Chapter Fifteen #2
Any tears that had threatened to fall instantly dried up at her brother’s unsophisticated attempt to discuss the birds and the bees. Augusta scoffed. “Reginald, let me spare you the humiliation; I know precisely what occurs in the marriage bed.”
“Oh, thank God,” he breathed out in relief. Then, suspicion flashed in his eyes. “Wait, how do you know?”
“Ginny has four elder sisters, they’ve told us everything. I have also read plenty of medical books and seen more copulating from the farm animals back in Derbyshire than I would have preferred. Trust me, I am not walking in blind. You are freed from your duty of explaining anything to me.”
“Good, good,” he said, and Augusta thought she saw the gratitude of Lazarus in his eyes. “Well…this may be a bit gauche to say, but good luck.”
Despite herself, and the fact that she had spent the better part of the week being poked and prodded and stared at, and although she was about to begin a life with nary a forethought, Augusta laughed. “Your eloquence knows no bounds.”
Reginald chuckled at that before taking a deep breath, his shoulders more relaxed now. “Well, I am going to go home and get blissfully drunk, alone, in my own home.” Looking around the church walls, he sneered. “God, I hate churches.”
Augusta tutted. “Oh, don’t be blasphemous. At least not until you get outside again.”
With that, her brother left her. When she turned, she found Sebastian standing in the doorway, leaning casually against its frame. Sun streamed in behind him, silhouetting his figure.
“Are you ready, my dear?” he asked, emphasizing the last two words with a bashful smile.
She was, surprisingly. Though she knew that she was about to walk into an intimate experience that was quite foreign to her, she found that she trusted Sebastian to walk her through it with all the care and attention a bride could hope for.
“Yes,” she said, “Is the carriage ready?”
He nodded and, allowing her to take his arm, walked her out. Inside the carriage, silence welcomed Augusta. She exhaled with relief as the door shut and the horses trotted off, leaving the whole charade behind.
“Feeling alright?” Sebastian asked, looking her over with concern.
Though they had not spoken much over the past few days, Augusta had frequently caught him giving her this same look. She did not know why, precisely; she did not believe that she had displayed any concerning behaviors.
“Do I not look alright?”
“No,” he said quickly. “You look lovely. But I read in that Braithwaite book that large events can be difficult for people like you. I worried a bit that the wedding might be a struggle.”
He said it so factually and without judgment that Augusta did not at first realize that he was speaking of her melancholia. Reginald and the servants had always whispered about it in such dire voices that she’d grown accustomed to it being treated as a secret.
“Oh,” she said dumbly. “Well, you need not worry, I assure you. This has all been fine. Merely tiring, that is all.”
“Good,” he said, and she could see the relief in his expression. After her conversation with Reginald, she wondered just how much her well-being had taxed the men in her life today. Perhaps she needed to reassure the both of them more frequently.
“Are we going to your home?”
He smiled. “Our home, you mean?”
She smiled, hoping that she did not look too blushed. “Yes, pardon me. Our home.”
“Yes. Your trousseau has been delivered already, so you will be able to settle in quickly. I hope it will feel comfortable to you in short order.”
“I am sure it will,” she rushed to say, hoping to quell any fears he had of her inability to settle into her role. “You have been so…accommodating.”
She held back a sigh. The easy conversation that they had enjoyed these past weeks suddenly felt halted with the gravity of their new titles to one another.
Husband. Wife. The stuff of stodgy old people and duty.
If they were to continue without going batty, they would have to find their way back to that ease.
A dangerous question, which had been playing in the back of her mind all day, seemed a good place to start.
“Are you nervous?” she asked.
He looked at her with one eyebrow raised in surprise. “Nervous?”
“About the wedding night?”
A long, long pause tensed between them, before finally Sebastian snorted ungracefully with a hearty laugh. “Nervous? I believe I am supposed to be the one asking you such a question.”
Augusta tried not to frown; she felt that her husband, kind though he may be, was not understanding her meaning.
“I only mean that it must be difficult to be held so responsible for someone else’s first time. I shall carry the memory forever, good or bad, and you are solely liable for it. Does that not make you nervous?”
As she spoke, some of the humor dampened in her husband’s face. He looked her up and down with that assessing air of his. The seconds passed, and a fresh heat burned in his eyes.
“You will see very soon that I am not nervous in the least.”
Despite the cocky tilt of his head and the warmth of his gaze, Augusta could see the tiniest falter in his expression. She could not pinpoint what it was, but she knew; Sebastian wanted, very much, for tonight to be good for her, and at least some small part of him worried that it might not be.
This knowledge eased whatever tension had built in her shoulders, and she sat back quite comfortably against the carriage seat. If Sebastian, the darling of the ton, was nervous, then she would do well to make friends with her own anxieties.
It did not take long to pull up to Sebastian’s home. It was a townhome, which looked very much as the typical bachelor’s home in London might, albeit a bit bigger than most.
“I shall be getting us a family home, of course,” he said just as Augusta laid eyes on the abode. He almost sounded apologetic. “I could not obtain one during such a short engagement.”
