Disclaimer: I don't own "Twilight."
Thank you to everyone who asked how Mr. Price and I fared with Hurricane Sandy. We were very lucky: no flooding, no blackout. But there are plenty of people still in dire straits, so please keep them in your thoughts and checkbooks.
Merci to Ely for technical assistance and grazie to Camilla10.
Recap: When we last left BxE, they were in Zurich, where they visited a safe deposit box; Edward revealed that Gianna had treated him to a smutty slideshow in Volterra; and he asked his favorite question.
The bits of French will be translated at the end. I warn you, this is a complete nostalgia trip for me.
Chapter 10:
We stopped just outside Paris, on a quiet street in Neuilly, the town that was listed as my home on the faked residency permit in my passport. There was a park on one side of the street, a row of gated century-old town houses on the other.
"We're not staying here, right?" I asked, peering through the Audi's windshield before looking back at Edward. He had told me that we had reservations at an old, luxurious (naturally) hotel in Paris proper that had an awning to shade us on this sunny day. Which meant we'd be spending some quality time inside said old, luxurious hotel.
"Right, but since you were curious about your real estate holdings -" he smiled slyly as he reminded me of my sarcastic question in Vienna about my putative French residence "- I thought I should show you one." He nodded toward a building in creamy stone, with wrought-iron balconies and a mansard roof. The gate to the front garden was open, with men in coveralls carrying buckets inside. "We're doing some work on the interior, which helps explain why we're not staying there."
I didn't think that Edward was pulling my leg, but the idea that I "owned" this villa was so unreal that I could look at it dispassionately.
"It looks very peaceful here," I said.
He grimaced. "You would think that, but some of the most reviled people on the planet live on this street," he said, pointing out the homes of an arms dealer and a security chief in a fallen African dictatorship. "So my family thought we'd all fit right in."
"You are not comparable to -" I started to protest.
"Most people would be repulsed by our roaming the forests and draining large animals," he pointed out, and I subsided. After all, the idea that I would be doing that one day, and soon, made me queasy. Though I knew the alternatives remaining to me were unspeakably worse – and that was without taking into consideration what Edward had told me of Aro's designs on us, how he wanted to manipulate us for his benefit.
"Since the residents of this street don't want anyone knowing their business, they don't poke their noses into anyone else's," Edward went on. "And the location is convenient, both to Paris and places to hunt. But the drawback is a surprising amount of violence. Which is another reason you're not staying here."
"Like what?" I said skeptically.
"Like, in 1980, when we were all here, an assassination squad came looking for the exiled Iranian prime minister, killed one of his neighbors, and shot a policeman. We were forced to negotiate a police cordon to get out and hunt."
"Okay, but come on, that was a long time ago, before I was even born."
"The assassins came back to finish the job in 1991, after you were born," he said. "Not long ago enough. Though I have since learned Arabic and Persian in case a similar situation arises again."
I thought about that a moment before understanding. "Would you have stopped the shooting if you could have?" I asked.
"Not for the morality of it, but to insure our safety, yes." He looked at me somberly. "As I told you before, we are not superheroes."
"I know." I would have to learn, as the Cullens long ago had, that discretion was sometimes more important than principles, but that didn't mean they had to consider themselves soulless monsters. "I also know that you don't deserve to be reviled."
His smile was rueful. "You have an eternity to try to convince me of that," he said. "But now, it's time to see Paris."
Edward's gift had made him so nonjudgmental about sex that asking him about mechanics was easy. My deeper worries, the ones that no other woman would ever have, were more difficult to broach.
"Is hibited a word?" I asked him that night as we floated (or more accurately, I floated, and he anchored me) in the capacious Jacuzzi in the hotel we were staying in on the Avenue George V, not far from the Champs-Elysées. While the hotel itself wasn't to my taste – Edward conceded that it was overstuffed and overdecorated, but insisted that the location was ideal – the infinity tub in this suite was phenomenal, deep enough to warm Edward to his neck and with sufficient bubbles to provide me a certain degree of modesty.
"No. Why?" He idly popped a large bubble that had formed above my torso.
"I'm trying to think of the opposite of inhibited."
"Vampire." It was said as a joke, but I guessed that his answer was based on a lot of experience with his family.
I twisted my neck around to gaze at him. "Well, whatever the word is, you are it."
"Uninhibited," he said, then frowned, contemplating this. "Not having much experience in the matter, I don't know that I am," he said after a moment.
I gave him a significant look, thinking of our last weeks together, and he finally grinned in understanding. "I guess we're finding out, aren't we?" I had to snort in agreement, and he continued, "What I can say is that I've heard a lot."
"You've heard a lot of people thinking about the first time they had sex," I said, settling down against him again.
"It is a hazard of attending high school and college repeatedly, yes."
"What's it like, generally?"
"Generally," his voice still had a smile in it, "I'll come early and you won't." I was a little dubious about this answer, since this hadn't been my experience so far, and unsurprisingly he continued, "We'll have to see what we can do about that last part."
"What about the first part?"
"That's not a problem," he said dismissively. "There's no waiting period for me." He nudged my hip, and the feel of him hard against me made his meaning even clearer. I automatically reached down to touch him, but he gently stilled my hand. "Just ignore it," he suggested.
"And it'll go away?" I asked, turning to wink at him. But he looked at me, puzzled, and so I added, "It's like the poster at my dentist's in Phoenix: 'Ignore your teeth and they'll go away.'"
"Hmm, it's been a few years since I've been in a dentist's office." He grinned to show me the gleaming white reasons for that, then became more serious. "I didn't mean to distract you. This is an important topic." He kissed my wet fingers and proposed that we move to the bed.
