8 March, 1894 — Ford & Jemima's Honeymoon Room, Sanditon Resort

"Two-fourteen — this is it," he muttered to her in the hallway outside their room, as he fumbled to fit the key in the lock. It was just the two of them now, and Ford had felt his nerves climb this evening each time the group size had been reduced. He'd thought he'd been nervous before, during the wedding and the reception, but then there had at least been outlets for the nerves in the form of other people to talk to. As their friends had departed in small groups the pool of available distractions had shrunk; smaller still when his family left. Ford had thought being at the Farley residence with only her and some of her family would have been unbearable, but then when they'd switched the Farleys for the desk attendant at the hotel he'd realized he was even capable of missing that. He did not think any of the Farleys liked him or ever would, but they had committed to being polite, and he could fill the air with polite conversation while she said her goodbyes and both of them could be preoccupied with something other than each other. At the front desk he could focus on talking to the hotel clerk, but there was nothing for her to do but observe the conversation, and he was keenly aware of her attention. And now, of course, he'd lost even the flimsy shield of the desk attendant; now it was just the two of them in the hallway, and all night it would be just the two of them together in the room.

He had been fighting the urge to say ridiculous things ever since they'd left the lobby, just to fill the air. He knew it was driven by the nerves, and knew if he gave in to any of these impulses he would probably only make himself look ridiculous (and while he did not expect her to like him, he did think he would prefer if she didn't think him ridiculous). I heard the Head Auror met his wife at the Sanditon hurricane, he had nearly blurted on the stairs, but presumably the Head Auror had effected a very dashing and heroic rescue of some sort during the event that had swept the lady off her feet, and Ford certainly had done nothing of the kind, so it was probably best not to invite comparison. Do you speak any Mermish? They have sirens here, was another thing he'd stopped himself from saying. Obviously, Jemima nee Farley did not speak any Mermish. Ford did, but wouldn't have wanted to mention it for fear that she would ask him to say something — there were few things less appealing than the sound of Mermish spoke above water. This was your father's suggestion — do you like it here? he had nearly asked, before thinking better of it: Mr. Farley's suggestions during the engagement period had been nothing but practical, and he had probably suggested the Sanditon for no other reason than it was easy to book on short notice at this time of year — and if she didn't know that her father had recommended it, he thought telling her would maybe only be salt in the wound.

Now they were inside. Ford had held the door open for her and closed it once she'd entered. Their things had been sent ahead, and apparently unpacked by someone from the hotel, so there was nothing to do except —

"Oh, there's a chaise," Ford said with obvious relief. Which might have been mortifying, except the alternative — the thing he had kept himself from saying — was so much worse: Are we actually going to sleep with each other?

He had been thinking a lot about the question.

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@"Jemima Farley"

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   Jemima Greengrass

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Set by Lady!

A strange jittery sensation had come over her when they had left for the Sanditon: a fuzzy tingling through all her limbs, her arms and legs, her fingers and toes; an odd mindless buzzing in her brain. Like pins-and-needles, sharp and incessant and uncomfortable, and if this was nervousness, it was a level she had never experienced before.

Perhaps it would wear off when they reached the room, Jemima had supposed, only when she thought about that she of course could not avoid imagining what came next – and the details of that were just as fuzzy in her head. She let out a breath, trying to dispel all uncertainty from her head – she was married, he was here, there was no way back now, and no control to be had. All she could do, apparently, was twist the new ring mindlessly on her finger, and cast surreptitious glances at him when he was occupied with other things to try and measure how unhappy he was.

“Thank you,” she murmured, as he held the door. Upon entering the room Jemima made a beeline for the window without really meaning to, as though she might admire the view or find a conversation to spark about it. But it was already dark outside, and although she could hear the waves she could scarcely see a thing. So, probably too late for a stroll – nowhere else to go tonight. She wished she had eaten less during the day; she was too stuffed to think of eating anything else now. So she supposed that left going to bed, and... whatever happened before that.

