reception chatter. Vowing not miss anything else, Mary darts her gaze about the room as they make their way to the head table, as if to photograph it all in her mind: the nosegays adorning the backs of chairs, the arrangements of lilies, orchids, and roses that grace tabletops and tower on pedestals flanking the doorways and windows; the statue of Neptune consorting with a Nereid before a Grecian mural reflected in mirrored wall opposite; the rare brilliant February sunlight which pours in through the arched windows spanning the length of the room and makes every gilded surface, from the furniture to the gold leaf mouldings to the statue, glow.
As their guests file in and fill their places, however, the landscape shifts, as though in a dream, a vague and golden place, and the meal passes in the same blur as the reception. It seems to Mary that she's scarcely taken her seat when she lays her dessert fork across an empty cake plate, feeling giddy from too much sweet food and not enough substance. A tinkle of silver against glass sings out and the harpist abruptly silences his instrument, hands splayed across the strings, as the Duke of Rutland, the highest ranking attendee, stands to make a toast.
"Since my daughter Diana is such jolly friends with both the bride and groom," he says, "I've agreed to abdicate my duty and let her say a few words of her own."
Mary's lips freeze in a smile. Surely she can't have heard correctly? She sits transfixed as the Duke resumes his seat while Lady Rutland, champion of propriety in all other young ladies, beams her approval as her own daughter vacates hers.
"Just when I thought there could be no more scandal attached to this marriage," Jean mutters.
"My sentiments exactly." Granny sips her champagne.
"Actually they're not my words." Diana clutches a scrap of paper to her bosom, which quivers along with the towering plumes of her lampshade-shaped hat with the earnest wagging of her head as she speaks. "We are, after all, a nation of poets, and while I dabble in poetry--"
Dear Lord, Mary prays silently, though she knows she hasn't a great deal of credit with God as a pure spotless bride, please don't let Diana read one of her poems. Richard takes her hand beneath the table, squeezing it in reassurance, though she feels the tension in his fingers as he braces for gossip page fodder.
"--who could better express how mad Richard and Mary are for each other than Elizabeth Barrett Browning?"
"I can think of a few poets," Richard whispers, while Mary sighs in relief. She couldn't care less how appropriate Diana's reading is for them, so long as it's suitable for the audience. Not that Diana's flair for the dramatic isn't as likely to push the boundaries of good taste.
"This is from Sonnets From the Portuguese," Diana says, and brings the paper up almost to her nose, her wide glassy eyes narrowing to focus. She clears her throat, but instead of beginning looks back over her shoulder, startling the harpist. "Would you mind awfully, darling? Only I think the poem will be so much more touching with musical accompaniment, don't you?"
The harpist obliges, and Diana arches up on the balls of her feet, swaying slightly in time with the strumming, and recites:
"If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love's sake only. Do not say
'I love her for her smile--her look--her way
Of speaking gently,--for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day'--
For these things in themselves, Beloved, may
Be changed, or change for thee...
But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou mayst love on, through love's eternity."
When she finishes, tears pool in her luminous eyes. Crumpling the paper, she uses it like a hanky, then she raises her glass and warbles, "To Sir Richard and Lady Mary Carlisle, through love's eternity!"
As sixty champagne flutes chime, and the sunlight which beams in through the wall of windows, reflecting off the mirrored wall and the glasses, shimmers before Mary's eyes. She hates to think Diana could affect her, but when she sees Richard's father blow his nose into a checked handkerchief, eyes bright blue and red-rimmed above it, she must dab the corners of her own.
"Sentimental fool." Jean shakes her head at Mark. "It was hardly Robbie Burns."
"Is that your opinion, darling?" Mary asks her new husband. "Obviously you don't love me for gentle smiles or an agreeable nature, so tell me. Is your love like a red, red rose, newly sprung in June?"
Richard snorts into his champagne, and she goes on, tracing the edge of her glass with her forefinger, "I am deeply curious, though, which poem you think suits us better. I thought you only read newspapers."
"I did go to school," he replies. "But I'm afraid I'll have to disappoint you. I'm not drunk enough to recite poetry."
Across the table, George says, "I'm stone cold sober, but that never stopped me. There once was a Scotsman called Dick--"
"Whose brother abandoned this limerick," Aileen interrupts.
The harp goes silent again as Mark stands for the customary toast from the groom's father. Richard leans toward Mary and whispers, "I promise, my taste in poetry is much more sophisticated than George's."
"I believe tradition demands that I thank Lord and Lady Grantham for hosting this beautiful wedding," Mark says, resplendent in the joy he wears as unabashedly as his kilt, "but more importantly, I must thank them for raising such a beautiful daughter--Lady Mary, my son's perfect match."
Touched by the sentiment, yet also amused knowing her family will not take it as quite the compliment Mark intended, Mary smiles slyly at Richard and nudges his knee beneath the table. "I'm afraid you'll have to prove it."
~*~
Applause ripples through the ballroom, muting the echoed vibrato of the string ensemble, when the first waltz of the evening ends. As Richard leads her off the dance floor, Mary can almost believe the clapping is as much for her as the musicians. Queen of London, Richard called her, and she feels even more like it than before as she glimpses herself in the mirrored wall. Glass beadwork and metallic embroidery make her ivory silk ballgown glisten nearly as brightly under the brilliant electric lights as the diamond hair combs, teardrop earrings, and bib style necklace. They were Richard's wedding gift, and he clasped the necklace about her throat himself, his fingers so warm as they lingered against her skin, pressing against her pulse.
"Still want to kiss a girl in white?" she asked as his eyes raked over her in their suite, and he did, till she was breathless. When he drew back he said, "A good deal more than kiss."
There wasn't time, though; thanks to her napping away the few hours before the ball, they were already fashionably late for their own party. When she asked why he didn't wake her, he replied with a shrug that he knew a wedding was a lot for any bride, much less a pregnant one, and didn't want to disrupt her new habit of a rest before tea.
"It gave me a chance to catch up on today's papers," he added.
"I suppose you'll catch up on the evening's when I turn in early tonight?" she retorted, genuinely cross, while he merely smirked.
As he does now. He, too, watches their reflection, her hand in her long ivory gloves curved elegantly over his, the crowd parting to avoid the sweep of her train over the checkerboard marble floor. Mary's expression matches his, her annoyance about the nap and the newspapers ebbing, and Richard's dimples deepen as her eyes meet his in the mirror rather than gaze up at her groom like a typical adoring bride.
"Another triumph for Lucile," says Frida, approaching them, champagne in hand. "And you should know I had nothing to do with that jewellery, Mary, except to tell Richard you were made to drip with diamonds. You cut such a graceful figure on the dance floor. But it's your Argentine tango I want to see."
"Not at this party," Mary says. "Granny would have apoplexy."
"So would my mother," Richard adds.
"Then come to the Cave after. If you're not too tired." Frida twitches her eyebrows significantly over her champagne.
"We're not." Mary's irritation returns. "Before we were married, we engaged in illicit activities when we were meant to be resting," she ranted to Richard over a cup of tea to revive her when she awoke, groggy, from her long nap. "Now they're not illicit, and we rest. Is the romance gone already?"
"You're the one who claims not to be romantic," was his only reply as he reached for a cucumber sandwich.
"Excellent!" cries Frida. "Just see to it you don't wear yourselves out before the real party gets started, ja?"