This was never a proposition that I took exception to, and soon we were under the covers of our big white bed, lamps off but the lights of Paris illuminating the bedroom. In one window, beyond a church steeple, I could see the Eiffel Tower glowing.
Edward draped an arm around my waist comfortably. And comfortingly.
"Does it generally hurt?" I asked after a while. I'd had the sex talk with Renee, of course, but she could really speak only from one woman's experience, while Edward, whether he liked it or not, could speak from many.
"Are you worried about that?"
"Yes," I said.
"Are you worried that I'll hurt you?"
"You mean that you'll bite me?"
"Yes," he answered. He sounded curious, not tense, I was pleased to hear. Gianna must have been very convincing in her fantasies about Carlisle, as distasteful as that was to think about. I also knew that while he did worry about misjudging his strength with me, he felt confident about resisting my blood.
"No," I replied. "I'm worried, I think, in the way that human women worry about their first time."
He sighed. "I can't be general about that. It does for some women. And for others it does not. I very much hope you are in the latter group."
It turned out that he had some ideas about making that more likely, and we discussed that for a while before I fell silent again, doodling on his arm with my fingertip.
"Is there something else you want to talk about?" Edward prompted me.
I nodded. This part was more difficult. Carlisle would be shaking his head at me in rebuke at my remaining insecurities. "I'm worried ... well, that after 80 years of waiting, that the experience will be, you know, disappointing," I said. "Anticlimactic."
Edward hooted in laughter and I had to think back to what I had just said. Oh. He calmed down, and stroked my cheek. "I truly, truly don't believe that it will be underwhelming," he answered. "In fact, all evidence indicates that it will be the opposite of anticlimactic."
"Fine." I huffed. "Then that it won't be what you expected."
"Ah. I think I know a little bit what to expect by now. After all, even though I've been saving my virtue, as you note, some people would say that we're essentially having sex already."
"But you've heard so much …" I said, tapping my temple.
"Most of what I've heard has been daydreams – there's been only one case in which purposefully I lurked outside someone's bedroom, you know, and I didn't get to hear anything then." I gave him a dirty look, and he shrugged. "In any case, I'm well aware that people's fantasy lives are much more active than their real ones, and for good reasons."
"Yeah? Like what?"
"Family stability, legality, flexibility, geometry … Truly, our reality has been much better than any fantasy I've been forced to hear. But if you need reassurance on the matter, I'd be happy to provide it. I think showing would be even more convincing than telling."
"Showing is good," I agreed. After all, our talk and his, well, proximity was making me want to rub shamelessly against him.
Happily, he had decided that this part of the conversation required more intimate contact, because he shifted us around so that we were pressed together in a very promising way, with ample evidence that his erection, even ignored, hadn't gone away.
"But I must tell you this," he murmured, "there is one thing about all this that I hadn't expected."
"What?" I managed to get out, despite all the showing going on.
His fingers danced up along my ribs, tickling me so I squirmed and giggled. "I didn't realize there would be so much laughing," he said.
But really, what followed were noises that sounded a lot more like panting.
The restaurant we went to the next night sat in the middle of the Bois de Boulogne, the big park on Paris's western edge, and was described as an old hunting lodge. But it bore no resemblance to the Lodge back in Forks, nor any hunter's cabin or ice fishing shack I'd ever seen. Instead it was yet another 19th-century villa all in white, with a curving drive in front where a valet took our car, and a series of mirror- and curlicue-heavy rooms inside filled with diners.
The maître d' led us past all this to a terrace dotted with tables and heat lamps and tiny lights and surrounded by hedges. "Will you be warm enough out here?" Edward asked as we stepped out onto the flagstones.
"I think so. And it's such a beautiful evening to be outside." I looked up at the sky, still safely clouded in the twilight, and he laughed. "And if I get cold I'll have absolutely no feelings of guilt in taking your jacket."
It was a completely romantic setting, almost to the point of cliché. I drank down the bubbles in my kir royale with such gusto that Edward ordered me another and then I giggled at the succession of stark white plates that appeared before us, scallops and lamb and vegetables meddled with out of all recognition and dotted with foam. Pretentious but delicious, and the hedges gave Edward a place to jettison his uneaten portions.
Uncharacteristically, he left me for a few minutes to take a phone call after we'd ordered dessert. I used the time to think about our visit earlier in the day to some of Paris's ancient ruins - the Arènes de Lutèce, the arena where wild animals fought each other to amuse the city's Roman rulers, and the Cluny Museum, with the remnants of a public bath sitting nonchalantly across the street from a McDonald's.
I didn't buy a postcard of either to send to Charlie. I figured that he didn't need to wonder just how obsessed I was with old stuff. Instead I got one with a picture of a typical Parisian scene, of boats on the Seine. Edward almost had me convinced that there were topless sunbathers along the river beaches – after all, he had the eyesight to see that - but he finally broke down and admitted that the postcard was safe to send to my father.
"How's the world of mergers and acquisitions?" I teased Edward when he came back from his call. I was familiar enough by now with how the Cullens operated to know that he played a big role in managing their finances, a role he had slipped back into effortlessly. It was a bit intimidating, and a lot sexy, to wake up in the morning to find him murmuring orders about some business negotiation into his phone … and then to see him toss the phone aside so he could murmur dirtily to me.
"It's going surprisingly well. Shall we talk about tomorrow?" Edward said.
"Sure," I agreed, floating on wine and butter. What would we see tomorrow? St. Denis? Versailles? That museum with all the Monets -
"Tomorrow will have fine weather for our wedding day," he said, eying me warily.