Which was remarking on the furniture, it seemed. She turned back towards him at the chaise comment, glancing at it in mild bemusement and then up at him, questioning. (There was the chaise – but more glaringly, there was, in the corner of her eye wherever she looked, also the bed.) “Yes,” she agreed, hesitant. “Can I use it a moment?” Jemima asked, although once it was out she decided it was a ridiculous question – he might be her husband now, but presumably he would not mind if she took brief possession of the chaise simply because he had mentioned it first. So she sat, and leant down to relieve her feet, which were a little squished and sore from the new shoes. “I just – need to take off these shoes.”

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The way she responded to his observation about the chaise told him she had not been thinking about this question as fervently as he had. Ford had been fretting, earlier this week, over whether or not there would be a chaise — she, apparently, had never considered it until he'd pointed it out. Did that mean he had an answer to the question he'd kept himself from asking? He'd worried over the existence of the chaise because he had imagined a future where they didn't sleep together tonight and he needed alternative sleeping arrangements while he ceded the bed to her; the chaise was preferable to the floor. But if she hadn't thought of it, presumably she expected that they would be sleeping together?

He had not allowed himself any expectations on the subject, only nerves. He'd thought through it from every angle prior to tonight, because he couldn't prevent himself from worrying about it. He still didn't know why she'd told people she was engaged a month before their coatroom incident; it seemed entirely likely she was already pregnant. So he'd thought, at one point, that maybe he'd better not touch her until he knew for sure whether or not that was the case — but then he'd thought, well, what good would that be? With the rumors about them the way they were it wasn't as though he could have broken their engagement on the grounds that she'd been with somebody else, and now they were married; it was hardly going to make any difference now. So maybe it was better not to know — maybe better to do it, so that he could have a reasonable lie to tell himself if she did have a child seven months from now. If it wouldn't make any difference practically, why burden himself with the knowledge? But ultimately he recognized that it wasn't simply a decision he could make in a vacuum, to do it or not to do it. If she wasn't comfortable with it, he certainly had no desire to push the issue... so the ball had been in her court, and he hadn't allowed himself to suppose it would come down on one side or the other, which meant he'd had to fret about both eventualities.

But she didn't seem to recognize the significance of having a chaise; she was using it to take her shoes off. So either she expected him to be in the bed or she had not bothered to consider — but probably the former. So they were doing this, probably.

"Yeah," he said as he moved to the opposite edge of the room to remove his own shoes (leaning one hand against the wall, since she had the chaise). "You looked very pretty today."

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Set by Lady!

Her fingers were clumsy with her shoes, and she was already conscious of her heartbeat – as if it were tapping right up against her ribcage – but at least she was able to bow her head for a moment to try and settle herself, concentrating hard until the shoes were off.

And it felt like a small relief to sit for a moment after such an involved afternoon, but Jemima supposed she shouldn’t get too comfortable, particularly not if he wanted the chaise. Instead, she scooped up the shoes and moved to the wardrobe, opening one of its doors and tucking them into a space on the bottom shelf. But – her trunk had already been unpacked for her, and her gaze stalled briefly on some of the other new garments hanging there. Amongst them, a pristine new nightdress: finer and more elegant than any she had possessed before.

She supposed she should sleep in it, but how she was supposed to accomplish this, she wasn’t sure. Ought she change into it now, or was that something for after? And, for that matter, should she retreat somewhere to change, or was that supposed to be part and parcel of it? Her mother had neglected to give her any firm opinions on the matter – indeed, her mother had not given her much practically useful information at all. The coatroom incident had done its damage in more ways than one: everyone, whether directly, like Mrs. Dempsey, or indirectly, by gaping omissions, by what they didn’t say, obviously supposed she was already too familiar with matters that should be reserved for marriage.

