"My Mine of precious stones, My Empirie,

How blest am I in this discovering thee!

To enter in these bonds, is to be free;

Then where my hand is set, my seal shall be."

-From John Donne, "To His Mistress Going to Bed"

Chapter 1: "The Luckiest," by Ben Folds

Marianne rose early from bed. The sun was just peeking over the horizon. She sat in the windowsill of the guest bedroom, watching the day bloom into being. Her heart beat steadily in her chest. She felt a strange calm settle over her, and she smiled. She was getting married today. She was in love. By this time tomorrow...well, so many things had to happen between now and then.

It looked like it would be a cold day indeed, and the heavy clouds in the air threatened more snow. Marianne shivered, anticipating. She loved snow.

When the clock on the mantle read quarter to seven, she thought it an appropriate time to ring for Bess to bring her a cup of tea and get a bath ready. For a long while she lay in the great claw-footed tub in the quiet of the early morning, sipping from a tea cup perched on the ledge and reading from Brandon's favourite copy of Donne. He had been right yesterday-the horseback riding had made her sore, but not so sore that she regretted the outing, or that she felt she wouldn't be able to walk today. She set the book down and reached behind her back to massage it.

As she felt her hands working out the tension at the base of her spine, she glanced down at her bare breasts as they thrust forward. She eased both hands around her sides, gliding over her wide hips, touching the skin of her gently rounded midsection, and cupped her breasts in her hands. Would he...and what if…

Her mother had told her a little about the way it was when a man bedded his wife, the place between her thighs where he would enter her-the place she had always been forbidden to touch. She slowly eased a hand beneath the water and found her sex to be a confusing jumble of soft curly hair surrounding a puzzle of flesh, and wondered how anyone had ever figured these things out in the first place. Even so, the sensation she felt from her own brief exploration was...intriguing. But it was short-lived. At the sound of Bess knocking to offer her more hot water, she quickly sank back into the tub and picked up the book again.

Brandon rose early from bed. He had slept surprisingly well, considering how vivid his dreams had been. She had made love to him in his sleep, his beautiful bride, purring and writhing beneath him like a kitten with catnip. His cock, when he woke, was fully, achingly erect, and he decided the only cautious and responsible thing to do was to stroke himself to climax so he didn't scandalize the whole wedding party when his arousal, sensitive from lack of attention, emerged later as an uninvited guest to his trousers. Marrying a nineteen-year-old must be turning him into one as well, he reflected afterwards.

Once he was up in earnest, he rang for his manservant to bring him tea and draw a bath up for him, and as he undressed he looked at his scars. His body bore a few healed-over wounds from various small accidents he'd accumulated over the years, from his rough-and-tumble childhood romping around the grounds of Delaford, to his days in the military, to his life as a sometime-avid sportsman now. His skin was a map of his history, and it was a long and sometimes painful one. The two most prominent scars, the wound between his shoulder and his heart, and the more recent scar on his upper thigh from Musel's knife the day he'd dueled with Willoughby, stood out like capital cities on the map-the first, a darkish brown landmark of an old world wherein thoughts of Eliza had dominated his mind and made him act rashly and run away from his home to a faraway land; and the second, a shining pink metropolis in the new world of his current love, a love that had given him purpose, steadied his hand in crises, and shown him, finally, hope at the end of a long night.

What would she think of these scars? Of what they represented in his life? Would she run from them, or embrace them?

She had said in her letter last night that she loved him. What had he done to earn this? What could he do to keep it?

He picked up the teacup and set it on the windowsill where he could reach it from the tub, then stepped into the steaming water. He then sank down, grabbed his book, put on his spectacles, and tried to soak away his nervousness.

Marianne was the lone calm fixture among all the hustle and bustle around her. She was force-fed some toast and jam, then made to sit still while Mrs. Jennings directed Bess on the exact way her hair ought to be done up. Mrs. Dashwood, Margaret, and Elinor, all dressed and ready, then poked and prodded her into her wedding gown. Mrs. Middleton herself saw to a final alteration, the attachment of a piece of lace in the bodice while Marianne was wearing it, which required her to be completely still so she wouldn't get stabbed with the needle. She complied. Stockings and shoes were shoved on her feet, and she was packed into the carriage, surrounded by the warmth of her family, and driven to church.

Brandon had dressed alone, buttoning his coat and checking that all was correctly fastened, smoothing out the fabric of his breeches, and touching up the polish on his boots. Not bad. Not ideal, but...not bad. He wasn't as young as he'd been the first time he'd donned this coat, but then, he was more mature, wiser, more experienced. Maybe in Marianne's eyes, that would count for something.

He ran his hand through his hair and walked out of the dressing room, sweeping his eyes over his bedchamber. The next time he entered this room, he'd be a married man. Maybe she'd be with him. Maybe...this train of thought was not going to lead to the kind of thoughts he was physically capable of entertaining right now, so he pushed everything out of his mind except his list of things to do: Exit house. Enter carriage. Go to church. Try not to have a heart attack from nervousness. Marry Marianne.

In the carriage, John joined him. John too was wearing regimentals, although much more tightly-fitted. Married, settled life had been very good to John's waistline, and the coat buttons had been moved several inches over to accommodate it.

"Well," John said.

"Yes."

"Today's the day."

"Stating the obvious. Excellent."

"Calm down, man. She's all but yours."

"I know. Why do you think I'm so nervous?"

John patted him on the back, and they rode the rest of the way in silence, Brandon fiddling with a brass button on his coat.

They arrived at the church, where Edward was bustling about, reading the Book of Common Prayer out loud to practice his lines, looking more nervous than even Brandon. "Chris!" he shouted. "You've arrived! I hope I don't muck this up."

"Of course I've arrived."

"Did you think we'd go off gallivanting?" John laughed. "Am I to be the only sane, normal, calm person in the church today?"

"Chris, how are you doing?"

"Terrified."

"Why? It's plain to see she's smitten with you. You have nothing to fear."

But Brandon, who still had trouble believing that this exquisite woman could actually want him, could actually agree to spend her life with him, was unable to shake the fear that something would go wrong-that somehow this had all been a cruel jest-until, standing there at the altar next to John and Edward, the church packed full of his friends and neighbors, the organ playing a familiar strain, he saw her.

There he was, his eyes on her, she thought, as her appalling half-brother walked her down the aisle. She could see him clearly through the veil, standing there in his red coat, his boots glossy and black, his eyes big and full of wonder, hardly daring to hope. Her heart broke for him then. She knew deep down that he doubted himself. She knew that he felt he wasn't good enough, that he was too old. That he was unworthy. She intended to spend the rest of her life showing him how wrong he was. She smiled beneath her veil, assured of his love, of her own love for him, and of the certainty of their happiness.

Edward performed the ceremony flawlessly, while Marianne and Brandon held hands and looked at each other. Brandon's heart wouldn't stop racing. Soon Edward would ask her if she took him to be her husband, for all time, till death did them part, and Brandon had never felt so vulnerable. What if she suddenly said no?

When he heard her voice say, "I will," strong and confident, he let out an audible breath and closed his eyes for a moment.

When she heard him say, "I will," his voice breaking, she laughed, overcome with emotion, and closed her eyes for a moment.

When he lifted her veil and looked into her eyes, he saw that they were filled with tears. He brushed a thumb to wipe them away before he kissed her. It was only when his lips touched hers that he felt anything resembling calm. He found his rest, his relief, in her. His wife.

It was only when he touched her face with his gloved hand and bent down to find her lips with his own that the flutter of nervous joy began in earnest in her heart and belly.