piece to be saved for sentimental reasons, had been devoured down to the last crumb.
A group of Gradys, connections of Cortland, delayed on their journey from New York, flooded through the front door, full of apologies and exclamations. Others rushed to greet them. Rowan apologized for being shoeless and disheveled as she received their kisses. And in the back dining room, a large party which had come together for a series of photographs began to sing “My Wild Irish Rose.”
At eleven, Aaron kissed Rowan good-bye, as he left to take Aunt Vivian home. He would be at the hotel if needed, and he wished them a safe trip to Destin in the morning.
Michael walked with Aaron and his aunt to the front door. Michael’s old friends went off at last to continue their drinking at Parasol’s bar in the Irish Channel, after extracting the promise from Michael that he would meet with them for dinner in a couple of weeks. But the stairway was still blocked with couples in fast conversation. And the caterers were “rustling up something” in the kitchen for the New York Gradys.
At last, Ryan rose to his feet, demanded silence, and declared that this party was over! Everyone was to find his or her shoes, coat, purse, or what have you, and get out and leave the wedding couple alone. Taking a fresh glass of champagne from a passing tray, he turned to Rowan.
“To the wedding couple,” he announced, his voice easily carrying over the hubbub. “To their first night in this house.”
Cheers once more. Everyone reaching for a last drink, and mere were a hundred repeats of the toast as glasses clinked together. “God bless all in this house!” declared the priest, who just happened to be going out the door. And a dozen different voices repeated the prayer.
“To Darcy Monahan and Katherine,” someone cried.
“To Julien and Mary Beth … to Stella … ”
The leavetaking, as was the fashion in this family, took over a half hour, what with the kissing, and the promises to get together, and the renewed conversations halfway out of the powder room and halfway off the porch and halfway out the gate.
Meantime the caterers swept through the rooms, silently retrieving every last glass and napkin, righting pillows, and snuffing candles, and scattering the arrangements of flowers which had been grouped on the banquet tables, and wiping up the last spills.
At last it was over. Ryan was the last one to go, having paid the caterers and seen to it that everything was perfect. The house was almost empty!
“Good night, my dears,” he said, and the high, front door slowly closed.
For a long moment Rowan and Michael looked at each other, then they broke into laughter, and Michael picked her up and swung her around in a circle, before he set her gentry back on her feet. She fell against him, hugging him the way she’d come to love, with her head against his chest. She was weak from laughing.
“We did it, Rowan!” he said. “The way everybody wanted it, we did it! It’s over, it’s done.”
She was still laughing silently, deliciously exhausted and pleasantly excited at the same time. But the clock was striking. “Listen,” she whispered. “Michael, it’s midnight.”
He took her by the hand, hit the wall button to shut off the light, and together they hurried up the darkened stairs.
Only one room on the second floor gave a light into the hallway, and it was their bedroom. They moved silently to the threshold.
“Rowan, look what they’ve done,” Michael said.
The room had been exquisitely prepared by Bea and Lily. A huge fragrant bouquet of pink roses stood on the mantel between the two silver candelabra.
On the dressing table, the champagne waited in its bucket of ice with two glasses beside it, on a silver tray.
The bed itself was ready, the lace coverlet turned down, the pillows fluffed, and the soft white bed curtains brought back and tied to the massive posts at the head.
A pretty nightgown and peignoir of white silk lay folded on one side of the bed and a pair of white cotton pajamas on the other. A single rose lay against the pillows, with a bit of ribbon tied to it, and another single candle stood on the small table to the right of the bed.
“How sweet of them to think of it,” Rowan said.
“And so it’s our wedding night, Rowan,” Michael said. “And the clock’s just stopped chiming. It’s the witching hour, darlin’, and we have it all to ourselves.”
Again, they looked at each other, and both began to laugh softly, feeding each other’s laughter, and quite unable to stop. They were too tired to do more than fall into bed beneath the covers, and they both knew it.
“Well, we ought to drink the champagne at least,” Rowan said, “before we collapse.”
He nodded, throwing aside the cutaway coat and tugging at the ascot. “I’ll tell you, Rowan, you have to love somebody to dress up in a suit like this!”
“Come on, Michael, everybody here does this sort of thing. Here, the zipper, please.” She turned her back to him, and then felt the hard shell of the bodice released at last, the gown falling loosely down around her feet. Carelessly, she unfastened the emerald and laid it on the end of the mantel.
At last everything was gathered away, and hung up, and they sat in bed together drinking the champagne, which was very cold and dry and delicious, and had foamed all over the glasses, as it ought to do. Michael was naked, but he loved caressing her through the silk nightgown, so she kept it on. Finally, no matter how tired they were, they were caught up in the deliciousness of the new bed, and the soft candlelight, and their usual heat was rising to a boil.
It was swift and violent, the way she loved it, the giant mahogany bed sturdy as if it were carved out of stone.
She lay against him afterwards, dozing and contented, and listening to the steady rhythm of his heart. Finally she sat up, straightened out the wrinkled nightgown, and drank a long cool sip of the champagne.
Michael sat up beside her, naked, one knee crooked, and lighted a cigarette, his head rolling against the high headboard of the bed.
“Ah Rowan, nothing went wrong, you know, absolutely nothing. It was the perfect day. God, that a day could be so perfect.”
She took another little drink of the champagne, savoring the taste and her own tiredness, realizing that she was still too wound up to close her eyes.
A wave of dizziness came over her suddenly, with just a touch of the nausea she’d felt in the morning. She waved the cigarette smoke away.
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing, just nerves I think. Walking up that aisle was sort of like lifting a scalpel or something for the first time.”
“I know what you mean. Let me put this out.”
“No, it’s not that, cigarettes don’t bother me. I smoke now and then myself.” But it was the cigarette smoke, wasn’t it? Same thing earlier. She got up, the light silk nightgown feeling like nothing as it fell down around her, and went barefoot into the bath.
No Alka-Seltzer, the one thing that always worked at such moments. But she had brought some over, she remembered. She had put it in the kitchen cabinet along with aspirin and Band-Aids and all the other household supplies. She came back and put on her bedroom slippers and peignoir.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“Downstairs, for Alka-Seltzer. I don’t know what’s the matter with me. I’ll be right back.”
“Wait a minute, Rowan, I’ll go.”
“Stay where you are. You’re not dressed. I’ll be back in two seconds. Maybe I’ll take the elevator, what the hell.”
The house was not really dark. A pale light from the garden came in through the many windows, illuminating the polished floor of the hallway, and the dining room, and even the butler’s pantry. It was easy to make her way without switching on a light.
She found the Alka-Seltzer in the cabinet, and one of the new crystal glasses she had bought on a shopping