"Tomorrow?" I squeaked, now feeling that I had suddenly floated over an abyss and was about to fall. I knew that if we were to marry before returning to Forks to set things in motion for my Volturi-ordered demise, it would have to be here in my fake residence in France, but I figured it would take a few weeks to arrange. There would need to be documents and licenses and, even, I thought, banns to be read.
I hadn't even had time to tell my parents that I was engaged. Or to be truthful, time, and bravery. Renee would hate that I was getting married, and Charlie would hate that I was getting married to Edward.
"Yes, the phone call I just had was confirmation that we can marry tomorrow, if you like." He reached across the table to take my hand. "Which I would like."
"So soon?" I asked, even as his touch eased my spike of nervousness.
"If we wait any longer for our wedding," he said, his voice pitched for secrecy and lust, "we won't be able to adhere to our decision to … wait until our wedding."
His words sent a rush of heat to my face as I remembered last night, my thighs wrapped around his as we moved against each other with perfect timing. That perfection came from Edward's hands on my hips guiding my thrusts, as he had learned to read my body as completely as he couldn't read my mind. And it all felt so slick and right that I bit a pillow so I wouldn't beg him to just move down a little and be inside me where he belonged, my pain and his principles be damned. We were a textbook example of those couples in the filmstrips that Edward had to watch in high school in the 1950s about the Dangers of Heavy Petting.
"Um, you have a point," I said. "But don't we need a license and – "
"And many other documents? And official translations of those documents? Yes."
"And you have that?"
"Yes. The biggest obstacle was the posting of the banns, which I wanted to avoid." Discretion was the better part of vampirism, I knew. He grimaced. "It would have delayed matters. And with our luck, Caius and Victoria would show up as guests."
My wineglass, on its way to my lips, froze in position at my throat. "Could that have really happened?" I asked.
"Alice hasn't seen anything like that, don't worry. And it's irrelevant now."
"Good." I took a healthy swallow from my glass. "So, did you dazzle a French bureaucrat into giving us the go-ahead?"
"I had neither the time nor the patience to bring a French bureaucrat to heel. They are very fond of papers and procedures. But the mayor of the suburb where our house is situated is willing to accommodate us … since we're such generous donors to his father's presidential campaign. I suppose that it's appropriate then that the civil service is a very businesslike affair. It lasts about five minutes. "
I grinned. "That sounds illegal. But great."
"There is a second part," he said, pouring some of his Chateau de Something into my wineglass as if it would soften the blow.
"Which is?"
"A priest at the American Cathedral has agreed to consecrate our marriage afterward … will you do that for me?"
"A cathedral … with, like, an aisle?"
"Yes, there is an aisle there."
I looked at him doubtfully.
"But we can walk down it together," he assured me.
"Oh, that's okay, then."
I took a sip from my newly filled glass. "Why do we have to do it twice?"
"The first one is in French, and I'd like you to understand what you're saying yes to. So we'll have one in English too."
"Why don't we just do that one?" I asked, confused.
"Because it doesn't count." I looked at him, now both confused and dubious that he'd say that about a ceremony in a church, and he added, "Well, yes, it counts more for me, but it's not the legal ceremony."
"I don't care," I said, shrugging.
"Your father will. And the cathedral won't consecrate our marriage if there's no marriage to consecrate. So," he said, standing up and tossing his napkin on his chair, "we'll do it?"
I nodded numbly, unable to turn that opening into the double entendre it deserved, because he had dropped to his knee beside me. Oh, you bastard, I thought, as conversations quieted around us.
"Remember, you've already said yes," he whispered as he took my hand again and I gaped. "Will you marry me?" he asked more loudly. I nodded again, and he raised an eyebrow.
You controlling bastard, I thought, feeling all the eyes on us. I took a breath and, suddenly flooded with a rush of emotion I didn't expect, said, "Yes," with surprising volume. Edward's answering smile was brilliant, and I tugged at his hand so he'd get out his mortifying-for-me position and stand up. We kissed to a smattering of applause before Edward pulled away with a grunt of disgust.
One of our waiters was back, brandishing a bottle of Champagne.
"Avec les compliments de la maison," he said, waiting for us to reseat ourselves, then popping the cork with a deft twist. He poured two glasses, as he had probably done for many newly engaged couples before us. "Felicitations, madame, monsieur."
Edward thanked him politely, but I knew he was cursing la maison. I snickered when the waiter left. "That's what you get for embarrassing me," I told my fiancé after we touched our flutes and he choked down a swallow, aware that everyone was still staring at us.
"No," he said, raising an eyebrow at me, "that's what I get for making it possible for you to truthfully tell your mother that I asked you to marry me over a romantic dinner, instead of when we were in bed naked and discussing the sex lives of vampires and humans."
"Once again, you have a point," I said. "Though I think that Renee will focus on the getting married part rather than the getting engaged part."
"And secretly you liked it a little," he said. He smirked at me, and I noticed that he had somehow managed to make his unwanted Champagne disappear.
"I didn't."
"You did. I know your heartbeat."
"Fine," I conceded "I did. So," I went on, hoping to distract his attention from my girly surge of sentiment, "no big rock?"
He wasn't buying it, but he played along. "I know you better than that, Miss Swan," he said, pointing his finger at me. "I have seen you gaze longingly at books, at food, even one or two times at me –" I shrugged, unable to deny it "- but never at jewelry. You seemed almost nauseated at the thought that I was taking jewelry out of my safe deposit box. Now, it is true that I have my mother's ring …" my eyes widened and he laughed " – no, don't worry, I don't have it with me - and I would like you to have it. I'm certain that she would have liked you to have it. But -"
"Yeah?"