And here she was, married with no idea what to do with herself, and memory of the coatroom had only made the prospect of undressing again in front of him more fraught for her. So Jemima was almost thankful for his remark to draw her attention across the room again, though it also made her suddenly self-conscious. She cast him a sheepish smile, because he had to say that just to be polite, didn’t he? It didn’t mean he believed it; it was just a kindness. The expected thing. (Still, she thought – maybe there was something to be said that he had made the effort to say it? He could just as easily have said nothing. So he was – trying.)

Jemima exhaled, all too aware of the warmth creeping up her neck and into her cheeks. “Thank you. So did –” (no, that wasn’t what she had meant to say; why wasn’t her mind working properly anymore?) “I mean, your suit’s very nice. It – suits you.” Merlin.

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His compliment had been meant as a something of a transition, taking the first step from mundane chatter about the room in the hotel lobby to what would come next, but when she pointed out his suit in response his resolve wavered. He couldn't really go through with this, could he? He had been in Tycho's arms that morning. He was wearing Tycho's suit. If he kissed her tonight he would be kissing her in Tycho's suit — and yes, technically he'd already done that once today, but that hadn't been a real kiss. Even if he tried to squash his emotional reservations he wasn't even sure if he could — he might be sick. And she did look very pretty today, with her fine gown and her hair done up and everything, but he still didn't really know her, much less love her.

He swallowed. "Thanks, it's — Greer did a good job," he fumbled. Even this felt a bit like a betrayal, because Greer hadn't done anything except change the color. "It's the nicest suit I have. I didn't really think I'd wear it again. It used to be white," he explained. None of these were details she cared about, probably, but with the slip of his resolve he seemed to have also at least temporarily lost the ability to keep himself from overtalking.

"Did the Minister talk to you on your own, before the service?" he asked suddenly. "I wasn't sure if he does that with everyone or if I was getting some kind of special 'reformed rake' treatment. Or — you know. Rakes that need encouragement to reform, I guess," he said with a helpless shrug.

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Set by Lady!

She might have asked kept talking about the suit, as he had – it must have been for some particular occasion, for whoever ordinarily wore white suits? – but he pivoted unexpectedly to the vicar. She gave a little smile of bewilderment, wondering where he was going with it – and a little internally mortified that he was getting lectured by anyone for being a rake when he hadn’t so much as kissed her that night.

Or tonight, yet – but perhaps kissing was entirely its own thing, and not actually a necessary part of what ought to happen tonight. (She had kissed people outside of marriage and nothing bad had ever really come of it, after all – kissing had always seemed rather harmless. But maybe that was part of the problem; maybe she had been endangering her reputation even then, and this fall came well-deserved.)

“Only a little – about the service, and the duties of marriage,” she said, in the be faithful and obey your husband sort of manner, but he had not said a great deal to her directly, and he had not lectured her outright about her behaviour: either he had left such reproaches to her parents (and her parents had not been parsimonious with those), or – Jemima considered, with a sinking feeling – perhaps he hadn’t bothered because a ruined woman, a well-known hussy, was simply past all reform, past being saved? She let out a small giggle, entirely in spite of herself; a nonsensical laugh, borne out of nerves. “Why?” she asked, biting her lip. “What did he say to you?”

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He was relieved that at least the vicar had spoken to her to some extent, and not only singled Ford out for his pre-wedding admonishments... or he would have been, anyway, but the way she had giggled put him even more on edge. If he'd thought she was laughing at the situation then he might have laughed along with her, might have shrugged and agreed yes, it's all so entirely ridiculous, but he wasn't sure she was laughing at the situation they had jointly found themselves in. He wasn't exactly sure what she was laughing at, and there was something in the way she'd done it that made him concerned it was the sort of hysterical laughter that was only a few seconds ahead of breaking down in tears. But he didn't know her well enough to know how to prevent her from having a breakdown if that was the way she was headed, so he supposed there was nothing much to do except carry on and endeavor to weather whatever happened next.

