"I remember wishing I'd be here for summer." Dempsey murmurs and explains when Harry is confused, as if she never had any doubts he would be anywhere else. "When I first came here with you…" He frowns as he remembers why he had to leave.
"It's okay," Harry says, moving her head from his shoulder as she seeks to reassure him. "Now you know it's always chilly."
"I still can't believe you left me on my own last night, you in your bed, and me in mine." Dempsey looks at her with amused disbelief. "If you'd left a trail of breadcrumbs I might've found you but I didn't stand a chance without them."
"Really? You sure the nose didn't know?" Harry teases. "If you'd wanted to, you'd have found me but it's bad luck, I told you."
"I've got luck. She's about your height, has blonde hair, blue eyes, in fact, she is you!" Dempsey kisses her, and then he tips her backward. Harry calls him a show-off after she's stopped giggling at him. They took a few dance lessons but gave up when he rebelled at counting. He grins at the cheer from their friends and family anyway and continues to murmur in her ear. It's about the only time he's been able to talk to her alone."You're one helluva hot bride."
"Hot?" Harry asks with an eyebrow raised and an amused smile. "Is there such a thing as a hot bride?"
"My bride was always gonna be hot." Dempsey says assuredly. "I ran out of words… stop laughing…beautiful, gorgeous, sexy - not sure the vicar was cool with that. I'm a man of action. Less talking, more…" Harry shuts him up with a kiss, worthy of her hot bride descriptive.
"Well, you are a hot groom, in case you wondered." She told him how handsome he was at the altar. He's now a little undone, his tie draped around his neck and his hair flopping over his face, he's boyish and most of all, happy. "I love you, in case that wasn't already obvious."
"About as obvious as me loving you." He turns them around the floor and holds her tighter.
Before she left him last night, to sleep in a separate wing, they'd walked to the chapel and inspected the flowers that Mrs Abbot had insisted they had. Bright red roses and yellow rudbeckia petals brought the place to life. In the quiet space, he'd given her a gift of pearls to match her mother's necklace.
She had stood in the quiet of a bedroom this morning coming to terms with a moment of heady realisation that everything is changing when Freddy had knocked on the door and wiped a tear from his eye. She bucked the trend for meringue dresses, which are all the rage after the Royal Wedding a few years ago. Her heart was caught by a simple silk dress flecked with sparkles that she knew would catch the light from the chapel windows. The floor-length flowing skirt made her feeling enough of a princess. It's perfect. Emily is appropriately her bridesmaid, the two of them have had fun getting ready this morning, and that's all she needed, apart from Dempsey.
Harry took Freddy's arm and they walked across the lawn, with Emily carefully taking care of the train of the dress, to the chapel where their guests were waiting to watch her marry the cop who had given her the faith to be brave. Any butterflies were from excitement and when Harry saw Dempsey waiting for her, she'd had to quell the urge to run to him. Freddy patted her hand and slowed them down to a formal pace, allowing her fiancée to study her with a smile that crept over his emotional face.
The sun broke through during the ceremony and surprised them with a cool Indian summer day in September. The ballroom where they are taking to the floor with the first dance is newly restored and the Hall feels alive with sound and light. Around them, friends and family have gathered wish them well.
It's everything her first wedding ceremony was not. Harry brushes aside the memory of grey registry office with a solemn Freddy in dutiful, but wary attendance. Any thoughts of her first wedding night have been turned to dust thanks to the man she's now married. Dancing in Dempsey's arms, she is giddy with the anticipation of their wedding night, of waking up as his wife and the promise of two weeks of just them.
"It's not over yet," Dempsey replies, "We've got more dancing and stuff."
"When you think we can leave?" Harry runs a hand over his shirt buttons. "I'd rather do some different dancing."
"The linen closet, I can be real quick." Dempsey suggests with a saucy wink.
"Secret passageway to the roof by our bedroom door." Harry replies quickly. He looks at her wide-eyed, she loves getting the upper hand.
He'll have the last laugh tomorrow morning. Harry doesn't know it yet, but he's taking her to the Park Lane Hotel honeymoon suite after breakfast before they travel to Italy in a few days. She doesn't know that either. He grins at this secret knowledge and then feigns innocence. "That information is noted."
"I know you're up to something, I know that look." Harry eyes him with amusement. "I'm sure whatever it is, I'll love it."
"And that's the best thing I heard all day. Apart from 'I will'…" Dempsey hears the band slow the song down towards the end. He lifts her up so he can kiss her in a way that might have got him into trouble once. "…Mrs Dempsey."