"Well, that really is Victorian. Unlike me," he said pointedly. "And to modern tastes, perhaps a bit unattractive—"
"Unlike you."
"Thank you. Alice says it looks like a cheese grater."
I wrinkled my nose, picturing a grinder with a crank, then a box grater. "It's a big rectangle?"
"No, more like a small oval Microplane."
"Oh, one of those really sharp rasps. They make me nervous."
He looked thoughtful at this. "Perhaps it'd be safer for you to not wear it."
"I'm fine with that." I sipped some more Champagne. A pity he found it so disgusting.
"But," he said, "I do have two rings for us to use tomorrow, if you agree. They belonged to my parents."
I had a flash of sadness – his parents weren't buried with their rings, then. But I pushed it away, because I was also glad that he had these tokens of his human mother and father, especially since he had so few memories of them.
"Hah, I knew you were sneaking out jewelry from that box in Zurich. May I see them?" I said instead, guessing that he was carrying them with him. I guessed right, and he handed over a small velvet bag from which I extracted two gold rings that were as plain as I could have wished. I looked at their inscriptions in the flickering lights of the heat lamps and candles. Initials and dates, and one word.
"Toujours," I read aloud.
"Forever. Always. Toujours," he said, giving me the proper French pronunciation.
"Really? How ... suitable," I said. I looked up at his face to see his pleased expression. "It's perfect. … So, we're all set, then?"
"Almost. You'll have to buy a dress off the rack in the morning."
"Oh, quelle horreur," I said, breaking out one of the few French phrases I knew and pressing my hands to my cheeks in mock dismay.
"I'm sure there are some members of the family saying precisely that right now," Edward said dryly.
A few hours later, he smoothed a sheet over me as I yawned. I was sweaty and naked and wished he would curl up with me longer, but I understood why he was leaving.
"So I guess you're dining al fresco tonight, too?" I observed sleepily, feeling the effects of the Bordeaux I'd drunk and the Edward-induced rushes of endorphins I had recently experienced.
"Indeed. But I won't be out of cellphone range if you need to talk. Though –" he switched off the lamp next to me "—we have a busy schedule tomorrow, and you should get your sleep."
I nodded and yawned again. "Someday I won't need to sleep, you know," I mumbled.
"Yes. It's very sad."
"What?" I started to sit up so I could argue away any regrets about my soon to be lost humanity.
But he continued on, "How will I ever get a break from your incessant groping?" He punctuated this with a grope of his own, a swift caress of my ass over the linen sheet.
I settled back down with a snort. "You know you love it," I told him.
"I do," he said.
My sleep was dreamless and deep, and it seemed only moments had passed when Edward woke me up. Rain was splattering on the windows, and the Eiffel Tower was lost in the mist. Perfect for us.
Sadly, though, Edward was dressed. At least there was breakfast.
"So what's the plan?" I asked as I considered the food on the mahogany table before me: yogurt, croissants, tiny little strawberries I'd never seen before. It felt a long way from Pop-tarts and cereal on Charlie's warped kitchen table. "Is there a department store nearby or something where I can get a dress?"
"Alice has made you an appointment at a shop on the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, a few blocks from here."
"Huh, do I really need to consult with someone on this?"
He shrugged, but said, "It will be more efficient," and I had to agree. I wouldn't know where to start to find the appropriate outfit for a French civil ceremony.
We walked under an umbrella to the shop, all soft white and a dull gold and with a name I didn't recognize, though Edward said it was venerable. A slender white-haired woman in a severe gray dress introduced herself, and when she learned who we were there was a stream of French in which the words "Madame Cullen" figured frequently. Alice.
Edward left me so he could go down the street and pick up a suit that Alice had also arranged, and I went upstairs with Madame la vendeuse, whose real name I had forgotten immediately after being told it.
A rack of short white dresses awaited us, along with Madame's much younger but equally slim assistant, and I realized that this must be a big thing here, a chic little dress to wear to city hall, since everyone had to do it. Even to my untutored eye, the dresses looked carefully tailored despite their simple lines, and were free of ornamentation. Any of them would be a good choice, and Alice must have known that.
But none of them spoke to me, and after we'd looked through the rack, the saleswoman – who after Edward had left had demonstrated that her English was quite good – looked at me quizzically. I stared at the caster of the dress rack sinking into the boutique's deep ecru carpeting as she waited for an answer.
I thought about when Edward – a human Edward, who had survived influenza, maybe the war, bootleg liquor and swallowing goldfish at college … and had proposed to some girl, some well-bred Ethel or Mildred who would never have had any idea just how lucky she was – would have married in the normal course of events. The woman coming down the aisle toward him would have worn what, exactly? That is, if she had access to a boutique on the priciest street in Paris …
"Do you have something like, um, a flapper?" I asked. Madame looked at me uncertainly.
"Flapper?" she repeated.
I thought briefly of doing the Charleston, but opted for simplicity. "Like the 1920s," I said.
"Ah, Coco!" she said in satisfaction, adding, "Coco Chanel!" when I looked baffled. I wasn't sure at first that that was what I meant, but then Madame the assistant brought out the perfect dress from some recess of the boutique, so I guessed it was.
It was a pearlescent ivory silk, unconstructed and unrestrictive, sleeveless with a simple scoop neck and a softly draped skirt that would hit a little above my knees. It seemed to fit perfectly, but Madame insisted it needed adjustments, and she attacked me with pins in her mouth.
