Monty brushes something invisible off the lapel of his coat, then brushes it again, more vigorously. “Do I look all right? I mean, I know it’s not ideal. There’s a hole under the arm I didn’t have time to fix and also I don’t think it was worth fixing because I really don’t care and all this is daft theater and I don’t know why I agreed to it.”
“You look fine,” I tell him. “You look like yourself.”
“Yes, that’s the problem.” His shoulders slump, and he ruffles his hair. That familiar, nervous gesture. “Me being myself is exactly why we haven’t done this until now.”
Before I can reply, Felicity appears in the door to the parlor, carrying mismatched wine glasses with the stems wedged between her fingers. “Everyone’s arrived, if you’re ready,” she says, looking from me to Monty. She gives him a quick up-and-down and frowns. “Is that what you’re wearing?”
Monty throws up his hands. “I’m going to change.”
“Into what?” I mutter. In spite of how vigorously he claims none of this matters, he pulled out every stitch of clothing he owns last night and tried them all on in a variety of combinations before deciding this was the only thing he owned that was appropriate for a wedding.
“Where’s Percy?” Monty pushes himself to his feet, wincing when he puts too much weight on his bad leg. In spite of Felicity’s best efforts, the break never healed right, and most days he walks with a cane. The spate of summer storms that has sat stubbornly over Sussex for the past week has exacerbated his pain—and my anxiety that it would rain today. There’s not room in the house for everyone, no matter how small the crowd is, and any venue outside their own yard would have called the constabulatory. I resist the urge to check out the window once more to make sure storm clouds haven’t suddenly blown in from nowhere.
“I think he’s with George,” Felicity replies. “Why, do you need him?”
“God, no,” Monty says. “Isn’t it bad luck to see the bride before the wedding? Wait—am I the bride or the groom?”
“You’re both the grooms,” Felicity says. “And that’s a silly superstition. It doesn’t mean anything.”
As if on cue, Percy appears behind her in the doorway, his dark suit freshly pressed and noticeably free of holes. “Are you ready?”
Felicity shrieks and throws her arms up in front of him. The wine glasses she’s holding tinkle against each other like wind chimes. “What are you doing? It’s bad luck for you to see each other!”
“Aren’t you looking forward to when we get to do this for you?” Monty asks, poking me in the ribs as he passes. “Let him in, Felicity. Who believes in silly superstition, anyway?”
Felicity shuffles to the side and Percy enters. He’s got something cupped between his hands, so delicately I think for a moment it must be a baby bird nestled there. “I have something for you,” he says to Monty. “It may fall apart the moment you put it on. And you don’t have to. But I made it anyway. Nervous hands.” He smiles sheepishly, then opens his cupped palms to reveal a garland woven from meadow flowers.
Percy holds it out, but Monty doesn’t take it. He stares at the plait of tiny blossoms like he doesn’t know what they are.
“It’s a flower crown,” Percy prompts. “I made it for you. I’ve got one too.”
Still, Monty says nothing. Just goes on staring at the small piece of their meadow Percy has presented, rampion and ragwort and pimpernel gathered just for him.
The silence is uncharacteristic. Percy’s forehead crinkles. “You don’t have to wear it,” he says, just as Monty bursts into tears.
“He loves it,” Felicity says. “Now let’s get a move on.”
There isn’t an aisle, and they don’t walk down it. Instead, they’re suddenly there, silhouetted by the arched trees with the sun behind them. The assembled crowd falls silent. There are maybe twenty-five people in total, a few of whom I know, most I don’t.
“Do you think we could get away with something this intimate?” Louisa says to me as I flop down beside her on the blanket she’s spread for us.
“Only if you consider upward of five hundred guests intimate.”
She wrinkles her nose. “We’re still six months away, and I already want to scream at anyone who asks me my feelings about lilies.”
I kiss her on the nose, and she rests her head on my shoulder. Her hair is wrapped around her head in two soft plaits, and in her plain cotton dress and crowned in the golden light of the evening, she looks like a painting of a summer deity. Persephone in her mother’s garden, with the sun on her shoulders. I place my hand upon my knee, palm up, and she weaves our fingers together.
There seems to be some debate at the altar as to how this is meant to start. George, in a clean shirt and English breeches, though still stubbornly barefoot, is consulting the back of an envelope onto which he has presumably scribbled notes on officiating. “Dearly departed. Oh. No, wait that’s the . . .” He glances at Felicity in the front, who gives him the tiniest shake of the head. He tries again. “Dearly beloved.”
“That’s the one,” Louisa says under her breath, and I bite back a laugh.
“Dearly beloved,” George starts again, after an approving nod from Felicity. “We are gathered here today in the sight of God—oh shit, that part doesn’t really apply.” He consults his envelope again, then asks the crowd. “Does anyone have a pencil?”
Again, he catches Felicity’s eye, and she gives him a gesture that clearly says move on.
“Right. So. Not God. Sort of God—I don’t think he’d have anything against this, to be honest. But we’re here.” He looks up again from his notes, and seems to see Monty and Percy for the first time. His shoulders relax, and his face breaks into a smile so big his eyes crinkle, like there are no two people on earth he loves more. “To join these two in matrimony. And we don’t give a damn if it’s holy or not.”
“Please don’t be crass at my wedding,” Monty says. His dark hair is studded with splashes of color from the wildflower garland. A single stem of yarrow has come free and is dangling down over his ear.
“In lieu of scripture,” George says, as though he wasn’t interrupted, “Monty has requested I read an erotic poem.”
The assembly laughs and Monty goes fantastically red. He glares at George, mouth puckered mostly to keep himself from smiling. Percy has to turn away to conceal his laughter.
“Will you write me erotic poetry for our wedding night?” Louisa asks, biting my earlobe.
“If I haven’t any other deadlines to occupy me.”
She kisses my neck. “Just because you’re a famous political writer now—”
“Not famous.”
“Doesn’t mean you get to neglect my needs.”
“Your need for bawdy limericks written in your honor?”
She turns forward again, nose in the air. “Precisely.”
At the altar, the wedding party seems to have recovered their composure—Monty’s face is slightly less red, and George clears his throat, shaking out his sleeves. “All right, next. Next, you will both read the vows you wrote.”