New York Times

Isabella Swan Weds Jacob Black Montgomery

August 7th

Isabella M. Swan, the daughter of the late Bianca M. Swan of Palm Beach, Fla., and Charles J. Swan of New York, New York, is to be married Sunday to Jacob Montgomery, a son of Elizabeth Black Montogmery and Michael B. Montgomery of Livingston, N.J. Minister Patrick Jacobson is to officiate the ceremony taking place at the Montgomery estate in Bedminster, N.J.

The bride, 24, will continue to use her name professionally. She works in New York as the vice president for development and acquisitions at Goldman Sachs, under her father, the Chief Financial Officer at the firm since 1994. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School of Business.

The bridegroom, 26, is the Global Head of Structured Credit in the Investment Banking Division of Lehman Brothers. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School of Business and received a Master's in Business Administration from Columbia University. The bridegroom's father, who is a founder of his family's real estate business, stepped down as the company's chairman last year, owing to his legal problems, but has since resumed his title.

The next morning found the two newlyweds on their way to Glasgow in a parade of two. Edward drove the way in the front, driving a small odd-looking vehicle that resembled a truck and Isabella followed behind in her rental vehicle that she was going to return to the Hertz dealership in Glasgow. The separation of vehicles gave each of them time to think and by extension, time to worry.

Isabella spent most of the drive through the highlands convincing herself that there would be no issues with the withdrawal. She racked her brain and thought of all of the international finance laws she was familiar with that had anything to do with the odd scenario they had found themselves in.

Her conclusion was that it should work.

The problem with should, is that it was a lot to base a marriage on, real or not.

When they walked out of Barclays with a cashier's check for £150,000 held in Isabella's hand, Edward let out a heavy breath and then inhaled slowly. He turned to her with a slight upward quirk of his lips and she got the feeling that it was the first real breath he had taken in months.

Isabella was feeling relieved but still rattled from an exchange with the banker they had met with. Seeing no harm is having Edward sit in the conversation with her, considering he was now her husband, she had nodded at the open seat next to her while the banker pulled up her accounts.

"Swan…Swan," the banker muttered under his breath as he moved his mouse around on his desktop.

Out of the corner of her eye she couldn't help but notice Edward's incessant leg bouncing. Both of his feet were planted firmly on the ground, but his legs were constantly moving and his whole body was tense as he sat in the high-end Barclays office in Glasgow's City Centre.

"Will this be the joint account of Swan and Mo-"

"No."

Isabella felt her heart start pounding but managed a calm, "No, it will not be."

The banker raised an eyebrow at her but then turned back to the screen, "Of course…Ms…"

"Mrs. MacDonald," she supplied with a forced friendly smile, glancing over in Edward's direction with what she hoped passed as fondness.

Edward took the cue and smiled back, reaching over and hold her hand. "Aye," he agreed.

The banker watched the exchange with a slightly raised eyebrow which was quickly lowered when Isabella turned her intent gaze back to him. After several ID checks and answers to thinly veiled questions very clearly trying to get at figuring out the situation, Isabella and Edward left with the check and envelope in her hands.

If Edward thought there was anything unusual about the exchange with the banker, he didn't say anything. Instead, he led her his car and opened the door for her before getting in the driver's side himself. "Shall we drop this off with MacLeod and then go to Sleat?" he asked.

Isabella nodded, staring ahead.

Edward seemed to recognize that she was not in a conversational mood, despite the confident and friendly woman who had just been in the bank. He frowned as he pulled out of the parking spot. She couldn't say what exactly was on his mind as he navigated the streets of Glasgow and oriented them back to the Highlands.

~O~

Their stop at the Royal Bank of Scotland was fortunately uneventful.

MacLeod, it appeared, was not in his office.

Edward provided the necessary information about the loan while Isabella spoke in a crisp, no-sense voice with the banker. The woman's eyes had widened at the check and she had glanced back and forth between them and her computer before asking them to wait one moment while she called her supervisor.