So I stood on a box in the dressing room, my image reflected all around me, as Madame adjusted the shoulders. The shadows under my eyes were gone, but my arms were still thin and my cleavage was nearly nonexistent. And I guessed it would stay that way.
I kept moving the scoop up for better coverage, and Madame kept moving it down. "American brides don't show as much bosom," I said firmly, and she finally surrendered and sent me off to get lunch.
"Hello, sweetheart. Can you hold on for a second till I'm in my office?" I heard the beeps of a hospital corridor cut off as Carlisle closed a door. Hospitals were noisy even at 3 a.m. "Now. So how is your day going?" he said, his voice teasing, obviously aware of exactly what I was doing.
"It's been ... interesting," I admitted into my cellphone. "But now Mesdames have allowed me to take a break." I was in a café a few doors away from the boutique, cutting up an omelet but too on edge to eat it.
"Your dress looks lovely," he said.
"How do -" I spluttered.
"Alice just e-mailed me a sketch. It's right in front of me. Appropriately old-fashioned."
"You think so, Dr. Fashionista?"
"Esme had something very like it in 1926," he said fondly. "But in red. And it had the most delicious dip in the back where I could -"
"Um, Carlisle?" I hurriedly interrupted him. As wonderful, and reassuring, as it was to have such definitive proof of conjugal desire after 90 years of marriage, I was too nervous to hear this now.
"Ah, yes," he said, sounding completely unembarrassed. "Well, she got to wear it only the once."
"Uh, okay, please tell Alice thanks for all her help today. I couldn't have done this on my own."
"I'll be sure to," he promised, then chuckled. "Alice sent me a new e-mail. She says you're welcome. I'll cross that off my to-do list, then."
"Soooo," I moved on, "I thought I should take this opportunity to ask you for your permission to marry your son." A surprised silence ensued, which I filled by adding, "He is kinda young, you know."
Carlisle didn't laugh. "By only one measure," my future father-in-law said quietly. "He's grown up quite a lot in the last few months."
"I have too, I think," I realized even as I said it. I was proud of myself for having been able to manage living in foreign countries on my own - except for the whole being captured by Heidi incident, but I could hardly fault myself for that. "Carlisle, I've never really thanked you for your help in getting us back together. Some of what you said was hard to hear, I have to confess, but it was what we needed."
"Of course. And I wouldn't be so presumptuous as to give you permission, Bella. Take my blessing, instead. Have you told your parents?"
"I was able to reach my mom last night. And she was surprisingly okay with it," I said. Renee had been so taken by the romance of our marrying in Paris – in June! - she seemed to have forgotten all her years of admonitions about waiting to get hitched till I was 30. It didn't even seem to bother her that she wouldn't be present. Charlie, though … "I couldn't get through to Charlie, so I'll try him in a few hours. And, well, he's still not happy that Edward and I are together, so I know he'll be upset, even if he doesn't show it - "
"It'll be fine," Carlisle said, sounding confident even though he had absolutely no basis for it. "You are neither the first, nor the last daughter whose father doesn't approve of her husband. But we approve of you."
I had to swallow hard at his words. I watched a puffy-lipped woman in a lab coat walk out into the drizzle with a silver tray and two tiny cups of espresso, then cross the street into a day spa. "Thanks, Carlisle," I was finally able to say. "Thanks for everything. Thank you for making Edward."
"And thank you for making me feel that it was worth it for him. He's given us so much, but sometimes I've wondered if our life would ever give him enough …" He paused for a second. "Ah, Alice now says that you won't be able to reach Charlie at all, that he'll be out of range, but she suggests you leave a message for him at the station so he'll know you tried to tell him."
I briefly contemplated asking if Alice had anything to say about after the wedding, but I pushed the thought away. If she had seen anything untoward she would have told Edward, and if she hadn't … well, I trusted him.
"Oh," I said. "Perhaps you could give him a call when he's back? Support him in his imperceptible days of rage?"
Carlisle laughed. "Charlie does keep it well-hidden, I agree. But he'll adjust."
"If there's anyone in the world who can persuade him, it would be you."
I returned to the shop to find the dress waiting for me, as well as items that "Madame Cullen" had arranged to be delivered – low-heeled T-straps, a white wrap, an old-style, loose teddy. "Very flapper," Madame said in approval, savoring the new word.
Now I was dressed and coiffed and all I needed was the groom. Madame looked out the window at the gray sky as we waited. The rain had stopped, but the clouds still looked threatening, and pedestrians did not linger. "I think the sun will never appear today," she said.
Thank God.
"Ah, perhaps it is better," Madame said philosophically. "We have an old maxim, 'Mariage pluvieux, mariage heureux.' Rainy wedding, happy marriage. So it is good luck for - oh là là."
Huh, French people really said that? But I understood why. A black car with a vaguely retro air had pulled up in the street below us in a no-parking spot and Edward had stepped out of the driver's side. Holy hell, he looked fabulous - beautifully wild hair, amber eyes, snow white cuffs peeking out of a dark blue suit. In a few seconds he was upstairs, complimenting Madame's work and making her blush, and regarding me appreciatively.
I did the same to him, for up close he looked even more magnificent. He was born to wear a suit, and I'd bet that he felt more comfortable in one than in the jeans and sweatshirts his teenager's disguise required. "The tailors probably thought they'd died and gone to heaven when they got their hands on you," I said, unable to stop from stroking his lapels. Madame stepped away to give us privacy.
He shrugged. "They already had my measurements, so there wasn't much they needed to do. Besides, a vanishingly small number of people enjoying having their hands on me. Or mine on them." His voice grew quieter, yet darker, and some of the tension in my body seemed to liquefy as his fingers tightened on my waist. "And there is only one person I want my hands on. Let's go to our wedding," he said, leading me downstairs.
