The Wedding

by Edith Layton

  Eventually he raised his mouth from hers. When she had her breath back again, he caught his own long enough to insist on an answer. He held her tightly, tilted her head up so that she could meet his blazing eyes, and resisted her lips until he heard what she had to say.

  “I have to hear your answer, Dulcie,” he persisted. “Please!”

  “Yes, I will marry you. Oh, yes, Crispin,” she sighed against his mouth. “How I do love you!” And then he didn’t let her say another thing.

  They were on their way upstairs when they heard Wrede cough and Willie giggle, behind them. Only then did Crispin take his eyes off Dulcie.

  “We’re going to be married again. With all due pomp,” he said, still not letting her go. “That ought to end the gossip, or at least make for some fresh romantic gossip. We don’t have to say why we wed in the first place. Being carried away by passion is always a wonderful explanation for a wedding. And it became true enough,” he said more softly, meeting his wife’s eyes and raising her hand to his lips.

  “And as for you, bratkin,” he told Willie, “we’ll take responsibility for your upbringing. A guardianship, I think. We’ll see to your education, send you to a proper school and make something of you.”

  “I don’t think so,” Wrede said.

  They all stopped smiling and looked at him.

  He clasped his hands behind his back and paced in front of them, his long nose in the air as he spoke. “You’ll be burdened by a pack of your own brats before the lad’s voice changes. He needs someone to be concerned solely with his affairs. I have no immediate plans to wed, and as they’ve discontinued Fleet weddings, I doubt I’ll be able to find myself a bride as fine as Dulcie in the near future. Let me have the care of him.

  “Then, too, we want to take full advantage of Willie’s questionable gifts. If we send him to school now—as he is, as he speaks and acts—he’ll have all the companionship that a leper might expect. That experience could turn him to a life of crime. Ah, but let me have the making of him for a year or so—say a grand tour of the Continent with me as his guide. I feel the need of travel now anyway. Yes, a tour would be the very thing. And then he can enter school already somewhat educated, and as a gentleman.”

  “You, Wrede?” Crispin asked doubtfully. Dulcie, too, looked worried.

  “Who better?” Wrede asked, clearly affronted. “Who better to teach him fashion and the arts? Who else could expose the lad to the great minds and wonders of our world? What I don’t know, after all, is not worth knowing. Whomever I do not know simply does not matter. I know men of wit and learning, title and achievement, everywhere in the civilized world. Let me take Willie in hand, introduce him to these men, and show him these wonders, and you will see what I make of him!

  “The only reason I hesitate to do this—the sole reason,” he told Willie seriously, “is that these two will be thrusting all their infants at me as they come of age, when they see what I have done with you.”

  “Wrede, your plan is fine with me,” Crispin said, laughing. “Dulcie?”

  “What do you say, Willie?” she asked.

  “Fair enough,” Willie said jauntily.

  “Done! You’ll have a new life, Willie,” Crispin said with satisfaction.

  At that, Willie stopped grinning for the first time. “Ah, as to that, my lord,” he said, “if that’s so, I’d like to have a new name, too. Yeah. I would.”

  Wrede’s thin eyebrows went up. “But, my dear boy, I said nothing about adopting you,” he said.

  “No!” Willie said. “I don’t wanna be your son! But I was thinking I’d need a new name, anyway. See, I don’t got a real last name. They called me Willie Grab ’cause I was such a good dip—pickpocket, that is. Before that I was just Kid. I’d like something…finer.”

  “I see nothing wrong with Kidd,” Wrede said thoughtfully, “William Kidd sounds very fine indeed.”

  “Nah. I was thinking I’d like a new first name, too. See, ’cause a new name is like another chance at life, ain’t it? So I’d like to be Luke now, ’stead of Willie, if you please.”

  Dulcie drew in a sharp breath. Willie didn’t hear her, he was too intent on watching Wrede’s reaction. He looked very young and worried as he gazed up at the tall man who was going to be his guardian.

  “Fine,” Wrede said. “Very fine, in fact. Lucian Kidd it is, then.”

  Crispin looked questioningly at Wrede.

  Wrede drew himself up. “Don’t worry. I’ll watch out for the lad,” he said.

  “Well, then, good night,” Crispin said, and shook hands with him.

  Willie said good night to Dulcie and added, for her ears only, “Don’t worry, my lady. I’ll look out for my lord. You’ll see.”

  “Well, then, Willie lad—ah, Luke,” Wrede said with pleasure as they left the hall together, “as for our itinerary—first, Italy, I think. Then we’ll travel to Austria, Belgium, France… But Italy! Ah, what treasures I’ll show you there.”

  “They’ll suit,” Crispin said with satisfaction, as he took Dulcie back into his arms. “Now let’s see how we will,” he whispered.

  He led her to their room, and it took a very long time because of all the times they had to stop for kisses. He had even more for her when he kicked their door closed behind them. And she offered him more than that. Crispin forgot how weary he was, and Dulcie forgot how lonely she had been, and they both knew how fortunate they were.

  “You still owe me the pearls,” she said with drowsy content later, when they were finally drifting off to sleep.

  “Yes. Wait!” he said, waking fully and rising from the bed. He padded over to his discarded clothes. “I’ve got something else for you.”

  She sat up in bed and watched as he took something from the breast pocket of his coat. He came back to the bed and laid it in her hands.

  “Your gold piece?” she asked. “But I could never take that from you!”

  “But you are the reason I earned it,” he said, closing her hand over it. “It’s what I was paid for marrying you. It was my luck, and now it’s yours. I no longer need it, because you are my lucky piece.”

  “Thank you, I’m sure. Only you could pay me such a wonderful rude compliment,” she said, and giggled.

  But she fell asleep with the coin held tightly in her hand and with her husband’s arms around her. They stayed that way all night and through all the nights of their long lives.

  * * *

  For more information about Edith Layton’s life and books, please visit http://www.facebook.com/authoredithlayton.