“It is lovely,” Augusta assured him. “I quite like townhomes. They are so much more connected to the city than the larger estates. It feels as though everything is just outside your front door.”
His smile was warm. “I believe I could not have asked for a more charitable wife.”
Augusta rolled her eyes playfully at him. “Hardly charitable. I merely have terrible taste.”
The last thing she heard before pulling up to the front doors was his booming laugh.
From there, things moved even faster than they had at the wedding. She was shown the home, which was not so grand as a family home, but respectable in its space.
Upstairs she was shown each of the guest rooms, before finally being led to Sebastian’s room.
Well, their room now, though of course, once they moved to an estate, they would each take up their own bedrooms. For now, sharing would provide the intimacy that she was hoping to build with him.
Soon, her hairbrush would sit upon the vanity.
Her clothing would hang in the wardrobe.
The very idea of leaving her print upon Sebastian’s personal spaces made her stand up a bit straighter, breathe a little deeper.
Behind her, a familiar voice cleared its throat. Augusta spun around to see Milly in the doorway, smiling.
“Oh, Milly!” she said. “I quite forgot that you were starting here so immediately. Come in, come in.”
Milly did as she was told, shutting the door behind her.
“You look lovely, my lady,” she said in that Yorkshire accent Augusta so loved.
“You have no idea how happy I am to see you. I thought my whole wedding night would be spent with all new maids whose names I did not know.”
“Aye, my lady, you know I would never abandon you on the most important day. I assure you, I will help you look the part of the blushing bride, if you will let me.”
“Please do. I am utterly lost, Milly. I have never had to seduce anyone in my life. I know technically what happens, but not how to be bewitching. You understand my meaning?”
Milly gave a smile that told Augusta that her maid had, indeed, been in her shoes once upon a time.
“Aye, my lady. Let us get you out of that dress, and we shall start with a blank slate. I promise, with how lovely your figure is, you will need very few tricks to lure Lord Brightwater straight to you.”
The woman sounded so confident that Augusta had no choice but to believe her.
Thus began the business of undressing properly, though not to sleep this time. With Milly’s help, she removed her heavy wedding gown and undid the tight binding of her braided hair, letting it fall loose in black waves down her back.
Her trousseau included a delicate, nearly sheer shift made of light blush material that settled lovingly over her breasts and hips. The modiste had assured her that it was excellent lingerie, though Augusta had no way of knowing if that was true or not.
Now, standing in it, she imagined that it must be, for she had never felt more exposed in her life.
“Milly,” she said incredulously, “This is quite scandalous, is it not?”
“Of course it is, my lady,” Milly replied, almost proudly.
“That is the point, I believe. But here.” Stepping closer, she took a few pieces of Augusta’s hair and brought them over her shoulders, so that they fell down her chest. “Men like to see your hair down. I don’t know what it is, but it entices ‘em every time.”
She fiddled about with Augusta’s hair a bit, fanning it out at the ends. “That should do it. Men don’t like all the extra frills and whatnot, or the heavy perfumes. Just be the woman he married and I promise, he won’t be able to keep his hands off you.”
Something about Milly’s assurance eased Augusta’s fears. She had not known that her maid was such a tart, but it endeared her to the woman.
“Milly, you are precisely what every woman needs on her wedding night. Thank you to heaven and back for everything you’ve done for me.”
Milly gave her a secretive smile that told Augusta her message had been received; she was not merely speaking of tonight, but of everything else that her maid had done for her. All the secrets she’d asked her to keep.
“Of course, my lady. You deserve every bit of it.” She stepped back, placing her hands behind her back and taking a professional stance once again. “If that is all, I shall leave you to wedded bliss.”
“That is all. Thank you.”
They shared another long, meaningful look before Milly disappeared through the bedroom door. In the silence she left behind, Augusta found herself with just enough time to ruminate and worry.
She was not ashamed of her figure, though she knew she still held onto some of that baby fat which had earned her so much teasing as a child. She disliked how dark her hair was in comparison to her pale skin. Would Sebastian mind it so much? Or did he look past all of that to see something else?
There was the rub; despite his kind words, she still did not understand what it was that he saw in her. It was not that she believed she had no value. She was simply aware that her most valuable traits were so well-hidden from the world that hardly anything was left over to be on display.
After working herself up into a sweat, she shook her head. She had made her choice to get married, and the marriage bed was a part of that contract. Sebastian had only ever shown her love, and therefore she had to believe in his word. He saw something in her. That was that.
Footsteps sounded outside of the door, ending her ruminations abruptly. Her own steps halted, her heart beating wildly as the door opened. Sebastian stepped through, and the first thing Augusta saw was his collarbone revealed by the wide collar of his white shirt.
It was obscene for such a fine man to show so much skin.
It made her flushed and warm even before his piercing gaze ran up and down her form.
Suddenly, she recalled that she was as close to nude as she had ever been in front of a man.
She stood taller to compensate, which only served to push her breasts out further.
Sebastian looked up and his breath hitched.