bait_backup | A girl in the world barking up the wrong tree, a creature conditioned to employ matrimony

*Let it never be said that Esmerelda Rosier does not know how to throw a wedding. With a month to arrange everything, she swept her schedule clean, let the business languish, and began placing orders almost as soon as Evan and his bride-to-be left the estate. Her wandwork is not quite as deft as it once was, but she refuses to see a healer, and she doesn’t need wandwork to tell the florist that the roses were to be red, true red, not this flaccid pink, and to send a Howler to the baker demanding why the red velvet cake tasted like sweetened ashes, and to harangue the seamstress why the bride had not been even scheduled for her third fitting of the white dress Esmerelda had negotiated her into, as clearly the first two fittings had failed to demonstrate to her that everything needed to be taken in at the waist. Whatever the guests of this affair might think or gossip about, they’ll get no bump in Amrita’s abdomen to prove it.

She can hear Evan pacing outside the dressing room, and has to go out to tell him--repeatedly--that he cannot see her before she walks down the aisle and he should go kill the squirrels outside or something, anything to get him out of the way so she can personally finish buttoning the thousand and one buttons that go up the back of the dress. But the last time she lectures him on this, he catches a glimpse of the bride in the mirror over her shoulder anyway and grins.

“You’re beautiful,” he says over Esmerelda’s shoulder.

“Out, it’s bad luck,” the bride orders, and then, and only then, does he obey.

When she finally takes her seat in the very front of the chapel, Esmerelda’s chin is high but she clutches Dearborn’s hand fiercely. The ceremony begins, and it’s finally all out of her hands.

The door to the chapel opens and the light is blinding even though the forecast predicted rain over the reception, and there she is, shimmering like a vision, painted with the charmed designs of her culture on her hands, wearing enough skirts and petticoats and undergarments that Esmerelda had to resist the urge to catalogue them individually in a spreadsheet. Everyone turns to watch the bride proceed but Esmerelda’s gaze sweeps the crowd and then, finally, lands where she knew it would: on Evan.

He is standing there, hands held before him, frozen in the process of being wrung. His knuckles are white. There’s a tiny bit of hair sticking up at the back of his head, the part she always charmed firmly down when he was as boy, and suddenly her vision goes blurry. She looks up and blinks once, twice, pulls out the bright red handkerchief out of her bright red handbag sitting on her bright red skirts. It is acceptable to cry, she supposes, but she doesn’t want to. Not for this, the thing he manipulated her into doing, this ruinous match. But the look on his face--

When Evan was five, she took him to the hall that holds the Rosier family tree. She pointed to herself and Dearborn on the tree, how other families intertwined, and how he, someday, would marry someone who also had a tree like this one and have children, and when he did, the tapestry would grow further up because it had been enchanted very long ago to do so. All this was his, and he belonged to it as much as it belonged to him. He gave the whole thing a wide, encompassing look, finally resting his little palm next to his own name as if to cover a hole, and then turned to her and asked, “Why isn’t she here already?”

And Esmerelda smiled, and told him that she would come along in due course, that he might meet her on his own or they might introduce her to him, but what was most important was the fact that she would become family, and that he should care for her as well as he cared for her or Dearborn. That is what made her worth putting up on the tree.

Looking at him now, watching this woman come up the aisle, there is so much of that boy in him that, for the first time in all of this, Esmerelda is willing to allow that perhaps it will not all end in calamity. Perhaps they will grow old and happy together as she and Dearborn have, and the grandchildren birthed from surrogates will still be grandchildren. Perhaps they will love each other until they both rot.

The ceremony is beautiful, and Amrita is radiant, and they don’t have eyes for anyone but each other, and when they kiss at the very end, it is a brazen, full kiss, and when he finally pulls away, his mouth is smudged with her lipstick. He ducks his head to murmur something into her ear as the audience rises to its feet, and she laughs and runs her thumb over his bottom lip to try to rub off the lipstick, and they leave the church together, arm in arm, so boldly and arrogantly in love that even Walburga can barely muster a scandalized little sigh.*

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I do my level best.

*His arms go around her and they move together effortlessly--hadn't they been doing this for years?--and as he revolves with her on the dance floor, he indicates their surroundings with a little perfunctory jerk of his head.*

Everyone's saying it's very nice.

Of course they are. It's better than nice. You know that, you're footing the bill.

Did you know, the bride wanted to wear red?

That's what they do over there, Esmerelda. Don't be provincial. And I see you've gotten yours.

Not that I'm complaining. You're beautiful.

It's irrelevant what they do over there. We're over here.

And you're still fighting the good fight against your cravat actually being properly tight around your neck, I see.

It's a cravat, not a noose. And I am dashing, Esmerelda.

Narcissa's looking lovely. Just sent them a gift for the little nugget. Do you think it'll have Lucy's face forever?

Don't be cruel. Lucius has had a spot of rough luck lately and besides, if his son comes out as a duplicate of himself I'd say he's done a far sight better that we have.

There's no need to be insulting.

I'm sure you'd prefer a nice little water plant like Regulus tied to your apron-strings--never putting so much as a toe out of line, let alone half the vault.

*His smirk is indulgent, perversely proud.*

*She raises an eyebrow and her tone is bone-dry.*

Do you honestly think any child of ours could ever have turned out even half that flaccid?

Lord no. He's worse than Cygnus.

Is he here? I spoke briefly with Druella, but heaven knows, with that side of the family.

I've no idea. He may be home with the vapors. Or blending into a billowing curtain somewhere.

I still think ours was better.

You wound up brawling with half the people invited, if I recall correctly.

Ah, yes, well.

And have I had a better day since?

Yes, I daresay you have.

You've got a point, there.

*He'd been drunk for a week, handing out a king's ransom in cigars to anyone who would listen, I have a son I have a son--and now, more than twenty-two years later and almost as drunk, he can't help turning his head and finding Evan across the reception. His voice is thick.*

He turned out all right.

And the spaniel's nice.

At least she isn't a Higgs.

The bride and I have made our peace.

*Her recently broken wrist gives an involuntary little twitch, as if it's protesting what she's skipping over, but her voice is loving.*

If you're going to become maudlin I'll have to stop dancing with you. I shed one single tear during the ceremony and that's all I'll give the thing.

That's an empty threat if I've ever heard one. You never could keep your hands off it--

--only one? Made of iron as always, Horntail.

What am I supposed to do, become some wrung-out old rag? Ridiculous. Besides, the dress is enchanted to turn bright scarlet at midnight, when they're to go through the Cabinets. If that isn't enough to bring peace I don't know what will. I don't have to start sobbing in the church to convey my feelings.

Not like Bella. Good lord, did you see that?

Oh? Do tell, I like to keep unflattering stories about her handy on the off chance Evan goes off and falls desperately in lust with her again.

Weeping on Roddy's shoulder for half the vows. I still think they should've drowned her. The man is a saint.

And, well. Not much cause for worry there, I don't think.

You think this'll last, then? He won't get bored?

I never have.

*He murmurs it in her ear as the song reaches its end, and turns her, holds her close for a moment, before they stop and he draws back, still holding her hands in his. For all either of them have their sporting on the side, it's the truth. He's every bit as in love with her as when they first danced together on these very lawns, the day he got in a fistfight with his cousin and brother-in-law and hexed Cygnus of all people, and made the best and most important decision of his life--was it really thirty years ago, now? It feels like less. But he is, after all, very drunk.*

A girl in the world barking up the wrong tree, a creature conditioned to employ matrimony

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