"I don't know," Ford admitted. "It's like he was talking in code and I didn't have the cipher. Maybe if I went to services more often it would have made sense." Growing up their family had been the special-occasions sort of attendees at the parish church, Easter and Christmas and the weddings of distant relations, but since entering adulthood the habit had fallen by the wayside. He'd never bothered visiting the church in Hogsmeade, when they'd moved in the wake of their father's death — he'd had bigger problems to worry about at the time than making nice with everyone on Easter Sunday.

"I think the thrust of it might have been grow up," he speculated. "Or — transitions, maybe. There was a bit about childish things. That's what made me think maybe it was about the rumors, if he thought I needed someone to — y'know, tell me to stop, uh, committing all the sins of my youth, or whatever," Ford said with a helpless shrug. "But he said some other things, too — I don't know if I remember. It probably wasn't as much of an impact as he was hoping. Are you going to be able to get out of that on your own?" he asked abruptly, with a gesture to mean the dress. "Or do you need me to do something? Not that it's — just thought I'd ask so you're not just, you know, trapped there because there's a clasp you can't reach, or something, while I'm just — rambling."

He certainly didn't want her to get the impression that he was rushing her — he was in no hurry to have her undressed, at all — but he was also distinctly aware that if he didn't do something he might never be able to stop himself talking.

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Set by Lady!

He seemed to be keen on talking about this, even if he said the discussion hadn’t made an impact on him – but all Jemima could wonder about him during this was whether he was a rake or not, whether he had committed all sorts of sins in his youth. They hadn’t, obviously, but there had certainly been rumours about him courting – or flirting with courting – a young lady already. Which didn’t mean anything by itself, of course – he might have been perfectly respectable, until Jemima had dashed his reputation by her untimely presence in that room. Or he had been off committing sins just before he’d come through the Floo. She wasn’t sure which prospect was more likely, but she supposed she would find out tonight. It would probably be apparent, she imagined, if he was more studied at, well, ‘wedding nights’ than her.

(But – if she looked for some bright side – at least someone would know what they were supposed to do from here?)

And maybe he had done this plenty of times before, but he had changed the topic forcefully enough to give her whiplash, and the topic of his rambling had not been making her any more relaxed before it, so when he asked about her dress every muscle in Jemima’s body was tense. “Um,” she wavered.

Once her mind unfroze, she fancied she probably could manage most of it herself tonight. But, mortifying as the thought of letting him help was, it would be even more humiliating if she disappeared to the bathroom and got panicked and stuck on some unfastening, and had to come back out in the same graceless state of half-undressed disarray as in the coatroom. So although she didn’t want to, Jemima managed a quick, false smile to steel herself (– grow up, Jemima, wasn’t that what marriage entailed –) and said, “I think there’s, um, just one or two at the back that are a little fiddly to reach. If you don’t mind.” Jemima hadn’t done it up herself, but her sisters and mother helping her to dress this morning suddenly felt like a very long time ago.

She swivelled slightly on the spot to illustrate where, feeling herself already holding her breath at the thought of him stepping over to undo the clasp. Stupidly, really, because they had already as good as been here before. Maybe this was supposed to be the easy bit.

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She said um and froze for a second, and Ford regretted having asked. He had come into tonight not sure if they were going to actually sleep together or not, not sure what she expected or what she preferred, and now he found himself leaping wildly from one conclusion to another. She had not recognized the significance of having a chaise in the room, so she had been expecting him to sleep in the bed; but she had seized up at the mention of getting out of her wedding dress, so maybe she was dreading it. And merlin, the last thing he wanted to do was give her the impression that he was eager for something she was not keen on. Maybe he ought to just tell her that, but he also didn't want to give her the impression that he was dreading it, if she was ambivalent — that was a recipe for decimating her self esteem, wasn't it? And it wasn't as though this was her fault. If they were assigning blame for the engagement then he really had to take the lion's share for himself, and it wasn't as though she was at all unappealing, in that sense. She had looked very pretty today; it wasn't just something he had said.