She follows this by securing Richard for a waltz later--without brandishing her infamous pistol, thankfully. He assures her that they'll pace themselves after the obligatory sets with family and distinguished guests, and after Mary dances with the Richard's father, from whom he inherited his dancing skills, and the Duke of Rutland, whose paternity of Diana could never be proved through his, she does mean to sit one out. No sooner has she spied a chair and sent Richard to get her a glass of punch, Cousin Matthew intercepts her and begs the honour of a waltz.
Mary knows she cannot refuse it even without catching Mama's bug-eyed look as Mark Carlisle leads her with an old-fashioned gallantry onto the dance floor. Smirking, Richard steps toward the now unescorted Lavinia with the clear intention of asking Matthew's fiancée for a waltz she cannot refuse. But the vexingly stylish young woman pretends not to see him and pivots away with a wave at an acquaintance, leaving Richard to Diana, who knocks back the punch he brought Mary and then spins him away.
"Your day seems to have gone off without a hitch," Cousin Matthew observes as they fall into step with the Strauss tune.
"Apart from the obvious one of getting hitched, as Uncle Harold has said half a dozen times today. That I've heard."
Matthews' gaze drifts beyond her, and he chuckles. "The Americans do seem to have livened the affair."
The turning places Mary in view of Uncle Harold working his American charm on shy Aileen, who looks at once flattered and flustered in the evening gown Ruby lent her. She dances with her head turned slightly to keep an eye on George, dapper in a set of Richard's tails and apparently finding Harold's wife a more willing recipient of foreign charm than his own.
"You must be thanking your lucky stars all the American blood is on Mama's side of the family," Mary remarks to Matthew. "You can have a strictly English wedding."
"Does that mean Sir Richard's plotting to turn down his invitation?"
Mary tries to school her flush into submission, but her concentration all goes to not stumbling, and keeping a steady voice."My. You make him sound positively diabolical."
At once she regrets giving Matthew the opportunity to gain the righteous upper hand by reminding her that her new husband once blackmailed Lavinia. To her surprise, he glances away, embarrassed.
"Cousin Mary, Lavinia and I wish to put the past behind us. I regret the part I played in your troubles, though I hope that now everything is settled between you and Sir Richard you can understand my reasons for it."
"Oh Matthew. Understanding why was never the problem. It was that you did it at all."
He gapes, though no sound emits from his mouth a puff of breath as if stricken. A hand taps his shoulder, and she looks up to see Richard.
"Hope you don't mind me cutting in, Crawley, but I find myself pining for my wife."
Without waiting for a response, Richard takes Mary firmly in his arms and waltzes her away.
"My knight in shining armour. How can I repay you for rescuing me from that ogre?"
"I can think of a few ways." He steals a bold kiss, his eyes darkening with the suggestion of what he intends later. "Though in fact I rescued Matthew from you. He looked utterly intimidated."
"If only I had that power over you."
Richard's grip tightens around her hand, though his thumb strokes feather light over her skin. "I think you underestimate the hold you have on me," he says, his voice husky. He clears his throat. "But if one of us had too much power over the other, we wouldn't make such a good team, would we?"
~*~
"What's this?" drawls a familiar masculine voice, and Mary looks up from her conversation with Granny and Edith, a smile blooming at Evelyn Napier's languid approach. "Lady Mary sitting out a dance? That's a sight I never thought to see."
Beside her, Edith bristles in her chair; she was just grousing at Mary's complaints of her feet being sore--"It must be so insufferable being the belle of your own wedding ball."
Oblivious to the sisters' conflict, Evelyn continues, "Although I expect it's been rather a long day for you."
"Just pacing myself," Mary parrots Richard's words to Frida, her face flushing and her heart quickening with the fear that he may refer to her pregnancy. He's heard the rumours, surely? Thanks to Diana--whom she spies flirting shamelessly with Uncle Harold--there is likely no wedding guest left untold. She shakes off her suspicion; Evelyn is far too nice for these games.
"We're taking the party to the Cave of the Golden Calf shortly. You should come along."
"I'm not sure the Cave's really my sort of place."
"Mine, either," says Edith, and it's all Mary can do not to roll her eyes at this bid for Evelyn's attention.
"You better get used to it, kiddo!" Uncle Harold, appearing suddenly, snatches Edith's hands from her lap and yanks her out of her chair. "It's all ragtime in the States!"
He moves as though to take Edith out for a dance, but then pivots back and extends his hand to the bemused Evelyn. "Harold Levinson, by the way. Mary's uncle. And your go-to guy if you're thinking of purchasing a yacht."
"I cannot abide another yacht sales pitch," Granny mutters, and pushes up with her cane to go find Aunt Rosamund. Mary doesn't think she can, either, but thankfully Uncle Harold, with a guffaw, twirls Edith away without a further mention of his beloved boats. Evelyn remains, though, taking the chair Edith vacated.
"How do you think she'll fare in America?" Mary asks, watching the polka.
"I heard Lady Edith was going." Evelyn grimaces. "Definitely not my sort of place."
"I expect I'll find out whether it's mine, as Richard's very keen on going."
"Most likely you'll have a smashing time, if the Cave agrees with you. As it seems to."
From any other man of her set, she might take such a statement as a backhanded compliment, but Evelyn is nothing if not sincere--even if he isn't a especially exciting conversationalist. Mary finds her attention drifting to the dance floor, where Sybil laughs up at something Richard is telling her as they dance.
"That may have been more down to my escort."
"Well then you're in luck, to have secured him for all such future entertainments." Something taut in his voice draws her gaze to him again, but she must have imagined the regret, for his smile at her is genuine. "I'm glad for you, Mary. May we all find partners who make us so happy."
She thanks him; the words seem grossly inadequate to express what it means to have a friend who can see what her own family cannot, Papa's question of whether Richard's wedding plans make her happy still lingering painfully close to the surface. "And Evelyn--I'm so sorry you were caught in the middle of our...drama."
"It was my own fault really. That's what happens to chaps who decide to stick their noble noses in the business of ladies who have things well in hand."
"As Lady Mary always has things. Especially me."
They both look up at Richard's deep rasping tones. Mary smiles to see him standing with his left hand in his trouser pocket at first, then withdrawing as Evelyn stands to clasp his right in a greeting warm enough to melt away his self-consciousness. How neatly Evelyn sweeps away the past, what a contrast with Cousin Matthew. The Honourable, indeed.
"How do you like racing, Carlisle? Only it would be splendid if you and Lady Mary could join my father and me at Ascot in June."
Mary and Richard exchange glances. Evelyn definitely doesn't know about the baby, then; by June, she'll be great with child.
"Any excuse to wear a spectacular new hat," comes Richard's noncommittal reply, "though we hope you'll dine with us before that."
"Gladly. But with regards to spectacular hats, are you referring to yourself or to Lady Mary?"
"I don't know which of us is more eager to be set loose in Paris' fashion district," Mary says.
Evelyn smiles. "Well-suited, indeed."
She stands, and brushes her hand over Richard's lapel, adjusting his buttonhole where some dance partner or other knocked it askew. "In every sense."
~*~
The Cave is exactly as Mary remembers it, and she enters it on Richard's arm as confidently as she moved through the Ritz ballroom, leaving the goggling up at the neon phallic cow to Aileen. Descending the stairs into the basement-level nightclub, she whispers to George whether he's quite sure the place is entirely decent. Laughing too loudly, he replies that he's sure it's entirely not--but someone has to keep an eye on Mark. Jean refused to accompany their party, deeming it a lair of vice without even having heard Granny's similar description; when Mark argued that as this was the last time a son of his would marry and he did not intend to miss a moment of his terrific party, Grandmamma claimed him for her personal escort.
