Things happened very quickly, after that. A coach, second-hand but little used, was bought from one of Mr Redwood's old friends and a pair was found to match it. Half-made bridesmaids' dresses were hastily finished. The townhouse was not to be used until Grace came out of mourning, so two extra rooms were prepared in the Redwoods' house to give Grace and James some space and privacy in the early weeks of their marriage. In summer, they were to take a tour of the northern country, as something approximating a honeymoon, before returning to London at last. And, of course, the Banns were read.

It was very odd for James, sitting in church that next Sunday, to hear them. He had thought he would feel nervous, or even afraid. After all, he had been trying to avoid the marriage for so long. Instead, he felt flustered, very aware of eyes turning to him and whispers breaking out behind prayer books and — when Grace met his gaze across the pews — conscious of an absurd sense of jealousy. What right did anyone have to look at her and whisper? The feeling passed, leaving James uncomfortable. He had never felt jealous before. He had thought the emotion beneath him.

Before the wedding, James made efforts to repair what he could of his reputation. He spent time in London, at his club or at the houses of those few friends who still deigned to speak with him, and convinced some of them that Catherine Balley had lied. He hoped they would spread enough doubt on the story that others might begin to doubt it too. He even wrote to Sir William, offering an interview to clear up the misunderstanding, though he expected, and received, no reply.

The night before his wedding, he held a small dinner at his club. Sebastian Delacroix, whom he had been able to convince of his innocence, was there, as were a few other young men who believed him. So too was Mr Montague, who had come down with Ellen for the wedding, and Grace's cousins, Harry and Francis, who had been invited out of gratitude for the fact that Uncle Bernard's family refused to believe the rumours, though all they wished to talk about was the possibility of James suing Sir William for slander.

There was a funereal quality to the dinner. James's young friends were of a similar ilk as he. Or, he corrected himself, as he had been. They did not understand why he was getting married. Their toasts were full of pathos. They drank deeply of them and slumped into pools of silk velvet in their chairs, mumbling about silk nooses and golden yokes. James encouraged Grace's cousins — his cousins, now — to drink too. The more slurred and incomprehensible their words grew, the easier he found it to tolerate their conversation. In his efforts, he found himself drinking more than he had planned — he had wanted to keep a clear head for the morning. As his senses dulled with wine, emotions he had been suppressing swelled. Unease, guilt, even sorrow. They were going into this all wrong. They should have met like a normal couple, and courted like a normal couple, and married because of the courting. But they had met, hadn't they? She had said they had, and he had not even noticed her until his father brought her to his attention. What a fool he had been.

And she was not yet comfortable. She could not be, if she would not let him say he loved her. Perhaps she did not trust him not to lie. She had been lied to before on that matter, and scars like that ran deep.

It should have been different. They shouldn't have had to marry under shadow, but had they not weathered such shadow together, they probably would not be getting married at all.

That thought demanded another sad toast.

Towards the end of the evening, as the cousins were falling asleep on the table, there came an insinuating knock at the door. At first James did not hear it, but then Sebastian, who was facing it, said snidely, "The cat dragged in," and pointed.

James turned. Herbert Oliver stood in the doorway, an ingratiating smile on his face. James thought he was dressed in the same coat he had seen him in last. There were now more stray threads coming off at the cuff. It was beginning to have a fringe-like appearance.

"What are you doing here?" James said curtly. "You weren't invited."

"Nor was the evil fairy. Though I'm more forgiving than she. I come to congratulate you upon your engagement, Redwood." Oliver slipped into the room and snaffled a slice of cheese from a plate. He nibbled it through overlong teeth. "Or commiserate, as 'twere. Never did manage to get rid of her, did you?"

James glanced uneasily at cousin Harry, but he only emitted a perplexed burp. Cousin Francis was already snoring with his head on a dirty plate. No one else in the room seemed to pay any significance to the words. Several of his guests had already taken their leave for the night, and those who remained were in a stupor, except for Delacroix, who was boring a fish knife into a lamb bone, staring pointedly at Oliver, and Montague, who was chewing on his fingernails. He had scarcely said ten words all night, except to remark on a painting of a racehorse on the wall. He had hardly touched a drop of wine, either. Certainly Ellen would hear of it if Oliver said anything suspicious. And Ellen would tell Grace.

