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The wedding day was blazingly clear, the light sharp and revealing of every corner of the dusty church. Vidal looked forbiddingly splendid, as she approached him on her grandfather's arm, but then she met his eye and smiled and he smiled glowingly back, like an ardent boy. There had been a nervous flutter in the pit of her belly but it quieted at the familiarity of that look on Vidal's face. He was only her Vidal, her absurd reckless handsome darling, and there was nothing to fear in him at all.
His kiss after their vows was brief, a faint brush of her mouth with his own, and his fingertips light on her wrist. But then she was looking up at him - he was very tall, this close - and his rough cheek was still close to hers and another jolt of nerves shook her. She remembered, suddenly, the hard pressure of his hand on her throat. The look on his face across the dinner table. The silky terrifying note in his voice. It's only Vidal, she told herself firmly, trying to make herself smile confidently back up at him. Vidal is safe.
He grinned joyfully back, in response to her smile, and gave her his arm; then he saw the tremor in her fingers as she took it and glanced quickly into her face again. She knew she was rather white. He looked at her a moment, his face unreadable, and seemed about to speak; but just then Rupert reached them and gave his hearty bellow of congratulation and the moment was lost.
*
When she arrived at her bedchamber that night, her head was faintly throbbing with wine and noise. It had been a long day. She put the back of her hand to her forehead, trying to cool the headache away, and then startled; Vidal had come up behind her, and pulled her to him, and his mouth was on her throat.
She heard her breath come short. Be sensible, she instructed herself. He wasn't a threat anymore; he was her husband. This was - he - she was shivering as if in a fever. Vidal's fingers were in her hair. She couldn't think.
"I can't think," she said aloud and felt rather than heard his intake of breath.
"Good," he said, and the rest of the night became a blur of astonishment. She couldn't - she couldn't - she couldn't -
"You're all right," Vidal was saying in her ear. "Mary. It's all right. You're with me, my love."
She put her damp forehead to his bare shoulder. Her face was still more deeply flushed than it had ever been before; it burned like fire. Vidal's hands were drawing gently through her hair, tender and soothing. She felt like an utter child.
"I d-didn't," she said, hearing her own stutter with some incredulity. She never stuttered. "I didn't know - Vidal. In France. I didn't know-"
She felt his smile in her hair. "Are you saying you wouldn't have shot me if you had?"
She shivered, still trying to gather her wits.
"Of course I," she said. "I would have. Yes."
He put his finger under her chin, and she made herself withdraw from the shelter of his shoulder and meet his eyes. They were dark, glinting. How could she ever have thought him safe?
"What a good girl you are, my love," he said lazily and somehow the words made her flush to the roots of her hair. "Darling sensible Mary. Didn't you want me even a little?"
She thought. She had been angry and terrified and his hand on her throat had been the most appalling experience of her life. Blood had drummed in her ears and her heart had beat fit to burst and her whole body had flooded with heat. Terror and fury and - something else.
He was watching her avidly and she shook her head wordlessly.
"I don't know," she said after a few moments. "I was afraid."
His face turned sober. "I know," he said. "I was - I do know, and you were quite right to shoot me."
"I know I was," she said, smiling then. "But I did - I mean - I think I wanted." Her breath constricted suddenly. It felt dangerous to say or even think. He would have ravished her, and it would have been the worst thing that could possibly have happened. It would not have been like - his fingers drew a slow deliberate line up her hip - and she closed her eyes. She didn't know. She couldn't be sure of anything except,
"I love you," she said, and his smile was so sweet that it drove every unsettling idea out of her head. She was safe. Vidal was her husband. She had done the right thing, and she had been as sensible as she possibly could be, and now, at long last, she was free to be a fool.