George proves as poor a chaperone as Aunt Rosamund, however; as they all one-step on the cramped dance floor in front of the stage, Mary overhears Grandmamma shout to Mark, who must bend to hear her over the rollicking piano and snare drum rag: "You can carry off that kilt because you have such marvellous calves! How do you do it, at our age?"
"Bicycling to work!" comes his candid reply, so much like Richard's when she asked during their afternoon tryst how he kept fit without the benefit of country sports. "Every day for forty years!"
"If I were Jean, I'd make it a bicycle built for two! Say!" Grandmamma breaks from her partner's arms and marches up to the edge of the stage, where she yells up to one of the band members. "Do you fellas know Daisy Bell?"
"The English invented that song, luv!" he answers and, abruptly, the music changes to a swinging broken waltz. Grandmamma she sings along with gusto, Mark joining in a duet.
"I thought we brought the party here for a change from waltzes," Mary complains. Richard chuckles, but not, it seem from his rapt attention on his father, at her remark.
"Think that'll be us in twenty years? Dancing at our child's wedding and talking about how attractive we still are?"
"I hope you mean to each other, and not to some elderly ginger widow with a crush on you."
"This ginger would dance with Richie in a kilt in twenty years," Ruby interjects as she and Uncle Harold dance by. "Or Georgie!"
Now Mary laughs as Richard scowls at Ruby for using the nickname he tolerates only from his immediate family. After she met his parents Mary teased that she might adopt it, and he was not amused.
Pressing herself tight against him, the petals of his buttonhole velvety at her neckline, she murmurs in his ear. "I hardly think it's proper to talk about dancing at our child's wedding when we've yet to finish dancing at our own."
"You're right." Richard holds her tighter, drawing their twined fingers against his chest as he tilts his head to kiss her. Just as their lips touch he draws back, a frown tugging at the lines of his face. "Why are we dancing to this song? It won't be a stylish marriage, I can't afford a carriage? We drove here in a bloody Silver Ghost!"
"Irony, sweetheart!" Grandmamma calls.
"But Richard is right," Frida says. She steps up onto the stage, where the band stop playing, mid-song, to look quizzically at the nightclub owner. "Will you gentlemen be dears and give us a tango for the bride and groom?"
After a brief shuffling of musicians and instruments that results in a quartet of piano, violin, bass, and accordion. The undulating ragtime gives way to the more percussive tango, and the other couples clear the dance floor to make way for the guests of honour.
If she were the sentimental type, Mary would know whether the tune was the one to which Richard she and Richard danced last September, but it was Richard she learned by heart that night, not the music. Even now, it is not the driving beat of the piano which moves her across the parquet, but the rhythm of his steps, the smooth motion of his hips skimming hers with each turn that stirs her more than the soulful wails of the violin. Her earlier snippy remark about the romance having gone out of their relationship with their marriage, half-joking though it was, seems more like whinging than wit. In fact the opposite is true. The dance is better now because they know each other better, and are more confident. Next time, and the time after that, their expertise will be all the greater.
As before, he twirls her with a final flourish, holding her against him for some time after the music stops. But tonight, when he says it's time he got her home, he means with him.
~*~
When Richard opens the door to their suite at the Ritz, his gesture for her to step through gracious but not gallant, she thanks him. He looks at her a little askance, his forehead crinkling between his eyebrows in a way she finds especially endearing with his hair, dishevelled from a night of dancing, falling over his forehead.
"I was afraid you were going to give in to some dreadfully common urge to carry me across the threshold," she explains, laying her handbag on the hall table as the clunk of the bolt rolling over in the door is followed by the flick of the light switch.
"Only because I'm not sure I'm quite sober enough to do so without dropping you."
She quirks an eyebrow at him in the mirror as he steps behind her to help her out of her wrap. "Does that mean you're drunk enough to recite poetry now?"
"Perhaps just drunk enough to call you Mrs Carlisle." Richard lets the cape fall to the floor, his hands warming her just as effectively as they cover her shoulders, caressing her bare shoulders and collarbones, though his breath makes her shiver when he stoops to press hot kisses to her neck.
"If you do, I shall be forced to call you Mr Carlisle. And I know how precious you are about your title. Which reminds me…" She leans back against his chest, and his hands slide down her arms, fitting into the grooves of her hipbones through the silk of her skirt, drawing her more firmly against him. "I've been thinking about when you're granted a peerage. What will you be called? Not Lord Morningside, surely, that's far too middle class. I suppose you could always be Lord Newspapers."
One hand strays from her hip to cover her breast. "I'm thinking more along the lines of Lord I Can't Wait A Moment Longer to Consummate Our Marriage."
"We already did that."
During the ceremony he caught her eye, a dimple showing in his cheek as the archbishop came to the part about marriage being ordained for the procreation of children and for a remedy against sin, and to avoid fornication.
He still hasn't seen the newly emerged sign of her pregnancy, she realises. His fingers curl inward over her breast, squeezing as he kisses his way up her neck and along her jaw until she turns her head for him to claim her lips, just as they kissed in the nursery two nights ago when he felt the swell of life beneath her dress. She covers his hand on her middle with her own, breaking the kiss as she threads their fingers together and pulls him through the open doorway into the bedroom.
Despite the unfamiliar surroundings of the Louis XVI décor, Mary almost feels transported back to that day in her own room at Downton. Undressing seems to go much quicker, though; or perhaps it's an illusion wrought by experience, the fear of being caught obviously not a factor this time. Funny Richard was not in a greater hurry then; she likes his eagerness now, even though this is not a new part of their relationship.
"Would you look at that," he murmurs, the hard look of desire washing from his features as his gaze drops from her breasts to her belly. He stretches out one hand, but stops just shy of touching it, instead tracing the air above the dark brown line that runs up from the low-slung waist of her drawers to her navel.
"Yes, I look rather too fond of cake," she says, suddenly self-conscious. Yet impatient, too. "Oh for heaven's sake, Richard, we won't break."
Again she grabs his hand, pressing his palm to her slightly rounded abdomen. He lets out his breath, a slight smile playing at the corners of his mouth as he scuffs his thumb over it, and suddenly drops to his knees in front of her, pressing his lips to the skin beneath which their child grows. His voice rumbles through her, murmuring, though she cannot make out his words.
She starts to ask if he's talking to the baby, but checks her speech and the laugh. Not only because she decides it's sweet, but because suddenly his fingers hook over the waistband of her drawers and tug them down. The lacy undergarment flutters to the floor, pooling at her feet, and as she steps out of them he grips the sides of her hips and crouches lower, his fine hair tickling her thighs as he nudges her legs further apart. His fingertips press into her bottom as he kisses way up the insides of her knees and thighs until she sucks in her stomach with a sharp hiss and fists his hair in her hands lest her knees buckle under his attentions.
A flush burns over her at the unexpected--and previously unimagined--intimacy of the act, though perhaps more so--she can't deny it--with the pleasure of it. Richard touched her here before, a hand slipped between their hips, his thumb readying her for their joining, and again after he was spent, evoking the ebbs and peaks of sensation in her not unlike those she perceived him to experience as he moved within her. But she never imagined lovemaking might include anything like this, that she might feel more naked before him than in their prior encounter.
