Work Text:
The cemetery was quiet and dark, quieter still for the muffling blanket of snow that covered everything. The familiarity of the sight shouldn't have been surprising-- considering that it was eight years nearly to the day since her mother's funeral--but it depressed Hilary all the same.
"I miss you," she admitted, as she did at every visit, crouched carefully beside the grave in an attempt to keep the snow off her clothes. "You ought to be here--" and then a sob rose in her throat, a thing that she thought she had finally moved past; Hilary pressed a hand to her mouth and nearly overbalanced in the process. "I need you both," she said miserably. "I need someone to give me away-- God, Dad, I don't even know who would walk me down the aisle, if I haven't got you. And Mum--" She was fighting not to cry; it could only end badly, in weather this cold, but it was a battle Hilary was losing. "I need you to tell me if I'm doing the right thing. Please."
Hilary wasn't sure she believed in ghosts, no matter who St. George claimed to be haunting Denver, but she rather thought she could have used some just now.
-------
"It was terrifying," St. George told her later, once she had reclaimed him. He was pressed up against her side as they walked, and though Hilary had dried her tears long before, she could not have said which of them was leaning more heavily on the other.
"Hezekiah Lavender is half your size and nearly four times your age," Hilary scoffed. "I really doubt you have any cause to be frightened of him."
"He and several of his friends are very concerned," said St. George gravely. "About your virtue."
Hilary choked.
"They were quite adamant, really, about what a good old-fashioned Christian girl you are, despite the temptations of money and city life, and surely a gentleman like me would understand." He smiled winningly over at her. "I assured them-- quite truthfully, may I add-- that I pose no moral threat to you and never have."
"Jerry!" Hilary let out an indignant yelp and shoved at him.
St. George stumbled away, laughing, but in only a moment he had reattached himself to her arm. "But honestly," he went on, "it was rather as if you had older brothers. Eight tremendously muscular and imperturbable older brothers. That you had set on me by surprise."
"Seven tremendously muscular brothers," Hilary reminded him, "and Hezekiah."
"I can only assume you've never been threatened by him, even implicitly. I can promise you, the man may appear nonthreatening, but that only makes the experience an even more singularly distressing one." St. George paused at the gate of the Red House to let her fumble for her key, but caught her wrist before she found it. "Lee."
It was a murmur Hilary knew well by now, and she turned instinctively to kiss him, wrapping her free hand thoughtlessly around the lapel of his overcoat. "Oh, it's comfort you're looking for, is it?"
"Naturally." He beamed, thoroughly self-satisfied. "I do appreciate your help in the matter."
"Shut up," said Hilary, and kissed him again to be sure it stuck; the man never had gotten terribly good at following instructions.
Though it wasn't the first time she'd brought him to stay with her, there was always something a little overwhelming about walking St. George up the drive to the Red House; perhaps because it and he were the closest things Hilary had to calling home, and yet so rarely to be found in the same actual place. It might've been in response to this that something deep inside her whispered now, if you've ever got the courage! do it now! and she in turn paused halfway down the drive, causing St. George to glance over at her in surprise. "Everything all right?"
"I was just thinking," Hilary began, trying desperately to feel her way to the right words, "how marvelous it is that we-- of all the people-- have actually managed to stay this happy for this long. I always thought I'd be terrible at romance-- honestly I still think I am, but you don't seem to mind, so I, well." She swallowed hard and looked up at him. "I was wondering if while I'm at it I might have a go at being a viscountess-- just to see how it goes."
St. George twisted to face her so fast that he skidded on the ice and fell. His loss of dignity didn't even seem to register; he only sat there in the snow staring up at her. "Lee," he said faintly, "you really ought not to joke about these things."
Hilary knelt down on the ground between his sprawled legs; the snow soaked through her skirt and stockings almost instantly, but she couldn't bring herself to give a damn. In that instant, she was swamped with such dizzying sentiment for him that even she believed wholeheartedly in her own proposal. "You see?" She took his hands in hers, though with two pairs of gloves interfering there wasn't much warmth to be had from them. He was the only thing that mattered in all the world, and she could not-- would not-- risk letting him be taken away from her. "I'm down on my knees and everything-- I'll buy you a diamond ring, too, if that'll prove I'm serious."
He laughed, but combined with the dumbfounded expression he wore it rang a little hollow. "I just want to be sure this isn't because of something she said to you."
"Your mother says a lot of things to me," admitted Hilary, who knew better than to attempt any dishonesty on this point. "And sometimes they hit home. But you can't really think I'd ever propose to you if I didn't want to." She was beginning to stumble over her words, faintly alarmed by his unexpected tendency to be sensible at such an inconvenient time. "Because the thing is-- I don't know if you've noticed, Jerry? But I'm really quite desperately in love with you, and I'm selfish, terribly selfish, and I want all of you I can get. And there isn't much more to be got of someone than marriage."
"You have me already, you know. Body and soul. Every ounce." His hands tightened on hers, and just as Hilary began to get really anxious, St. George swallowed visibly-- even under his tightly wound scarf-- and nodded. "Yes," he said, rather strangled. "God help me, and God help the Wimsey family name-- but if you want it, it's yours."
"Oh." Hilary had been so busy steeling herself for rejection-- it seemed like an age since she had actually raised the question-- that it took her a moment to understand his actual response. "Oh!" she said again, almost a shriek, and threw her arms around him. "Not quite as simple being the one who gets asked, is it?"
"Whereas you, of course, are the very picture of aplomb." St. George hugged her tightly. "You do realize you'll never be rid of me now, don't you?"
"And here I thought that was the point of the exercise." Hilary clutched at him a little longer before sitting back on her heels. "Can you get to your feet, or are you irreparably damaged?"
St. George grinned at her. "For you, my dear soon-to-be lady? Anything."