“What?” Monty looks from George to Percy. “No, we don’t . . . no. Wait. We said we weren’t doing those! You”—he points an accusatory finger at Percy—“said I didn’t have to write anything, I just had to show up! Did you write something? Oh my God!” He shrieks as Percy reaches into the pocket of his jacket and pulls out a folded piece of paper. “You bastard, you wrote something?”
“I didn’t want you to stress over it,” Percy says.
“Son of a bitch.”
“I thought you’d prefer to come up with something on the spot.”
“Goddammit, Percy, I’m going to murder you.”
“See, that’s perfect.”
Percy starts to unfold the paper, but Monty grabs it, crumpling it between their hands. “No no, you don’t get to read your thoughtful shite first! I’ll look like even more of an idiot.”
“All right, you go first, then.”
Monty takes a deep breath, then another, at a loss for words for perhaps the first time in his life. “What do I have to say?” he asks, looking to George, who shrugs, then back to Percy.
“You don’t have to say anything,” Percy replies.
“Well, yes, I know that, but then I look like an insensitive twat who didn’t write his own wedding vows, though in my defense,” and here he addresses the crowd, “he told me we weren’t doing these.”
Percy unfolds Monty’s fist from around the crumpled vows, then takes his hand. “Just tell me you love me,” he says. “That’s more than enough.”
There’s a shared supper after the ceremony, which I excuse myself from and instead spend some time alone in the upstairs guestroom of the cottage. I take a pinch of the snuff—Felicity’s newest formulation, and though she has yet to make a judgment on its effectiveness, I swear it helps—and lie on the bed, breathing deeply and repeating to myself, Everyone here is kind and talking with them cannot hurt you, followed by but it’s still all right you’re nervous; it doesn’t have to make sense or be talked down by rational thinking. It’s a difficult balancing act. Harder to make myself believe it.
When I return to the yard, my brain feels less fuzzy. With supper finished, the wedding has become a proper party. Candles have been lit in the trees and ribbons strung between the branches. A pair of musicians Percy knows from his days of playing in quartets has started a lively jig, and, at the table, George is dividing champagne among mismatched glasses. I look around for Lou, wondering whether she already has a drink for me or I should take one, when someone touches my arm lightly. “Excuse me.”
I turn. A man who looks about my brother’s age is standing at my elbow, handsome in a bookish way, with spectacles framing startlingly blue eyes. He smiles, suddenly bashful, and ducks his head. “I’m sorry to bother you, but . . . are you Adrian Montague?”
I fight to corral my thoughts, like a sheepdog trying to manage a flock, keeping strays from wandering down fatalistic paths. “Yes. Do we know each other?”
“No—but I’ve read all your political pamphlets.”
“Oh God, have you?” I feel myself blush. I’m still growing accustomed to the fact that they are now published, and distributed, under my name. He’s not going to start arguing with you, I tell myself. And he’s not going to correct your spelling.
The gentleman flushes too, though his seems to be more in delight than embarrassment. “Yes! I happened to be visiting the House of Lords last year when Edward Davies read your piece on workhouse reform, and it moved me to tears. I’ve read everything you’ve written since.”
Don’t apologize. Don’t point out your flaws. Just say— “Thank you.”
God, it takes so much effort. But I do it.
“It’s such a relief to know there are men like you in the House of Lords,” he says.
“I’m not in the House yet,” I reply, though he waves that triviality away.
In the year since our return from abroad, my father’s health has deteriorated, and at the beginning of the summer, he surrendered his seat in Parliament to me, that long-ago drafted writ of acceleration finally signed by all parties, including me. I haven’t sat a session yet—the next one doesn’t begin until November. My father is staying in Cheshire, and Lou and I have taken up residence in the London townhouse. If my father knows we are living in unwedded sin, he’s chosen not to mention it, same as he has chosen to never mention Edward’s now-infamous reading of my pamphlet in the House of Lords, during which one of the Tory leaders actually swooned. It will have to be made official eventually, and there have already been rumblings about the new young Whigs, with their unwed partners and short queues. Father wants it to be a grand affair, a wedding befitting his only son. And I suppose Lou and I will go along with it, though, as I watched Monty and Percy exchange rings, I thought maybe I would steal her away for our own private celebration before the big to-do.
“When Mr. Davies first read your name,” the spectacled gentleman says, “I remember thinking, now that young man can’t possibly be from the same Montague family I know. And yet here you stand!” He reaches out, and I take his hand and let him shake it vigorously. He has a sincere enthusiasm that I suspect is not reserved simply for politics, but could be just as easily ignited by a well-buttered crumpet, though that doesn’t make it matter less. I have been compared to far worse than a buttered crumpet by the London political rags. Louisa and Edward have forbidden me from reading any critiques of my pamphlets, but I have anyway. It’s difficult not to take every criticism as an arrow, no matter who lobs it. A column in the Spectator printed side by side with my latest work even called attention to my overuse of the phrase simply put, which sent me to bed, despondent, for days, vowing I’d never write anything again. But then I got up. And I did. And I am. And when I asked Edward if it ever got easier to have such things written about you, he laughed and replied, “No, but eventually you learn to trust your opinion of yourself more than other people’s.”
The gentleman gives my hand one last shake in both of his. “Should you ever find yourself in Vienna, please call upon me. I’m serving there as a diplomat.”
“Did you come all the way here just for this wedding?” I ask.
“Of course,” he says, surprised by my surprise. “I wouldn’t miss it.” On the other side of the meadow, the two string musicians each begin playing different songs, stop, and laugh at their error. The man’s eyes dart over my shoulder, and he holds up a finger of one moment to someone before turning back to me. “I shan’t take up any more of your time. Thank you for letting me fawn. Good luck in Parliament this fall. I will be cheering for you from the Continent.”
“Thank you. Oh.” He stops when I call him back. “I didn’t catch your name.”
“Westfall. Sinjon Westfall. Monty and I went to Eton together many years ago.” He smiles fondly to where Monty and Percy are standing together in the middle of the dance floor that’s also a meadow, up to their knees in wildflowers and their eyes only for each other. “It’s good to see your brother married at last,” Westfall says. “I suspect he’s received fewer congratulations and more sentiments of about bloody time.” He reaches across the table and retrieves two glasses of champagne. “For my friend,” he says, indicating the second, then corrects himself. “Husband.” He smiles. “Force of habit. A pleasure to meet you, Adrian.”