She bites her bottom lip against the cry that forms in her throat, twists his hair around her fingers as she struggles not to buck her hips in response as she did when it was the heel of his hand, his pelvis, rubbing against her, unsure how much is acceptable to express in such a situation as this, afraid of being too wanton. But Richard's hands on her bottom draw her in closer against him, his lips and tongue more intent upon their work of coaxing a reaction from her, and Mary can hold back no longer, moving and moaning in most unladylike fashion--which seems to be the purpose for his ministrations--until the wave peaks and breaks and she collapses, panting, over his shoulder.
"Oh my...Richard..." she splutters when she has caught her breath somewhat. But it hitches again as his breath and the scratch of stubble tickle the valley between her breasts.
"Enjoyed that, did you?"
He chuckles low when she nods into the curve where his neck meets his shoulder, her arms tightening about him as his mouth closes over the tip of her breast and teases her nipple until it hardens. Though he already gave her satisfaction, desire mounts in her again, awareness of his arousal through his trousers as she clings to him stirring the remembered sensation of what it is to lie beneath the weight of him, to be filled by him. She scratches his scalp as he kisses her breasts, and he groans low, the rumble of it passing from his throat into her belly. She means to ask him if he wants to go to the bed, but bed is the only word she hears herself utter huskily. Fortunately, Richard makes sense of her incoherence and, also fortunately, his hands on her bottom scoop her up, lifting her into his arms, because her legs, she realises, still tremble too much to walk. She wraps them awkwardly around him and catches a glimpse of his equally awkward shuffle in the dressing table mirror, and thinks how absurd this looks for two people as close in height as they.
"I thought you were too drunk to carry me," she manages to say as Richard deposits her on the bed.
He makes no reply as he sheds the remainder of his clothing--trousers, underpants, and socks--and unlike last time, Mary refuses to give in to the virginal instinct to glance away from his nudity and finds her own desires further aroused by the hard masculinity of his body. When he joins her in bed she lies back on the pillows as he stretches his lean frame over her and aligns their hips, the muscles of his chest and arms flexed as he holds himself over her.
Tilting his head as he does when he kisses her, he holds his lips a breath from hers, and says, softly, "By just exchange, one for another given. There never was a better bargain driven."
"Was that a rhyming couplet?" Mary asks, then he covers her mouth with his, swallowing her gasp as he presses into her.
Their joining is not as uncomfortable as the first time; nevertheless she appreciates how still he remains, how softly he kisses her as he gives her a moment to reacquaint herself with being filled so completely by him.
"My god, I love you," he says against her lips, then lifts his head to peer hazily into her eyes. "Enough to quote poetry."
Mary's abdomen quivers with her laugh, and Richard groans against an involuntary movement inside her. She rocks up into him, urging him on as he previously encouraged her.
"Go on then," she says, wrapping her legs around him to draw him back after he withdraws.
His hips meet hers again, his breathing ragged in the crook of her neck. "It's just struck me that particular poem would be rather odd for this context, as it's spoken by the woman to the man."
"Now you're just making excuses. Change the pronouns."
"If I'm drunk enough for poetry recitations, don't you think I might be too drunk for grammar?"
"I thought you said you were in love enough, not drunk enough." She arches an eyebrow and her hips, tightening around him, and he thrusts hard, letting his weight rest on her as he slips his arms beneath her.
"If I can think about grammar during sex, then clearly I'm not doing it properly."
"And you do mean to do things properly."
He does exactly that, making love to her wordlessly, though not silently, and Mary knows that if he were to speak, she would be insensible to it; indeed, she is hardly aware of what they were talking about, or how much time has passed since they last spoke, nor does she care. All that matters is that in this moment, Richard is in her, loving her with the same unbreakable focus with which he built his newspaper empire, and she cannot tell as he presses into her as she rises up to meet him, their mouths locked in a kiss and their limbs entwined, where he ends and she begins, whether the heart the pounds against her breast is her own or his.
Afterward, though her joints tremor from being wrapped so tightly around him, she does not let him go--though he does not try to. Instead, he murmurs into the hollows of her collarbones:
"My true love hath my heart, and I have hers...
Her heart in me keeps her and me in one...
She loves my heart, for once it was her own,
I cherish hers because in me it bides."
"So what you're saying," Mary says, after a moment, one hand sliding out of his hair down over his sharp cheekbone to cup the equally hard line of his jaw, drawing his face up to look him in the eye, "is that you love me because you love yourself."
He rolls his hips, sending another shockwave through her that makes her eyelids flutter closed; when she opens them again, he doesn't even try to look ashamed, his mouth pulling into a cocky half-grin.
"I did say from the very beginning that we're the same."
Hooking her leg tighter around his backside, she digs her heel into the small of his back and he collapses on top of her again, groaning as he burrows his face in her hair.
"I agree with your poem," she says. "There never was a better bargain driven."
Read the Epilogue
Author: mrstater
Fandom: Downton Abbey
Characters & Pairings: Mary Crawley/Richard Carlisle, Diana Manners, Frida Uhl, Mark Carlisle, Jean Carlisle, George Carlisle (OC), Aileen Carlisle (OC), Matthew Crawley, Edith Crawley, Violet Crawley, Evelyn Napier, Harold Levinson, Ruby Levinson (OC), Martha Levinson
Chapter Word Count: 6641 words
Chapter Warnings: sexual content
Chapter Summary: Mary and Richard celebrate their marriage in high style, in the places where their relationship first began, in public with their nearest and (not so) dearest and, of course, in private.
Author's Note: And here we are, the last chapter before the epilogue. I hope the length makes up for the fact that it is the end. But seriously, you might want to make sure you've got a comfy chair and something to snack on. ;) To everyone who has stuck with the story from beginning to (almost) end, I cannot thank you enough. Especially ju-dou, faithful beta. The poems quoted in this chapter are Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnet XIV and Sir Philip Sidney's The Bargain. The fashion-minded among you may be interested in the inspiration for Mary's ballgown, as well as her earrings and necklace. I think I may miss writing about the clothes of AGIB more than anything!
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33. The Wedding Party
Richard kisses her in white as the limousine turns out of St Paul's Church Yard to carry them to the Ritz Hotel for their wedding breakfast. Frankly, Mary expected him to do it sooner, to lean down as they marched arm in arm out of the cathedral and claim her lips in front of the guests throwing rice and the photographers flashing pictures for the evening papers, and she breaks the kiss to tell him so.
"Do you really think after the Sketch debacle there's a photographer in this city who'd take a picture of me demonstrating less than proper behaviour?" he asks, incredulous.
She pauses to marvel at his selective memory, which seems to have forgotten how his competitors pounced on the story of him punching Evelyn Napier in his own club, but foregoes reminding him of humiliating episode on his wedding day.
"Maybe there's one as ruthless as you who'd use it as blackmail."
"With a diabolical mind like that, I'm glad you're my partner in crime and not one of my competitors'."
"That's exactly why I expected you to flaunt the fact with a publicity stunt."
"Mmm. I find I'm not in much of a mood for anything of a public nature."
Richard reaches to draw the shade across the front seat, separating them from the driver, then returns to her, swivelling on the seat to more or less face her as his arms go about her waist, beneath the drape of her veil. He tilts her head to kiss her again, but she leans against the hand at her back.
"This from the man who insisted on a society wedding at St Paul's and the Ritz."
Brushing his lips over her temple, he says, "I underestimated how badly I'd want you alone. We could always go directly to our suite. Skip the reception."
It's difficult to resist the temptation presented by his mouth against her cheekbone, but she deadpans, "Wouldn't that dovetail tidily with our previous afternoon tryst."