I cocked my head at the unfamiliar car in the street. "I don't recognize this," I confessed.
"It's a Bristol," he said, in the tone of voice one would say, "It's a Giacometti," or "It's a Stradivarius."
I looked at the car, and then him, significantly, and he said, "You know, it's my wedding day too." He opened the passenger door for me.
"You are such a ... Cullen," I said, stepping into the Bristol, thinking of Carlisle's disquisition on vampires and cars. That seemed so long ago.
"And in a few minutes, you will be too."
"What?" The door closed on my exclamation. I realized that we hadn't discussed names. It was a topic that occupied us for most of the short drive to Neuilly.
From Edward's description of the ceremony, I expected that we'd be married in some small office at the city hall, but the salle des mariages was impressive, with red velvet chairs, frescoes of cavorting lovers and huge windows overlooking rows of severely pruned, damp chestnut trees. Through a pair of open doors behind us, I could hear heels clicking along a marble hallway.
Edward had just introduced me to two older women - our witnesses, employees of a local law firm that had some connection to the Cullen lawyer - when the mayor walked in. He was tall and thin and looked too young and nervous to be the president of his high school junior class, much less the mayor of a large town, an impression heightened by the tricolor sash he wore over his suit. He was followed by a stout blond woman carrying a sheaf of documents, discontent obvious on her face.
"Who's she?" I whispered.
"His aide, and the person who really runs the place," Edward whispered back. "She's dismayed that we've skipped some steps in the processing of our documents, and she's giving her boss grief about it."
The bureaucrat and the politician moved to stand behind an oak table in front of us, the woman slightly behind her gangly boss.
''Veuillez vous lever,'' the mayor said, his voice cracking, and I stood up a second after Edward, our hands clasped. "Nous allons procéder à la célébration du mariage de Monsieur Edward Cullen avec Mademoiselle Isabella Swan.'' Our names sounded odd nestled among all the French words. ''A-t-il été fait un contrat de mariage?''
One squeeze of my hand for yes, two squeezes for no. Edward gave me two. "Non," we answered. No prenup for us.
"Conformément à la loi, '' the mayor continued, and there followed a stream of words that Edward had told me was a recitation of French civil code, until I finally heard my name again.
"Mademoiselle Isabella Swan, consentez-vous à prendre pour époux Monsieur Edward Cullen, ici présent ?''
One squeeze. ''Oui,'' I answered.
''Monsieur Edward Cullen, consentez-vous à prendre pour épouse Mademoiselle Isabella Swan, ici présente?'' I helpfully squeezed Edward's hand once, just in case he'd forgotten, and the side of his mouth curled up as he also said, "Oui.''
''Au nom de la loi,'' the mayor intoned, ''je déclare Monsieur Edward Cullen et Mademoiselle Isabella Swan unis par le mariage.''
Wow, that was quick. The exchange of rings was equally brisk, even if the kiss that followed was not, and then we and the witnesses had to sign papers under the eye of the sour-faced aide, who handed over a little booklet of documents. I was surprised when, after the witnesses had kissed my cheeks and we accepted the congratulations of the mayor, who looked as relieved as I was that this was over, to see a small crowd lingering in the doorway, gawking in a very un-French way.
I couldn't blame them. My husband – my God, my husband – looked absurdly amazing.
The Bristol took us back into the city, past our hotel and then a short way down the Avenue Georges V before stopping at a church with an extremely tall spire. One of the valets from the hotel was waiting on the sidewalk, and I realized why Edward had said the location was so convenient. A clever boy, that one.
But …"I'm not an Episcopalian, you know," I whispered conspiratorially, looking up at the American Cathedral's Gothic Revival façade after the valet had helped me out of the car, holding an umbrella over me to protect me from the renewed drizzle, and Edward had handed over the keys.
"That's okay, because I am," he said as we walked up the church steps. I smirked at him, pretty sure some fraud was involved, and he added, "At least the priest here has a baptismal certificate from the lawyer that says I am."
"Does the priest also have written permission from your parents since you're under-age?" I couldn't help say to tease him, and he decided it was time for payback.
"Watch your tongue, Mrs. Cullen," he said, reminding me of my agreement to take the name when we returned home, having been persuaded by his argument that I'd be able to use it for only a few years. "Or I'll dazzle Mother Brownlee into putting an 'obey' in your vows."
Mother Brownlee was a brunette in her 50s with a warm smile and a Southern accent who was as petite as Alice, and we dutifully handed over to her our certificat de célébration civile, our proof that we were legally married. The priest muttered a bit about our lack of premarital counseling (which would have been interesting: "So, Bella, what are your expectations of marriage?" "Eternal devotion, immortality, and lots of hunting"), but Edward soothed her scruples with some well-chosen assurances/lies until she sent us off with the cathedral's wedding coordinator to get ready.
I wasn't sure that the wedding coordinator, another American woman in her 50s named Margaret, needed to be involved in our no-frills ceremony. But she bustled around, handing me a charming bouquet of tiny white lily of the valley -"Very appropriate," Edward murmured to me. "They're venomous" - having Edward and me walk up the aisle for practice and taking me off to fuss with my hair while Edward talked to the organist.
Margaret was waiting with me in the narthex when the music started. It wasn't the usual Mendelssohn wedding march and I was overcome by giggles. Margaret looked alarmed.
Instead it was "Sheep May Safely Graze" - which I knew because Edward had played it for me in Forks as I sat next to him on the piano bench. He also was able to play it with only a tiny fraction of his attention, so much so that I'd started calling it "Lips May Safely Graze."