"Congratulations suffice," James said, hoping Oliver would take the hint and leave.

Instead, of course, Oliver sidled closer to the wine bottle. "Shall I drink to the bride's health? A toast to Miss Follet?"

"I've had enough of toasts. I have to wake up early tomorrow."

"Not drowning your sorrows then?"

"I've none to drown."

"Then let me drown mine." Oliver took a dirty wine glass from the table and poured himself a generous portion. "And I'll drink to your wife's health in the while." He took a sip — not hungrily, or greedily, but with particular concentration — and swallowed slowly. "Oh, that is very good. This is good wine, Redwood. I will make another toast. To the death of scandal. May it never come soon enough." He took another focussed sip and licked his lips. "Marrying Miss Follet will be another nail in its coffin. Though perhaps not the final one. A bastard child is a rather lively scandal, after all." His eyes glittered with cruel humour. "You might have told a friend. I had a wager on."

"You're not a friend," Delacroix said pointedly.

"And I'm not the father."

Oliver drank more wine, this time, deeply. "Hard for people to believe that now."

"Slander," Cousin Harry declared. "Vile slander." He hiccuped. "We sould shue."

Oliver raised a disdainful eyebrow and drained his glass. "Yes, suing for slander ever does quiet it." He moved around the table to a plate full of cheese scraps and nibbled at a bit of rind. "Though of course, an innocent man might wish for retribution, I suppose."

"I've no wish for retribution. I don't want anything to do with her."

"Oh. I see." Oliver found a date that had been missed and sucked on it. "But as you cannot prove your innocence, you can at least throw suspicion on another." He spat out the pip. "Who will you choose? I've heard her father is very good friends with Lord Torenbury, and he's a town-bull if ever there was one."

"I'm not going to sue," James growled. "It would only make things worse. Let Miss Balley be a liar and her lover be craven. I'll marry Miss Follet and live quietly and never think about them."

Oliver laughed. "And thus, a confirmed bachelor loses his third leg to the shackle. For now, at any rate."

James grimaced. "None of that talk, thank you. May I remind you, you were not invited." But Oliver was a gossip, and despite his debts and general depravity, there were still those in London who opened their houses to him. If he repeated that James was innocent, some might believe him. "Have some more wine, if you like," he said begrudgingly. "Sit down."

Oliver did not sit down, but he did pour himself another glass of wine. "But you are among friends tonight, Redwood," he said. "Let out your cares. Loosen your tongue. Does Miss Follet now please you better than she did on first acquaintance? I seem to remember you were not well pleased with her. But that was some months ago. Your feelings may have changed."

At the end of the table, where it had seemed he was not listening, Mr Montague raised his head from contemplating his untouched glass of wine.

"They have," James said, his cheeks warming. "I would not be marrying her if they had not."

"Would you not? I thought perhaps reasons of convenience might have convinced you. It is not just this malicious scandal. I seem to remember something a sense of obligation towards Miss Follet... money matters, was it not?" Oliver bit his bottom lip in a disconcertingly feminine fashion. "And quite against your wishes. The phrase, if I remember correctly, was 'self-sacrifice in the extreme'."

Mr Montague's large, rather cow-like eyes were suddenly quite alert.

"You are quite mistaken," James said shortly. "I have never said such a thing of Grace."

"Oh no, you wrote it." Oliver smiled disarmingly.

For a moment, James was only confused. The sentiment seemed so at odds with how he felt right now that he could not imagine he had ever thought it. Then he remembered, with a sickening feeling, the last time he had been in this club, writing a letter, and Oliver had read it over his shoulder. He had written about Grace, hadn't he? But he had not sent it. He had burned it.

Oliver was still smiling. But the letter had burned — James had seen it disappear into the flames.