Richard's low sound of agreement rumbles through her breast as his arms tighten around her, his thigh hard against her as he draws her almost into his lap. Mary tilts her head back to accommodate his lips' path to the sensitive place beneath her ear, but bites her own lip against a moan, summoning the presence of mind to continue.
"However, I'm afraid that is simply out of the question. I wouldn't dream of missing out on all our friends and acquaintances and even a few enemies queuing up for the express purpose of telling me how lovely I look."
"I wouldn't dream of denying you that." Richard is not in the least dissuaded from nuzzling her ear and the curve of her jaw. "Then again, I can compliment you on bits of your wedding ensemble none of them shall have the privilege of seeing. More than a fair-trade, wouldn't you agree?"
"Heavens, no."
Richard huffs and raises his head to meet her eye. "You're terribly high maintenance, you know."
"You knew it, too, when you agreed to maintain me."
"Then let me maintain you."
Mary replies by grasping the knot of his cravat and pulling him toward her, but this time it is Richard who withdraws after the barest touch of their lips and she who sighs in frustration. His gaze fixes just over her shoulder, something outside having caught his eye. Turning to see what, she notices that their route to the Ritz has taken them down Fleet Street, and the limousine decelerates as it approaches the Daily Telegram office. Bunting festoons the brownstone façade, and nearly every window in the four-storey building is open despite the cold, the newspaper employees hanging out, waving, and tossing handfuls of confetti down at the passing car.
Richard leans across Mary to roll down the window, and she finds herself unexpectedly choked when she asks, "You did this for me?"
He shrugs. "If the Queen of Downton Village gets this sort of reception, why not the Queen of London?"
Her lips cannot form words about what this means to her, so she kisses him instead--to wolf whistles and catcalls of the Telegram staff from above. Laughing, she and Richard draw apart, and she waves out the window. Confetti showers down on them, some swirling inside the window onto her skirt. She plucks a bit between her fingers and inspects it.
"It appears your staff have made confetti from newspapers."
"The Mail, I should hope."
~*~
In the receiving line, Mary rues her choice to receive the public compliments of dozens over Richard's private attention, as the faces of sixty distinguished guests melt into a single indistinct form with whom she has same impersonal conversation, like a scratched gramophone record: Your gown is simply lovely, Lady Mary. Lucky devil, Carlisle. Honeymooning in Paris? But Monte's so much warmer this time of year. Residing in Knightsbridge? What about a country house?
Richard's cheek brushes against her headpiece as he leans close, the rasp of his voice drawing her out of her stupor. "How unfortunate I didn't think to have all this printed up in a special edition, so we don't have to keep repeating ours."
His hand at the small of her back guides her through the French doors to their wedding breakfast, where she notices the sweet dull throb of harp strings that must have underscored the reception chatter. Vowing not miss anything else, Mary darts her gaze about the room as they make their way to the head table, as if to photograph it all in her mind: the nosegays adorning the backs of chairs, the arrangements of lilies, orchids, and roses that grace tabletops and tower on pedestals flanking the doorways and windows; the statue of Neptune consorting with a Nereid before a Grecian mural reflected in mirrored wall opposite; the rare brilliant February sunlight which pours in through the arched windows spanning the length of the room and makes every gilded surface, from the furniture to the gold leaf mouldings to the statue, glow.
As their guests file in and fill their places, however, the landscape shifts, as though in a dream, a vague and golden place, and the meal passes in the same blur as the reception. It seems to Mary that she's scarcely taken her seat when she lays her dessert fork across an empty cake plate, feeling giddy from too much sweet food and not enough substance. A tinkle of silver against glass sings out and the harpist abruptly silences his instrument, hands splayed across the strings, as the Duke of Rutland, the highest ranking attendee, stands to make a toast.
"Since my daughter Diana is such jolly friends with both the bride and groom," he says, "I've agreed to abdicate my duty and let her say a few words of her own."
Mary's lips freeze in a smile. Surely she can't have heard correctly? She sits transfixed as the Duke resumes his seat while Lady Rutland, champion of propriety in all other young ladies, beams her approval as her own daughter vacates hers.
"Just when I thought there could be no more scandal attached to this marriage," Jean mutters.
"My sentiments exactly." Granny sips her champagne.
"Actually they're not my words." Diana clutches a scrap of paper to her bosom, which quivers along with the towering plumes of her lampshade-shaped hat with the earnest wagging of her head as she speaks. "We are, after all, a nation of poets, and while I dabble in poetry--"
Dear Lord, Mary prays silently, though she knows she hasn't a great deal of credit with God as a pure spotless bride, please don't let Diana read one of her poems. Richard takes her hand beneath the table, squeezing it in reassurance, though she feels the tension in his fingers as he braces for gossip page fodder.
"--who could better express how mad Richard and Mary are for each other than Elizabeth Barrett Browning?"
"I can think of a few poets," Richard whispers, while Mary sighs in relief. She couldn't care less how appropriate Diana's reading is for them, so long as it's suitable for the audience. Not that Diana's flair for the dramatic isn't as likely to push the boundaries of good taste.
"This is from Sonnets From the Portuguese," Diana says, and brings the paper up almost to her nose, her wide glassy eyes narrowing to focus. She clears her throat, but instead of beginning looks back over her shoulder, startling the harpist. "Would you mind awfully, darling? Only I think the poem will be so much more touching with musical accompaniment, don't you?"
The harpist obliges, and Diana arches up on the balls of her feet, swaying slightly in time with the strumming, and recites:
"If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love's sake only. Do not say
'I love her for her smile--her look--her way
Of speaking gently,--for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day'--
For these things in themselves, Beloved, may
Be changed, or change for thee...
But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou mayst love on, through love's eternity."
When she finishes, tears pool in her luminous eyes. Crumpling the paper, she uses it like a hanky, then she raises her glass and warbles, "To Sir Richard and Lady Mary Carlisle, through love's eternity!"
As sixty champagne flutes chime, and the sunlight which beams in through the wall of windows, reflecting off the mirrored wall and the glasses, shimmers before Mary's eyes. She hates to think Diana could affect her, but when she sees Richard's father blow his nose into a checked handkerchief, eyes bright blue and red-rimmed above it, she must dab the corners of her own.
"Sentimental fool." Jean shakes her head at Mark. "It was hardly Robbie Burns."
"Is that your opinion, darling?" Mary asks her new husband. "Obviously you don't love me for gentle smiles or an agreeable nature, so tell me. Is your love like a red, red rose, newly sprung in June?"
Richard snorts into his champagne, and she goes on, tracing the edge of her glass with her forefinger, "I am deeply curious, though, which poem you think suits us better. I thought you only read newspapers."
"I did go to school," he replies. "But I'm afraid I'll have to disappoint you. I'm not drunk enough to recite poetry."
Across the table, George says, "I'm stone cold sober, but that never stopped me. There once was a Scotsman called Dick--"
"Whose brother abandoned this limerick," Aileen interrupts.
The harp goes silent again as Mark stands for the customary toast from the groom's father. Richard leans toward Mary and whispers, "I promise, my taste in poetry is much more sophisticated than George's."
"I believe tradition demands that I thank Lord and Lady Grantham for hosting this beautiful wedding," Mark says, resplendent in the joy he wears as unabashedly as his kilt, "but more importantly, I must thank them for raising such a beautiful daughter--Lady Mary, my son's perfect match."