"It's just a joke we have," I said, and Margaret nodded, probably wondering how two teenagers had made a joke out of Bach.
"Are you ready?" Edward said, suddenly next to me, and Margaret startled in a way I no longer did. "Mother Brownlee is waiting," he added, nodding to the woman in priestly garb at the altar.
"Oh, goodness, go," Margaret shooed us, her breath hitching, and we made our way to the strains of Bach, the church cavernous and soaring around us – classic Gothic inside too, no nausea-inducing oculus allowed. Our witnesses were here again, in the second row, and we sat in front of them. Across the aisle were some women from the church offices, I thought, and maybe the altar guild. There were the usual readings, and I was glad for the church women, who helped make up for the fact that I knew almost none of the responses.
Then it was time for Edward and me to stand up in front of everyone. "Edward," Mother Brownlee said, "you have taken Bella to be your wife. Do you promise to love her, comfort her, honor and keep her, in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, to be faithful to her as long as you both shall live?"
Edward's "I do" was strong and sure, and the church women emitted little sighs.
"Bella, you have taken Edward to be your husband. Do you promise to love him, comfort him, honor and keep him, in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, to be faithful to him as long as you both shall live?
"I do," I whispered, emotion coursing through me as I made promises I could understand.
We lifted our left hands, and the priest continued, "Bless, O Lord, these rings to be signs of the vows by which this man and this woman have bound themselves to each other." She joined our right hands, flinching a little at the feeling of Edward's skin, and added, "Those whom God has joined together let no one put asunder."
"No one," Edward repeated in my ear, and I knew he was thinking of Aro. I wasn't sure the Volturi cared what God had done, but if God wanted to get involved I would appreciate the help.
There were more prayers, because Episcopalians are apparently very wordy, but finally the priest let us kiss each other, and the ladies in the congregation shook my hand and kissed my cheeks as Edward whispered to Mother Brownlee. Then the organist started playing something complicated and sprightly, and Edward practically flew me down the aisle.
That was fine with me: after all, we were married and blessed and our hotel was just down the street.
Another couple, another Edward and Bella, might have stumbled into the suite, high from anticipation and the Champagne toast at the church rectory, kicking off their shoes and joyously tumbling onto the bed. He would have pushed her dress up, she would have shoved his pants down, and they would have consummated their marriage in spontaneity and blissful ignorance of hands too cold to touch and deadly strength held in check.
But we were not that Edward and Bella.
Instead, Edward undressed me slowly as the bed heated, touching my skin only with his lips, leaving my old-fashioned lingerie in place. He stripped off his clothes as I stared and we slid under the covers.
As we waited, he said, "I think we're never going to want to leave this bed, but I have an idea, a place we won't need this." He tugged at the electric blanket. "There's an island off Brazil where we'll be alone, and we can get to Rio in 11 hours from here. We'd have to cut short our time in Paris."
"Yes," I said promptly. "Though I don't want to leave this bed either."
"We'll have all day tomorrow before the flight leaves." He smiled slyly, and fingered the strap of the teddy. "Did you really picture me marrying a flapper?" He'd obviously seen our conversation replayed in Madame's head.
"Yeah. Myrtle. She's got a cute little blond bob, and mixes a mean Manhattan."
He grimaced. "No more alcohol today, please. I think I would have preferred a woman with long brown hair who knows how to make pies," he said, and I remembered him watching me rolling out a piecrust for Charlie, his gaze burning into my body as I worked. "With these hands," he added, taking hold of them and bringing them to his lips. I gasped, because he was warm enough now, and I pulled his hands to my chest, the contact making me shudder.
He inhaled sharply, and his fingers broke free from mine to trail down my arm, tracing the scar left by James and then back up, exploring as if he had never touched me before. The contact was so simple, yet somehow beyond erotic.
He continued this way, touching me everywhere my skin was exposed, gently, slowly, humming softly, making my nerves hum under his fingers – my shoulders, my collarbone, my face, my knees. And then my teddy was unsnapped and gone, and his hands went into new territory, along my back and stomach and hips, again, again, at the same maddening pace. I longed to touch him, but he pushed my fingers away, reminding me of what we had talked about. "Let me focus on you this time, not on me," he murmured, and my hands dropped back to the mattress.
But it was like torture, however sweet. His goal was to arouse, not satisfy, and his movements over my breasts, on the inside of my thighs, on my sex, were light and unhurried, as if nothing in the world mattered more than touching me in just this way. After minutes, after hours, he kept his fingers between my legs and his lips on my neck, the pressure the same as his skin slid over mine, exquisite yet never enough, and my moans were uncontrollable and my fingernails clawed the sheets.
"Please, please, please," I whimpered, and suddenly Edward was above me, and in me, and it was … such a fucking relief, and strange and weird and painless and overwhelming and wonderful. Then I forgot all that because he was coming, I knew it from his face, and now I knew what it felt like when he was inside me. I grinned at him when his eyes opened, and he grinned back.
"We're okay," I said. It was both observation and reassurance.
"More than okay," he said. "And we're not done."
"It's an advantage to traveling with you," I agreed.
Then his hips started a rhythm that was instinctive and evolutionary yet ours alone, and his hand moved to where we were joined, and my universe became his sounds in my ear, his taste in my mouth, his back rippling under my hands, his body stroking mine. My skin flushed hot and I arched, and then Edward knew what it felt like when I came when he was inside me, what it felt like when I came and he was coming too.
"We did it," I said after I caught my breath, elated, and he laughed.
"Oh, we certainly did it."