"I never wrote such a thing," he said, thinking flat denial safest. "My feelings towards Miss Follet are exactly what any bride would hope from her groom."

"Quite," Delacroix said. "It made us all quite sick to hear them, earlier the night, when he was the worse for the wine."

That was true enough, James supposed. He was sober enough now to feel just a little embarrassed about some of what he had said earlier. He had moped, and he despised mopers.

"Are they?" Oliver sipped his wine, eyes glittering with some savage good humour. "And I thought it never would take, with you. But be careful, Redwood, not to give your heart away to an unworthy female."

"Grace is worthy of more than me," James said.

"Benson once thought that too," Oliver murmured.

"And he was certainly right."

Oliver let out an elegant laugh. "Maybe so. Maybe so. Though he was in such despair when she cried off. And so surprised. He had given her a compelling reason to keep it, you see."

His head still clouded with wine, James did not realize the implication until Mr Montague stood up, very tall and broad, at the end of the table. Then James stood up too, clumsy enough with anger and wine that in doing so he tipped back his chair and sent it clattering to the floor.

"You've said enough. Get out."

Oliver sidled around the edge of the table, away from James. "Ah. But did you think her worthy?"

"I know her to be worthy," James said, circling around after Oliver. "And I will not have you suggesting otherwise."

Oliver chuckled to himself and slid around the corner of the table, but he was near Montague now, who stepped forward and blocked his path.

Oliver smiled up at him. "I don't believe we've met."

"This is Morgan Montague," James said. "He's Miss Follet's brother-in-law."

The smile faltered on Oliver's face and he took a step back. Now he was stuck between James, Montague, and the table.

"What was that compelling reason, sir?" Montague said, in a low, mild tone.

Oliver licked his top lip. "Of course it is only what Benson told me. There is no reason to believe him."

"Then there can be no reason to repeat him," said Montague.

"Or to invent fictions," James said. "Which is what Oliver is doing now. He's that kind of man, Montague."

"Oh. Is he?"

There was something very intimidating in the mildness of Montague's tone, all the more so because he was well over six feet and with the breadth to match. Oliver backed away, closer to James. James tapped Oliver on the shoulder and he turned.

"Mr Montague would never hit a man," James added blithely, "but I would. Do you keep up with your boxing, Oliver? No, I forgot. You never were a boxer."

He held up his hands like a prize fighter and feinted a hit. It was only a feint, but it had the effect of making Oliver shriek and sending him diving under the table. James squatted unsteadily on his heels and watched as Oliver crawled away from him over the drunken cousins' feet.

"Elegant," James observed. "I see you in your native habitat, Oliver. Under the table with the rats begging crumbs."

"I abhor violence," Oliver said primly. "But what can I expect of a man like you?"

"If I wanted to hit you, I would have. You're not worth bruising a knuckle on. Besides, no one believes your lies."

With his chin held high, his head bumping the underside of the table, Oliver crawled towards the door. James met him there and aimed a kick at his backside as he darted through it. He had the satisfaction of hearing Oliver squawk when it connected, but the nip was gone out of Oliver and he only scurried down the stairs.

"Who was that man?" Montague asked. "A friend?"

"I should think not!"

"And yet not a man you wish to have as your enemy," Delacroix said. "Better to have hit him, Redwood, than merely have threatened it. He has his own peculiar pride."

James shrugged. "And I've got mine. Besides, I wouldn't want to turn up to my own wedding with swollen knuckles."

Sebastian raised his eyebrows. "Or a black eye."

"From him? Hardly likely." James poured himself a glass of wine.

"Or a pounding headache," Montague said.

James pushed the wine aside. "That, I accept. I'll order tea. It might wake up my new cousins, who will certainly be looking very green tomorrow."

__

2022-07-31 A/N: I'm working so hard to finish this story now, before the Watty's deadline of August 19 (enter, guys, if you can!). There's only a few chapters left. To be honest, in my hurry, I think I left some typos and mistakes in this chapter. If you find any, let me know :)