Touched by the sentiment, yet also amused knowing her family will not take it as quite the compliment Mark intended, Mary smiles slyly at Richard and nudges his knee beneath the table. "I'm afraid you'll have to prove it."
~*~
Applause ripples through the ballroom, muting the echoed vibrato of the string ensemble, when the first waltz of the evening ends. As Richard leads her off the dance floor, Mary can almost believe the clapping is as much for her as the musicians. Queen of London, Richard called her, and she feels even more like it than before as she glimpses herself in the mirrored wall. Glass beadwork and metallic embroidery make her ivory silk ballgown glisten nearly as brightly under the brilliant electric lights as the diamond hair combs, teardrop earrings, and bib style necklace. They were Richard's wedding gift, and he clasped the necklace about her throat himself, his fingers so warm as they lingered against her skin, pressing against her pulse.
"Still want to kiss a girl in white?" she asked as his eyes raked over her in their suite, and he did, till she was breathless. When he drew back he said, "A good deal more than kiss."
There wasn't time, though; thanks to her napping away the few hours before the ball, they were already fashionably late for their own party. When she asked why he didn't wake her, he replied with a shrug that he knew a wedding was a lot for any bride, much less a pregnant one, and didn't want to disrupt her new habit of a rest before tea.
"It gave me a chance to catch up on today's papers," he added.
"I suppose you'll catch up on the evening's when I turn in early tonight?" she retorted, genuinely cross, while he merely smirked.
As he does now. He, too, watches their reflection, her hand in her long ivory gloves curved elegantly over his, the crowd parting to avoid the sweep of her train over the checkerboard marble floor. Mary's expression matches his, her annoyance about the nap and the newspapers ebbing, and Richard's dimples deepen as her eyes meet his in the mirror rather than gaze up at her groom like a typical adoring bride.
"Another triumph for Lucile," says Frida, approaching them, champagne in hand. "And you should know I had nothing to do with that jewellery, Mary, except to tell Richard you were made to drip with diamonds. You cut such a graceful figure on the dance floor. But it's your Argentine tango I want to see."
"Not at this party," Mary says. "Granny would have apoplexy."
"So would my mother," Richard adds.
"Then come to the Cave after. If you're not too tired." Frida twitches her eyebrows significantly over her champagne.
"We're not." Mary's irritation returns. "Before we were married, we engaged in illicit activities when we were meant to be resting," she ranted to Richard over a cup of tea to revive her when she awoke, groggy, from her long nap. "Now they're not illicit, and we rest. Is the romance gone already?"
"You're the one who claims not to be romantic," was his only reply as he reached for a cucumber sandwich.
"Excellent!" cries Frida. "Just see to it you don't wear yourselves out before the real party gets started, ja?"
She follows this by securing Richard for a waltz later--without brandishing her infamous pistol, thankfully. He assures her that they'll pace themselves after the obligatory sets with family and distinguished guests, and after Mary dances with the Richard's father, from whom he inherited his dancing skills, and the Duke of Rutland, whose paternity of Diana could never be proved through his, she does mean to sit one out. No sooner has she spied a chair and sent Richard to get her a glass of punch, Cousin Matthew intercepts her and begs the honour of a waltz.
Mary knows she cannot refuse it even without catching Mama's bug-eyed look as Mark Carlisle leads her with an old-fashioned gallantry onto the dance floor. Smirking, Richard steps toward the now unescorted Lavinia with the clear intention of asking Matthew's fiancée for a waltz she cannot refuse. But the vexingly stylish young woman pretends not to see him and pivots away with a wave at an acquaintance, leaving Richard to Diana, who knocks back the punch he brought Mary and then spins him away.
"Your day seems to have gone off without a hitch," Cousin Matthew observes as they fall into step with the Strauss tune.
"Apart from the obvious one of getting hitched, as Uncle Harold has said half a dozen times today. That I've heard."
Matthews' gaze drifts beyond her, and he chuckles. "The Americans do seem to have livened the affair."
The turning places Mary in view of Uncle Harold working his American charm on shy Aileen, who looks at once flattered and flustered in the evening gown Ruby lent her. She dances with her head turned slightly to keep an eye on George, dapper in a set of Richard's tails and apparently finding Harold's wife a more willing recipient of foreign charm than his own.
"You must be thanking your lucky stars all the American blood is on Mama's side of the family," Mary remarks to Matthew. "You can have a strictly English wedding."
"Does that mean Sir Richard's plotting to turn down his invitation?"
Mary tries to school her flush into submission, but her concentration all goes to not stumbling, and keeping a steady voice."My. You make him sound positively diabolical."
At once she regrets giving Matthew the opportunity to gain the righteous upper hand by reminding her that her new husband once blackmailed Lavinia. To her surprise, he glances away, embarrassed.
"Cousin Mary, Lavinia and I wish to put the past behind us. I regret the part I played in your troubles, though I hope that now everything is settled between you and Sir Richard you can understand my reasons for it."
"Oh Matthew. Understanding why was never the problem. It was that you did it at all."
He gapes, though no sound emits from his mouth a puff of breath as if stricken. A hand taps his shoulder, and she looks up to see Richard.
"Hope you don't mind me cutting in, Crawley, but I find myself pining for my wife."
Without waiting for a response, Richard takes Mary firmly in his arms and waltzes her away.
"My knight in shining armour. How can I repay you for rescuing me from that ogre?"
"I can think of a few ways." He steals a bold kiss, his eyes darkening with the suggestion of what he intends later. "Though in fact I rescued Matthew from you. He looked utterly intimidated."
"If only I had that power over you."
Richard's grip tightens around her hand, though his thumb strokes feather light over her skin. "I think you underestimate the hold you have on me," he says, his voice husky. He clears his throat. "But if one of us had too much power over the other, we wouldn't make such a good team, would we?"
~*~
"What's this?" drawls a familiar masculine voice, and Mary looks up from her conversation with Granny and Edith, a smile blooming at Evelyn Napier's languid approach. "Lady Mary sitting out a dance? That's a sight I never thought to see."
Beside her, Edith bristles in her chair; she was just grousing at Mary's complaints of her feet being sore--"It must be so insufferable being the belle of your own wedding ball."
Oblivious to the sisters' conflict, Evelyn continues, "Although I expect it's been rather a long day for you."
"Just pacing myself," Mary parrots Richard's words to Frida, her face flushing and her heart quickening with the fear that he may refer to her pregnancy. He's heard the rumours, surely? Thanks to Diana--whom she spies flirting shamelessly with Uncle Harold--there is likely no wedding guest left untold. She shakes off her suspicion; Evelyn is far too nice for these games.
"We're taking the party to the Cave of the Golden Calf shortly. You should come along."
"I'm not sure the Cave's really my sort of place."
"Mine, either," says Edith, and it's all Mary can do not to roll her eyes at this bid for Evelyn's attention.
"You better get used to it, kiddo!" Uncle Harold, appearing suddenly, snatches Edith's hands from her lap and yanks her out of her chair. "It's all ragtime in the States!"
He moves as though to take Edith out for a dance, but then pivots back and extends his hand to the bemused Evelyn. "Harold Levinson, by the way. Mary's uncle. And your go-to guy if you're thinking of purchasing a yacht."
"I cannot abide another yacht sales pitch," Granny mutters, and pushes up with her cane to go find Aunt Rosamund. Mary doesn't think she can, either, but thankfully Uncle Harold, with a guffaw, twirls Edith away without a further mention of his beloved boats. Evelyn remains, though, taking the chair Edith vacated.