There were a few clasps, she admitted. He nodded and took off his suit jacket, laying it over the back of a chair while he made his way across the room to her. (This had, by the by, achieved his secondary goal of silencing his stream-of-consciousness babbling). He slowed as he neared her, visibly hesitant. Moving into the space behind her and finding the right fasteners was like a slow-motion dance; she might not have moved, but he felt the same trepidation as he had when he was new to society and worried about stepping on someone's feet. The clasps came undone easily enough, and he did two more for good measure — in case he had guessed incorrectly which ones had been 'fiddly' — before he paused.

If they were going to sleep together tonight, this would have been a good moment to touch her. Her neck was bare and he was close enough to kiss her there; his hands were already on the back of her bodice.

"...Jemima," he said — this was the first time he had used her first name, and he felt the weight of having said it, like something had shifted and would never go back now. "What do you want, from tonight?"

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Set by Lady!

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.”

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That startled him into a soft laugh. "Me either," he agreed. Which went without saying, obviously, but really he was agreeing to what he perceived to be the sentiment underlying it: perhaps we ought to lower all our expectations, in light of the circumstances. And it did seem a relief to think she might not be pinning all of the hopes and dreams she had ever had about her wedding on him — it was an awfully tall order to fill, even for someone who wasn't already in love with someone else, like he was. He dropped his hands down from her laces and rested them, almost experimentally, on her hips.

He still didn't know if he could do this, but having his hands on her gave him some confidence in that area. He may not have seen her properly undressed yet but he knew her body would have nothing in common with Tycho's, and if he focused on the physical aspects of her he thought maybe the novelty could carry him through. But just because he could didn't mean that they should.

"We don't have to," he said softly. "If you don't want. We're going to be married the rest of our lives. We've got plenty of time. And no one will know what happens tonight except us," he pointed out. "If you'd rather wait until we're not strangers anymore..."

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Set by Lady!

His quiet laugh helped too, she thought, to feel more at ease; her slight smile didn’t falter yet, not even when he moved his hands down to her sides. She was conscious of it, but it wasn’t at all unpleasant.

And he was giving her a choice she hadn’t been sure she would have. Jemima had supposed it would be his choice, one way or the other – to affirm their marriage ties as was his right, if induced by the weight of expectation and the things people already believed. Or he would have no intention or desire to ever touch her at all, for the rest of their lives; and that had oddly almost felt like the worse option.

But he had given her another open-ended option, and at once she decided this was another reason to like him. He was right: no one would know. They had time. There was a great appeal in it – she might find more reasons to be fond of him, given time. Jemima exhaled. On the other hand, she worried waiting might yet get the better of her. The nerves of today alone had been overwhelming enough, and she had never been much good at stifling anxieties, let alone anxieties of some great looming unknown to come, at some uncertain date. (And how long would he want to wait? Another few days of their honeymoon? Until they were back at the house, with other people around them all the time? A year? Forever?)

So she didn’t pull away from his hands, but shifted in his hold, turning to face him instead just to see how daunting it felt to be this close. She tilted up her chin a fraction; he was a tiny bit taller than Jack. It didn’t feel so daunting now. “I don’t mind,” she offered, just as softly. “It can be tonight.” Maybe it was better just to have it over with so all the pressure was gone – so they wouldn’t be strangers anymore.

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   Fortitude Greengrass

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His heart was pounding as she turned to face him. He was very aware of how her skirt moved beneath his hands as she turned, very aware that part of what he was feeling beneath his fingers were the contours of her hips themselves. He had never really been this close to a woman before. Physically he had, of course — physically he had been this close to her before, in the coatroom. But metaphorically they were on the cusp of diving into a place Ford had never been before, and — he was all nerves, in spite of what he'd thought a moment ago about how perhaps they ought to both lower their expectations. Because if they were going to sleep together tonight it was important; it set the tone for everything else that followed, didn't it? So if they were going to do it he wanted to do it right, and — and a little over twelve hours ago he had still been wrapped up in Tycho's arms, and probably that shouldn't have mattered but he kept thinking about it anyway.

