She stayed where she was, but in her peripheral vision she could see him slipping off his jacket – one smooth motion, one step forward. Straightforward. Simple enough.
And if the change of subject had been abrupt, at least his approach was not; she could feel him there, just over her shoulder, his hands careful and light on the dress fastenings. Jemima let out her breath slowly as the clasps came undone, very still this time, and aware. He had opened more than two now, she thought; and she could feel her heartbeat echoing in her chest but she arched her neck slightly and tried to relax her posture in the hope that he wouldn’t notice it.
When he spoke again, a shiver traced its way down her spine – although this time she couldn’t tell if it was in apprehension or not. He had called her Jemima: and finally it felt like it was really her here, and not the woman called Miss Farley or Mrs. Greengrass she was pretending to be, a woman about whom everyone else seemed to know more than she did.
And it seemed that he was actually speaking to her now, honestly, and seemed a little less like they were insurmountably strangers. Perhaps if she did the same in her head, and stopped calling him Mr. Greengrass and started thinking of him as Fortitude – as Ford, as all his family had called him today – it would help.
Because they were married; he was asking her what she wanted. She swallowed – and she wasn’t sure how to answer, wasn’t even certain of what she was committing herself to, but she had half hoped that if this was going to be the rest of her life that she wouldn’t have to pretend about everything, to have keep lying about every facet of it. Her friends would continue asking about her marriage, after all, she couldn’t escape that – and it wasn’t as if she would ever get to experience a proper wedding night with anybody else, now. (She couldn’t let herself think about what might have been, with Jack – not when she had burned that bridge herself.) So it was tonight, and it was him – or would be, if he even wanted to.
“I don’t know,” she admitted, in a soft breath. A corner of her mouth quirked up a little, bashful or wry, as she glanced sidelong over her shoulder. “I’ve never been married before.”
And if the change of subject had been abrupt, at least his approach was not; she could feel him there, just over her shoulder, his hands careful and light on the dress fastenings. Jemima let out her breath slowly as the clasps came undone, very still this time, and aware. He had opened more than two now, she thought; and she could feel her heartbeat echoing in her chest but she arched her neck slightly and tried to relax her posture in the hope that he wouldn’t notice it.
When he spoke again, a shiver traced its way down her spine – although this time she couldn’t tell if it was in apprehension or not. He had called her Jemima: and finally it felt like it was really her here, and not the woman called Miss Farley or Mrs. Greengrass she was pretending to be, a woman about whom everyone else seemed to know more than she did.
And it seemed that he was actually speaking to her now, honestly, and seemed a little less like they were insurmountably strangers. Perhaps if she did the same in her head, and stopped calling him Mr. Greengrass and started thinking of him as Fortitude – as Ford, as all his family had called him today – it would help.
Because they were married; he was asking her what she wanted. She swallowed – and she wasn’t sure how to answer, wasn’t even certain of what she was committing herself to, but she had half hoped that if this was going to be the rest of her life that she wouldn’t have to pretend about everything, to have keep lying about every facet of it. Her friends would continue asking about her marriage, after all, she couldn’t escape that – and it wasn’t as if she would ever get to experience a proper wedding night with anybody else, now. (She couldn’t let herself think about what might have been, with Jack – not when she had burned that bridge herself.) So it was tonight, and it was him – or would be, if he even wanted to.
“I don’t know,” she admitted, in a soft breath. A corner of her mouth quirked up a little, bashful or wry, as she glanced sidelong over her shoulder. “I’ve never been married before.”