"Oooh, the 17-year-old in you comes out after hiding behind that fancy suit."
"Always," he said, smirking, and I broke into giggles at his smug expression, until he stopped them with a kiss. Then we talked of this extraordinary day, and Brazil, and plans for the future that involved a lot of touching until the talk of touching turned into actual touching, and the day turned into a night of love and laughter.
We might not have the innocence and obliviousness of that other Edward and Bella, but we would have their joy.
At least we would have it for a night.
Because when I woke up Edward wasn't next to me. I blinked and sat up in the grayness of early morning Paris, and saw him framed in the doors to the sitting room. Not sitting, but standing inhumanly still, fully clothed, phone to his ear, only his lips moving in an indecipherable hiss. So not a stockbroker or the lawyer, but someone in the family. His eyes met mine and I knew something was wrong.
I yanked at the sheet – it had been replaced and tucked back during the night - for something to cover me, but a second later Edward was wrapping me in a hotel robe, then pulling me close, the phone tossed to the bed.
"Alice?" I asked, almost unnecessarily.
"Yes."
"The Volturi?" I guessed, my voice faint.
"Victoria."
I nodded, slightly relieved, but only slightly. "Our deciding to go to Isle Esme made puzzle pieces move around, and Alice saw that Victoria has plans involving Forks," Edward said. "I still want us to go to Isle Esme, keep you safely away from her -" oddly harmonious squawking erupted from the phone, still connected to our psychic "—but Alice says that this won't end well if we do."
"What does she want? Can you tell?"
"She wants to lure us back to Forks, Alice thinks, so she can punish us for James." The phone was silent now. "And she's planning to … put your father in danger to do that."
"But that doesn't make sense," I said, even as my heart raced and the scar on my wrist seemed to throb in time with it. "She can't get to Charlie with all your family around."
"That would be true if it was just her, but it's not just her," Edward said bleakly. "She's made new vampires to help her."
My stomach twisted. "We have to go back, even if that's exactly what she wants."
"I know."
The squawking from the phone started again.
And so I'm back on a plane, leaving Europe behind. Less than six months ago, I was flying the other direction, alone, heartbroken, angry, my future uncertain. Now my future is still uncertain, the magnitude of the danger we face unknown, but my heart is whole, and I have what I need most in the seat next to me, our sides touching as if we were welded together. The certainty of what we feel for each other will get us through the days ahead of planning and questions and violence.
If Edward hadn't decided to set up a scholarship fund for me, if I hadn't been so hurt and insulted enough to drop out of school and skip town, what would have happened? Maybe Laurent would have found me before the wolves found him. Maybe Victoria would have chomped on me as I did the dishes at Charlie's. Maybe I would have remained so despairing that I would have jumped off a cliff … or, heaven help me, gone out with Mike Newton.
We had been irrational and insecure, each in our own way, but our foolishness had set in motion events that made us partners legally, physically, and before God.
"What are you thinking?" Edward asks, his breath washing over my cheek, his voice soft under the white noise of the plane and the bustling of flight attendants. I look down at his hand on my waist, at his father's gold ring on his finger.
"Fate, multiple paths, what would have happened if you had been less of a bastard," I say.
His expression lightens for the first time on a day that had started so ominously. "I won't apologize for being a bastard since it led you back to me," he says. "Or you to me, however you want to look at it."
"Well, just don't do it again," I tell him.
He somehow manages to pull me even closer as he says. "I promise, the scholarship fund is permanently closed." I nod in approval.
"But," he adds, "we can always learn from each other."
-fin -
Yep, that's the end. Though – I have an idea for a future take (not the fight, which I have no interest in rewriting, other than to say I prefer the movie version to the book version in which Bella is told how useless she is). I'm just not sure if I will add it here or send it as a review reply.
Otherwise, I'm still translating "The Eyes of the Moon," and I'm working on a new story, which will be an AU of the first book called "There's a Word for It." I can't say when that'll start posting, so put me on author alert if you're interested.
I borrowed the cheese grater line from Cleolinda, whose summary of BD2 will doubtless be better than the movie itself. The technique Edward uses on the wedding night is a version of orgasmic meditation.
No comments from Mr. Price this time. He's a little put out that the version of this chapter that I gave him to read was censored with these words: The cumquat you don't get to read.
N.B.: This was pretty much the wedding Mr. Price and I would have had (though with, like, people and food) if we hadn't decided to return to the States for the ceremony. But if you're American non-resident of France and hoping to get married in Paris, it's virtually impossible unless you've got Cullen resources.
Thanks to everyone for lovely reviews and patience.
Here are the translations:
"Avec les compliments de la maison. Felicitations, madame, monsieur." Compliments of the house. Congratulations.
Madame la vendeuse: roughly. Ms. Saleswoman.
'' Veuillez vous lever. Nous allons procéder à la célébration du mariage de Monsieur Edward Cullen avec Mademoiselle Isabella Swan.'A-t-il été fait un contrat de mariage ? '' Please stand. We will now proceed with the marriage of Mr. Edward Cullen and Miss Isabella Swan. Is there a marriage contract/prenuptial agreement?
"Conformément à la loi, ' In accordance with the law
"Mademoiselle Isabella Swan, consentez-vous à prendre pour époux Monsieur Edward Cullen, ici présent ?'' Miss Isabella Swan, do you agree to take Mr. Edward Cullen as your spouse ?
''Au nom de la loi, je déclare Monsieur Edward Cullen et Mademoiselle Isabella Swan unis par le mariage.'' In the name of the law, I declare Mr. Edward Cullen and Miss Isabella Swan united in matrimony.