28 March, 1888 — The Marital Bedroom [dun dun dun]
(AKA Devine Estate, Ireland)

And it's high time that you love me
'Cause you do it so well
If the former Miss Dippet could be said to have a forte, it might have been hosting elaborate social events; she had certainly made a name for herself in that realm despite the relative lack of experience her previously unmarried status had afforded her. If she were to have a second calling, it would doubtless be serving as the center of attention. Today she had been doing both, which was thrilling and elating. Reveling in her success (as a hostess, as a bride, and as a delightful young woman) had taken up almost all of her thoughts over the course of the afternoon. What little mental energies remained to her had been given over to a sort of nervous, giddy affection for her Mr. Devine. It was the sort of feeling that was too busy to go anywhere, or to even decide upon a direction — butterflies, not a dove or a swan or any other animal typically associated with love. The feeling in her chest was not a graceful emotion, and she was sure she was displaying little hints of it throughout the day in very ungraceful ways: giggling at nothing; smiling too wide; letting her attention drift off in his direction.

At the end of the day, however, she had given very little thought to the actual notion of what would happen next. She had been too frantically busy planning a wedding to spare a second glance towards what her life would be in the future, and she was quite relieved to have nothing at all to do with the planning of the honeymoon. Of course she knew that she would not be going home at the end of the day — not to Armando's house in London, at any rate — the fact had yet to really sink in in any sort of meaningful way. Even as the last few guests departed and her husband lead her to the bedroom she (they) would be sleeping in tonight, her mind was still mostly occupied by the celebration that had just taken place.

"All in all I think it went very well, don't you?" Ophelia tittered with a smile. "I shall be surprised if we are not the talk of the town the entire time we're away."

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   Roberto Devine

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Roberto had been a happy being for the entirety of the day. The only thing marring it somewhat had been the mild disapproval from his mother and the more obvious disapproval of his father. Luckily, both had behaved once the festivities had begun as he had known they would. Neither were keen to fully believe that the whole thing with the Puddlemere player was entirely innocent as Roberto mostly believed it to be. No matter what though, Roberto had not been amiable to post-poning the wedding. He would have had she still had the man attached to her and he could not truthfully say that he would not have forcefully removed him from her side. It was a little disturbing for him to realize that he had a ruthless side to his otherwise amiable personality.

Well, that was in the past now. Miss Dippet was now his bride. His very own dear Mrs. Devine. "Quite well, my dear wife," Roberto said. How his heart thrilled at calling her his wife! "You outdid yourself as I knew you would."

Someday, the Ireland estate would be their own but for now they both had no children and his parents were still quite spry. Roberto was looking forward to having the many children that he deeply desired to have. He had never truly enjoyed being an only child.

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   Ophelia Devine

Ophelia beamed at the praise, but it was nothing she was surprised to hear. The better part of it all was hearing him use the word wife. She had waited so long to become one (or at least it felt like it, from her perspective), and she couldn't imagine it happening any more perfectly than this. There had certainly been bumps along the road, and there were moments when she had doubted that this day would ever come. It had taken a long enough time to even be sure that she had his attentions and affections, and then there had been the betrothal that had forced her to run away from home, the ongoing awkwardness with Mr. Dawlish, culminating in his ultimate demise — and then, as though her life had not been melodramatic enough of late, the scandal with Mr. Bixby and Witch Weekly. This moment had been threatened more times than she could count, but now that it was here, no one and no thing could take it away from her.

"I'm so glad that we've finally come to that," she said with a giggle. "Husband and wife. Oh," she continued, noticing that her bags had been placed on one side of the room and a nightgown had been laid out already for her. "They've brought my things up. This is my room, then?" she asked, glancing around approvingly before she realized her mistake. "Our room," she corrected, with a deep flush.

  

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"I am quite in agreement," Roberto said in reply to his wifes words. He chuckled as he unfastened his cufflinks. "Yes. I hope it is to your liking?" Not that she would have much cause to be concerned about it past their wedding night. The next time it would be of concern to her would be when they took over residence of the estate which wouldn't be for at least a few years yet.

  

Oh, Merlin, he was undressing! It was only his cuff links, but it still brought into unavoidable focus what she had only just realized about sharing a room with him tonight. She flushed, but found the voice to answer his question, at least. "Yes, of course. It's all wonderful." And it was; everything about it was perfect.

Wasn't someone supposed to have warned her about tonight? She knew enough about what was going to happen to know that married girls typically got a talk from someone before their wedding night, but she had never received such a thing. Of course, there was no one to give it; she had no living female relations, and Armando would never have considered a thing. Armando had forgotten about her debut, until she had reminded him that she needed one, and she was hardly going to remind him about this! She supposed she could have asked Nova what it was like, but the truth was that it had entirely slipped her mind until this moment, in all of the bustle of planning the wedding.

"Uhm," she said with another deep flush as she glanced down at her dress. "Is there — a room for me to change in? Or a changing screen, perhaps?" She couldn't be meant to just change into her night gown in font of him, could she?