But he was here now, with her, and he wanted to get this right. She had tilted her head up towards his and her eyes were dark and soft and this was going to be the rest of his life and he wanted to get it right.

Be here, with her, he told himself. He moved one hand up to the side of her face and moved his lips to hers. Her skin was soft; her mouth was soft. She was solid enough beneath his hands but he had the feeling that he was holding something fragile, something that needed to be treated with care. Maybe it was the moment that was fragile, more than her. She tasted of champagne from the reception. When Tycho kissed him he could feel the craving in it, the passion, the need. She did not kiss him like she wanted him — but he did not think he could fault her for that. (Comparisons would benefit him not at all, he recognized; he ought to stay focused on the sensations themselves, stay grounded in the moment, stay present, but — it was hard not to be reminded, when he'd only ever done this with Tycho for the past two years).

He pulled back and offered her a shy smile. "Alright," he said. "I'll — give you a few minutes to change? I'm afraid I'll tear the lace," he admitted. Not that he planned to be especially rough with her clothes, or anything, but the lace looked especially delicate. He had no experience whatsoever with lace clothing; he didn't know if it really was as fragile as it looked, but since Greer had done them a favor by making the dress on short order he wasn't eager to find out.

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Set by Lady!

Her breath hitched as he put a hand to her face, but Jemima was almost less nervous in that moment – because it meant it really could be tonight, if he was actually willing to kiss her. (Not just in obligation at the ceremony, not just as something to be said for show.)

And he was being very gentle with her. In theory this wasn’t a problem at all, but it did make Jemima very conscious of herself. Because – firstly – kissing him back felt like a betrayal of Jack (whom she had kissed enough times to make it feel like second nature), and secondly she was worried about giving him, Ford, the wrong impression. She didn’t want to seem too eager or too... unchaste; so she was afraid to let herself melt into it as if it had been an ordinary kiss.

At least (?) she would not need to feign shyness with the rest of this: anything else was entirely new. She had been given an instruction, in any case, so the next few minutes were accounted for. “Alright,” she echoed, heartbeat still fluttering too fast, but she smiled back. “I’ll – be right back.” She tugged the new nightdress down from where it was hanging, and ducked into the adjoining bathroom. She looked at herself in the mirror as if she were a stranger – pressing her hands to her cheeks to feel how warm she was; tracing her fingers over her lips where he had just kissed her, as if she could make herself used to it by sheer contemplation.

But she oughtn’t take too long in here, or she might lose the courage she had. So – one thing at a time. Jemima swallowed, and started undressing in earnest. Carefully, she shrugged off her bodice, stepped out of her skirts. She fumbled on the corset clasps as she undid them from the front, perched on the edge of the bathtub to pull off her stockings, and by the time she’d pulled the nightdress over her head she was trembling a little – from nerves or from anticipation. Or perhaps the goosebumps on her skin were only from the lack of layers, from feeling newly exposed. She looked critically at herself again in the mirror now. The nightgown was of lighter, thinner, floatier fabric than her cotton ones – she could see the natural shapes of her body by how it fell on her. There was some lace and embroidered decoration around the neckline, and a bit of ribbon at the back, her arms left bare.

She should do something about her hair. It felt rather a shame to ruin it when he said she had looked pretty today, but – she wouldn’t be able to sleep in it like this, so she teased out the pins, watching the curls fall out of place. She twined a few strands of it back from around her face, just to look a little more presentable – but how presentable could she really be, ready for bed?

Was he ready yet? Jemima counted a few seconds more, hovering in the doorway, and then, uncertainly, stepped out to see. “Hi,” she said, awkwardly, to announce her presence; she felt herself blushing again.

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The fact that she had smiled at him after he'd kissed her made him giddier than it should have. Probably it was only because he had been so nervous leading up to this, so convinced that he would somehow ruin things... his stomach had already been fluttering with nerves, so any positive development was likely to mask the same base feeling as butterflies. He could explain it away very easily — but he still felt guilty about it, as she left the room.