"How do you think she'll fare in America?" Mary asks, watching the polka.
"I heard Lady Edith was going." Evelyn grimaces. "Definitely not my sort of place."
"I expect I'll find out whether it's mine, as Richard's very keen on going."
"Most likely you'll have a smashing time, if the Cave agrees with you. As it seems to."
From any other man of her set, she might take such a statement as a backhanded compliment, but Evelyn is nothing if not sincere--even if he isn't a especially exciting conversationalist. Mary finds her attention drifting to the dance floor, where Sybil laughs up at something Richard is telling her as they dance.
"That may have been more down to my escort."
"Well then you're in luck, to have secured him for all such future entertainments." Something taut in his voice draws her gaze to him again, but she must have imagined the regret, for his smile at her is genuine. "I'm glad for you, Mary. May we all find partners who make us so happy."
She thanks him; the words seem grossly inadequate to express what it means to have a friend who can see what her own family cannot, Papa's question of whether Richard's wedding plans make her happy still lingering painfully close to the surface. "And Evelyn--I'm so sorry you were caught in the middle of our...drama."
"It was my own fault really. That's what happens to chaps who decide to stick their noble noses in the business of ladies who have things well in hand."
"As Lady Mary always has things. Especially me."
They both look up at Richard's deep rasping tones. Mary smiles to see him standing with his left hand in his trouser pocket at first, then withdrawing as Evelyn stands to clasp his right in a greeting warm enough to melt away his self-consciousness. How neatly Evelyn sweeps away the past, what a contrast with Cousin Matthew. The Honourable, indeed.
"How do you like racing, Carlisle? Only it would be splendid if you and Lady Mary could join my father and me at Ascot in June."
Mary and Richard exchange glances. Evelyn definitely doesn't know about the baby, then; by June, she'll be great with child.
"Any excuse to wear a spectacular new hat," comes Richard's noncommittal reply, "though we hope you'll dine with us before that."
"Gladly. But with regards to spectacular hats, are you referring to yourself or to Lady Mary?"
"I don't know which of us is more eager to be set loose in Paris' fashion district," Mary says.
Evelyn smiles. "Well-suited, indeed."
She stands, and brushes her hand over Richard's lapel, adjusting his buttonhole where some dance partner or other knocked it askew. "In every sense."
~*~
The Cave is exactly as Mary remembers it, and she enters it on Richard's arm as confidently as she moved through the Ritz ballroom, leaving the goggling up at the neon phallic cow to Aileen. Descending the stairs into the basement-level nightclub, she whispers to George whether he's quite sure the place is entirely decent. Laughing too loudly, he replies that he's sure it's entirely not--but someone has to keep an eye on Mark. Jean refused to accompany their party, deeming it a lair of vice without even having heard Granny's similar description; when Mark argued that as this was the last time a son of his would marry and he did not intend to miss a moment of his terrific party, Grandmamma claimed him for her personal escort.
George proves as poor a chaperone as Aunt Rosamund, however; as they all one-step on the cramped dance floor in front of the stage, Mary overhears Grandmamma shout to Mark, who must bend to hear her over the rollicking piano and snare drum rag: "You can carry off that kilt because you have such marvellous calves! How do you do it, at our age?"
"Bicycling to work!" comes his candid reply, so much like Richard's when she asked during their afternoon tryst how he kept fit without the benefit of country sports. "Every day for forty years!"
"If I were Jean, I'd make it a bicycle built for two! Say!" Grandmamma breaks from her partner's arms and marches up to the edge of the stage, where she yells up to one of the band members. "Do you fellas know Daisy Bell?"
"The English invented that song, luv!" he answers and, abruptly, the music changes to a swinging broken waltz. Grandmamma she sings along with gusto, Mark joining in a duet.
"I thought we brought the party here for a change from waltzes," Mary complains. Richard chuckles, but not, it seem from his rapt attention on his father, at her remark.
"Think that'll be us in twenty years? Dancing at our child's wedding and talking about how attractive we still are?"
"I hope you mean to each other, and not to some elderly ginger widow with a crush on you."
"This ginger would dance with Richie in a kilt in twenty years," Ruby interjects as she and Uncle Harold dance by. "Or Georgie!"
Now Mary laughs as Richard scowls at Ruby for using the nickname he tolerates only from his immediate family. After she met his parents Mary teased that she might adopt it, and he was not amused.
Pressing herself tight against him, the petals of his buttonhole velvety at her neckline, she murmurs in his ear. "I hardly think it's proper to talk about dancing at our child's wedding when we've yet to finish dancing at our own."
"You're right." Richard holds her tighter, drawing their twined fingers against his chest as he tilts his head to kiss her. Just as their lips touch he draws back, a frown tugging at the lines of his face. "Why are we dancing to this song? It won't be a stylish marriage, I can't afford a carriage? We drove here in a bloody Silver Ghost!"
"Irony, sweetheart!" Grandmamma calls.
"But Richard is right," Frida says. She steps up onto the stage, where the band stop playing, mid-song, to look quizzically at the nightclub owner. "Will you gentlemen be dears and give us a tango for the bride and groom?"
After a brief shuffling of musicians and instruments that results in a quartet of piano, violin, bass, and accordion. The undulating ragtime gives way to the more percussive tango, and the other couples clear the dance floor to make way for the guests of honour.
If she were the sentimental type, Mary would know whether the tune was the one to which Richard she and Richard danced last September, but it was Richard she learned by heart that night, not the music. Even now, it is not the driving beat of the piano which moves her across the parquet, but the rhythm of his steps, the smooth motion of his hips skimming hers with each turn that stirs her more than the soulful wails of the violin. Her earlier snippy remark about the romance having gone out of their relationship with their marriage, half-joking though it was, seems more like whinging than wit. In fact the opposite is true. The dance is better now because they know each other better, and are more confident. Next time, and the time after that, their expertise will be all the greater.
As before, he twirls her with a final flourish, holding her against him for some time after the music stops. But tonight, when he says it's time he got her home, he means with him.
~*~
When Richard opens the door to their suite at the Ritz, his gesture for her to step through gracious but not gallant, she thanks him. He looks at her a little askance, his forehead crinkling between his eyebrows in a way she finds especially endearing with his hair, dishevelled from a night of dancing, falling over his forehead.
"I was afraid you were going to give in to some dreadfully common urge to carry me across the threshold," she explains, laying her handbag on the hall table as the clunk of the bolt rolling over in the door is followed by the flick of the light switch.
"Only because I'm not sure I'm quite sober enough to do so without dropping you."
She quirks an eyebrow at him in the mirror as he steps behind her to help her out of her wrap. "Does that mean you're drunk enough to recite poetry now?"
"Perhaps just drunk enough to call you Mrs Carlisle." Richard lets the cape fall to the floor, his hands warming her just as effectively as they cover her shoulders, caressing her bare shoulders and collarbones, though his breath makes her shiver when he stoops to press hot kisses to her neck.
"If you do, I shall be forced to call you Mr Carlisle. And I know how precious you are about your title. Which reminds me…" She leans back against his chest, and his hands slide down her arms, fitting into the grooves of her hipbones through the silk of her skirt, drawing her more firmly against him. "I've been thinking about when you're granted a peerage. What will you be called? Not Lord Morningside, surely, that's far too middle class. I suppose you could always be Lord Newspapers."
One hand strays from her hip to cover her breast. "I'm thinking more along the lines of Lord I Can't Wait A Moment Longer to Consummate Our Marriage."