  

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”There should be a powder room right through there that you can change in,” Roberto said after a moment of confusion, pointing out a small door that one might miss if they weren’t entirely looking for it. It was meant for a woman so he had completely forgotten about it. Roberto’s mother had mentioned something about how the former Miss Dippet likely didn’t have anyone to speak to her about the expectations of a wedding night. Was that going to fall to him? While he wasn’t exactly a stranger to sex, it was quite decidedly different when it was a woman he loved dearly and not someone he was just looking to have a bit of carnal fun with! He was entirely out of his depth.

Hopefully she was just being shy.

  

Oh, thank the stars, a powder room! She was relieved, and then wondered if it was silly of her to have ever expected there to not be a room meant for her to change in. Was she showing off her middle class upbringing by being ignorant of how a proper ladies' bedroom was laid out? Her room at Armando's had been self-contained and hadn't included a changing room, but she had also never had a ladies' maid before — at least, not a proper one with a proper title, anyway. Maybe everything was different for wealthy married ladies, and she had no idea. There hadn't been any examples of it in Armando's house, after all, and she could hardly use her mother (who had ended up dead after a stint in an asylum) as a reference on that point. What if she was doing everything wrong?

"Excuse me, then," she said quickly as she grabbed the things she would need to change and ducked through the doorway. She took longer than she might have to undress, partly because the dress was complicated and she'd had a long day already, but partly because she was using the time as double-duty to reassure herself. She had been to finishing school, after all, and what was the point of that if not to come away finished? Mrs. Pendergast would not have allowed her to debut if she hadn't possessed the skills necessary to make someone a fine wife, in the upper crust of society. She wasn't making a fool of herself. All of this was normal — and Roberto loved her, and probably would have overlooked a fault or two if she had been erring already. If there were little challenges along the way, or unexpected hurdles, she would just have to learn how to overcome them, and that was all.

After finally regaining her self confidence (and assuring herself that she looked lovely in her nightgown, with her dark curls arranged just so over her shoulders), she took a deep breath and re-entered the room. "I'm ready," she said brightly, as if the awkward moment of uncertainty before had never happened.

She wasn't ready, but she didn't know that, yet.

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   Roberto Devine

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Roberto got himself into his nightshirt and did the other things that a Victorian Era man did before getting ready to go to bed with their wife for the first time. This was.. awkward. Then again, he had also never been married before so maybe this was normal?

Then she entered the room and she was beautiful. The phrase 'she took his breath away' came quite true for him in that moment and he smiled at her as he beckoned for her to come over to him. "You look lovely, Mrs. Devine," he said. He had been waiting a long while to be able to kiss her again.

  

Ophelia approached with some degree of trepidation, but was rather relieved when the gesture lead to a kiss. Kissing she knew she could handle. It had been almost a year ago that she'd been kissed for the first time by her husband, and there had been a few stolen moments since. She was by no means an expert, but at least she trusted herself not to become an embarrassment. The rest of the night, however, was largely an unknown, and she was quite content to just keep kissing Mr. Devine until he brought up the subject of transitioning towards anything else.

  

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Roberto took his time to enjoy simply kissing his wife. It was still a wonder to him which he supposed was a given considering it was his wedding night. "Why don't we get on the bed?" He suggested after a moment. Comfort was the important part, he was thinking.

  

Ophelia hesitated. Did he mean, simply, what he said? She could handle sitting down on the top of the sheets and continuing to kiss, but she had a suspicion that perhaps there was more to his suggestion than she was comprehending, and she felt once again paralyzed by the conviction that she was about to make an utter fool of herself. What was she supposed to do next? Was she supposed to be... seductive? She didn't even know where to start. Was she eventually going to have to take her nightgown off, or would the deed be done while she was still in her current state of undress? She had no idea whatsoever.

Her hands flitted down to her nightgown and she picked at the fabric nervously, not sure whether she ought to be taking it off or not. Her nerves finally got the better of her and she decided on not, instead just climbing onto the top of the sheets and towards the top of the bed. With pillows on either side of her, she felt very small — this bed was larger than the one she'd had at Armando's, and nearly double what she had been used to sleeping in when she had been growing up in her father's house — and more uncertain than ever.

"What happens next?" she blurted, too nervous to continue on in silence.

  

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Roberto chuckled at his wifes question as he joined her. Smiling down at her, he brushed a strand of her hair back from her forehead. "Next, I will fully make you my wife but I want you to be as comfortable as possible," Roberto stated, moving so that she could be slightly tucked against him. "You're my wife, at last, my love." He was still buzzing with adrenaline from that fact.

  

The cryptic answer may have been sweet, but it wasn't particularly helpful. On the other hand, a thorough and detailed description of what was to follow might not have been any more use in soothing her bustling nerves. Even if he told her exactly what was going to happen, was that going to prepare her for it to actually happen? She had no idea.

There was some comfort, at least, in the way that he approached her. His touch was gentle, and his words were reassuring. He loved her, and wanted her to be comfortable — and they had been waiting so long for this moment.

"Alright," she said, a little breathless already. Even so, her tone was a little more sure than it had been a moment ago, a little more confident. "Alright — I'm ready."

  

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