Not for long, though, because after she departed he was faced with a more pressing dilemma: what to do with himself. He needed to get out of Tycho's suit, obviously, but what was he meant to put on instead? He'd seen her grab a night dress on her way to the lavatory and he had packed pajamas, but it felt silly to put on clothing knowing he'd be taking it off so soon. Though obviously he couldn't just undress and wait for her; having her walk in to see him naked would have been the height of embarrassment, especially if she wasn't expecting him to undress. So instead he ended up in undergarments — which took considerably less time than whatever she was doing in the lavatory. He took the time to put all the pieces of Tycho's suit away in the wardrobe where his things had been unpacked, so that he wouldn't see it again tonight... and then he removed the amulet Tycho had given him and tucked it into the bottom of the wardrobe as well. It wouldn't have gotten in the way of anything — Ty had always worn it regardless of what they were doing — but he didn't feel up to answering questions about it if his wife noticed and asked, not when the sting of the parting where Ty had given it to him was still so fresh.

Finally, she returned. Ford turned with a shy smile towards the lavatory door. He was taken aback by her appearance. She was hardly recognizable as the same woman who'd gone in. He'd never seen her with her hair down before, obviously, and he didn't think he'd ever seen anyone in something like what she was wearing. It was nothing like the night gowns his sisters wore at home; it looked soft and inviting, and he immediately had the desire to touch it. That's probably the point, he realized, and felt newly self-conscious at the idea that she (or someone assembling her trousseau) had chosen this for his benefit.

"Hi," he echoed. "You look..." He didn't know what word to put to it. He'd already told her once that she looked pretty today and didn't want to recycle the word, and anyway it wasn't quite the right one. Flowers could be pretty — she was not so much like a flower right now as she was like the scent of freshly baked bread; appetizing was the adjective that actually came to mind, but he didn't imagine she would appreciate that one. (He had never been the poet). The blush on her cheeks only compounded it, and the hesitancy of her step — like she was waiting for him to guide her or reassure her. He had felt like a fraud through this entire process, from the moment they'd decided the engagement, but here seemed to be a place where he fit.

So he crossed to her, with a smile that was slowly losing its shyness. "I like this," he said, brushing his fingertips lightly over the embroidery at her collar. He took a second to let his eyes wander over her at close range, especially given how much more of her was visible now. "And I like this," he said, moving the back of the knuckles on his left hand over her hair, where it hung down to frame her face — then leaned forward to brush it back and take her earlobe in his mouth.

They may not have been in love, and they may not have had any chance at real passion tonight, but she wanted to do this — wanted it to go well, it seemed, as much as he did — and that could be enough. Ford ran his hands down her sides and moved to kiss her neck.

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Set by Lady!

She might have felt self-conscious when he trailed off mid-sentence without telling her how she looked, if not for something in his tone or his expression. She couldn’t define it, but it – felt more like a compliment than an insult, more as though she had done something right than wrong.

And she couldn’t feel self-conscious because he had taken off his wedding suit now too. Still more covered up than her, maybe, but just as under dressed – it was a better balance than in the coatroom. Her eyes had trailed over his body briefly in curiosity, but he was coming over again and abruptly all she could focus on was him looking at her. Nerves had fizzed up in her again, but as he touched her neckline and her hair, it was no longer the uncomfortable pins-and-needle kind. Her stomach had loosened from its knots enough for her to feel a fluttering sensation in it.

And – oh. Oh. His mouth was on her earlobe and her neck, and she scarcely suppressed a gasp. It had been a sudden step forwards, but he seemed much less awkward now – and Jemima had apparently forgotten how she had meant to feign reticence and modesty, because she curled her hands up around his neck, to use him for balance or maybe also to bring them a little closer. She could feel the muscles of his shoulders as she did (Jack’s shoulders had been muscular too, but then Jack had had the excuse of being a professional quidditch player – she had not expected the firmness here). “Ford,” she tried, tentative, mostly to get him to look up so that she could kiss him again – but better this time. Properly.

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