"We already did that."
During the ceremony he caught her eye, a dimple showing in his cheek as the archbishop came to the part about marriage being ordained for the procreation of children and for a remedy against sin, and to avoid fornication.
He still hasn't seen the newly emerged sign of her pregnancy, she realises. His fingers curl inward over her breast, squeezing as he kisses his way up her neck and along her jaw until she turns her head for him to claim her lips, just as they kissed in the nursery two nights ago when he felt the swell of life beneath her dress. She covers his hand on her middle with her own, breaking the kiss as she threads their fingers together and pulls him through the open doorway into the bedroom.
Despite the unfamiliar surroundings of the Louis XVI décor, Mary almost feels transported back to that day in her own room at Downton. Undressing seems to go much quicker, though; or perhaps it's an illusion wrought by experience, the fear of being caught obviously not a factor this time. Funny Richard was not in a greater hurry then; she likes his eagerness now, even though this is not a new part of their relationship.
"Would you look at that," he murmurs, the hard look of desire washing from his features as his gaze drops from her breasts to her belly. He stretches out one hand, but stops just shy of touching it, instead tracing the air above the dark brown line that runs up from the low-slung waist of her drawers to her navel.
"Yes, I look rather too fond of cake," she says, suddenly self-conscious. Yet impatient, too. "Oh for heaven's sake, Richard, we won't break."
Again she grabs his hand, pressing his palm to her slightly rounded abdomen. He lets out his breath, a slight smile playing at the corners of his mouth as he scuffs his thumb over it, and suddenly drops to his knees in front of her, pressing his lips to the skin beneath which their child grows. His voice rumbles through her, murmuring, though she cannot make out his words.
She starts to ask if he's talking to the baby, but checks her speech and the laugh. Not only because she decides it's sweet, but because suddenly his fingers hook over the waistband of her drawers and tug them down. The lacy undergarment flutters to the floor, pooling at her feet, and as she steps out of them he grips the sides of her hips and crouches lower, his fine hair tickling her thighs as he nudges her legs further apart. His fingertips press into her bottom as he kisses way up the insides of her knees and thighs until she sucks in her stomach with a sharp hiss and fists his hair in her hands lest her knees buckle under his attentions.
A flush burns over her at the unexpected--and previously unimagined--intimacy of the act, though perhaps more so--she can't deny it--with the pleasure of it. Richard touched her here before, a hand slipped between their hips, his thumb readying her for their joining, and again after he was spent, evoking the ebbs and peaks of sensation in her not unlike those she perceived him to experience as he moved within her. But she never imagined lovemaking might include anything like this, that she might feel more naked before him than in their prior encounter.
She bites her bottom lip against the cry that forms in her throat, twists his hair around her fingers as she struggles not to buck her hips in response as she did when it was the heel of his hand, his pelvis, rubbing against her, unsure how much is acceptable to express in such a situation as this, afraid of being too wanton. But Richard's hands on her bottom draw her in closer against him, his lips and tongue more intent upon their work of coaxing a reaction from her, and Mary can hold back no longer, moving and moaning in most unladylike fashion--which seems to be the purpose for his ministrations--until the wave peaks and breaks and she collapses, panting, over his shoulder.
"Oh my...Richard..." she splutters when she has caught her breath somewhat. But it hitches again as his breath and the scratch of stubble tickle the valley between her breasts.
"Enjoyed that, did you?"
He chuckles low when she nods into the curve where his neck meets his shoulder, her arms tightening about him as his mouth closes over the tip of her breast and teases her nipple until it hardens. Though he already gave her satisfaction, desire mounts in her again, awareness of his arousal through his trousers as she clings to him stirring the remembered sensation of what it is to lie beneath the weight of him, to be filled by him. She scratches his scalp as he kisses her breasts, and he groans low, the rumble of it passing from his throat into her belly. She means to ask him if he wants to go to the bed, but bed is the only word she hears herself utter huskily. Fortunately, Richard makes sense of her incoherence and, also fortunately, his hands on her bottom scoop her up, lifting her into his arms, because her legs, she realises, still tremble too much to walk. She wraps them awkwardly around him and catches a glimpse of his equally awkward shuffle in the dressing table mirror, and thinks how absurd this looks for two people as close in height as they.
"I thought you were too drunk to carry me," she manages to say as Richard deposits her on the bed.
He makes no reply as he sheds the remainder of his clothing--trousers, underpants, and socks--and unlike last time, Mary refuses to give in to the virginal instinct to glance away from his nudity and finds her own desires further aroused by the hard masculinity of his body. When he joins her in bed she lies back on the pillows as he stretches his lean frame over her and aligns their hips, the muscles of his chest and arms flexed as he holds himself over her.
Tilting his head as he does when he kisses her, he holds his lips a breath from hers, and says, softly, "By just exchange, one for another given. There never was a better bargain driven."
"Was that a rhyming couplet?" Mary asks, then he covers her mouth with his, swallowing her gasp as he presses into her.
Their joining is not as uncomfortable as the first time; nevertheless she appreciates how still he remains, how softly he kisses her as he gives her a moment to reacquaint herself with being filled so completely by him.
"My god, I love you," he says against her lips, then lifts his head to peer hazily into her eyes. "Enough to quote poetry."
Mary's abdomen quivers with her laugh, and Richard groans against an involuntary movement inside her. She rocks up into him, urging him on as he previously encouraged her.
"Go on then," she says, wrapping her legs around him to draw him back after he withdraws.
His hips meet hers again, his breathing ragged in the crook of her neck. "It's just struck me that particular poem would be rather odd for this context, as it's spoken by the woman to the man."
"Now you're just making excuses. Change the pronouns."
"If I'm drunk enough for poetry recitations, don't you think I might be too drunk for grammar?"
"I thought you said you were in love enough, not drunk enough." She arches an eyebrow and her hips, tightening around him, and he thrusts hard, letting his weight rest on her as he slips his arms beneath her.
"If I can think about grammar during sex, then clearly I'm not doing it properly."
"And you do mean to do things properly."
He does exactly that, making love to her wordlessly, though not silently, and Mary knows that if he were to speak, she would be insensible to it; indeed, she is hardly aware of what they were talking about, or how much time has passed since they last spoke, nor does she care. All that matters is that in this moment, Richard is in her, loving her with the same unbreakable focus with which he built his newspaper empire, and she cannot tell as he presses into her as she rises up to meet him, their mouths locked in a kiss and their limbs entwined, where he ends and she begins, whether the heart the pounds against her breast is her own or his.
Afterward, though her joints tremor from being wrapped so tightly around him, she does not let him go--though he does not try to. Instead, he murmurs into the hollows of her collarbones:
"My true love hath my heart, and I have hers...
Her heart in me keeps her and me in one...
She loves my heart, for once it was her own,
I cherish hers because in me it bides."
"So what you're saying," Mary says, after a moment, one hand sliding out of his hair down over his sharp cheekbone to cup the equally hard line of his jaw, drawing his face up to look him in the eye, "is that you love me because you love yourself."
He rolls his hips, sending another shockwave through her that makes her eyelids flutter closed; when she opens them again, he doesn't even try to look ashamed, his mouth pulling into a cocky half-grin.
"I did say from the very beginning that we're the same."
Hooking her leg tighter around his backside, she digs her heel into the small of his back and he collapses on top of her again, groaning as he burrows his face in her hair.
"I agree with your poem," she says. "There never was a better bargain driven."
Read the Epilogue