"Is that standard protocol?" Isabella asked with a raised eyebrow as the woman's hand hovered over her phone.

"I beg your pardon?" the banker had asked with exaggerated blinking.

Edward had watched Isabella curiously as she nodded at the phone.

"Is RBS actively in the habit of discouraging their customers from paying back loans in full?" Isabella asked. "That seems incredibly counterproductive."

"Well, well…well ye see, with this large of an amount, it's standard that we go through several…procedures."

"I understood most of those procedures to be in place ascounter terrorism measures related to cash not checks," Isabella said challengingly. "Furthermore, compared with other business and loans RBS does, I expect this amount is not considered 'large.' Am I wrong?"

The banker lost confidence in the face of the authority in Isabella's tone. "Well, there is a flag on the account, put by Mr. MacLeod – it says he wishes to be notified of any large repayments made to this account."

At that, Edward stood up from the chair.

"Then notify him."

"Well, um, there, there are different, um, with this being international, and with the FDI-there might be any number of reasons why this could not be processed."

Isabella stood up and reached over to take Edward's hand.

"If any of those reasons come up, you can reach us at my husband's phone number listed on the account. Until then, I think you have all that you need. Thank you for your help."

And they had walked out of RBS, hand in hand, with Sleat debt free.

If Edward had any guilt at the feeling that he was committing fraud, he ignored it admirably. She felt his focus on her as they walked, as if he was surprised by her professional tone and demeanor. There seemed to be questions on the tip of his tongue, but for whatever reason, he bit them back.

And for that she was grateful.

~O~

It was mid-afternoon by the time they returned to the Isle of Skye and pulled into Sleat Distillery.

Edward killed the engine to the car and reached up to scratch the back of his neck.

"Ye'll be wanting a tour then?"

"Jasper was quite thorough," she replied.

Edward nodded, "Aye."

"But perhaps we should come up with a plan to get Sleat through this recession?" she suggested.

"Oh aye," he agreed quickly. "Alright, okay, I'll show ye to our books so ye can…well see the financials I suppose."

Isabella nodded and followed him in exiting the car.

Jasper and Ian were behind the front desk when they walked into the lobby from the side entrance. Their heads both whipped up at the sound of the bell attached to the door. For a moment, Isabella could see the concern in both of their faces before they dually smoothed out.

"How'd it go?" Jasper asked cautiously, a solemn look on his face.

"Sleat lives to fight another day, lads," Edward replied, the relief in his voice evident. He clapped Jasper's back and Isabella could see his shoulders drop as if he had finally lost a heavy weight. Jasper and Ian's faced mirrored Edward's as Ian threw his arm around Edward, shaking him with a huge grin on his face.

Isabella couldn't help but crack a grin, even though she felt like an outsider in the encounter.

Jasper locked eyes with her and offered her a large smile. "And we have Bella girl to thank for everything!"

Edward followed his gaze over to his wife and offered her a smaller, equally as grateful smile.

"Aye, that we do."

And for the first time in a long time, Isabella felt her cheeks warm under their stares.

"Well, don't thank me yet," she replied dismissively, "Sleat is not out of the woods."

Anyone in her past life would have agreed – the business had a long way to go before it would be considered stable. But the men in front of her did not grow up on Wall Street like she had. They did not have experience in executive development or investment banking. They did not have training in assessing businesses and properties or managing risky investments.

This was their livelihood and for the moment, it was not going to disappear.

The realization left Isabella unable to speak.

Edward seemed to understand the most. He clapped Ian on the back and nodded. "Right, we'll be in the office if ye need me."

"I printed all of those papers ye asked for," Jasper said. "I dinnae ken what most of them mean, but they're there."

"Thank you," Isabella said with a small smile, blinking past her existentialism. She felt a growing sense of trepidation at what was waiting for her in the office.

And when her and Edward entered, that feeling was entirely justified.

Resting on the desk where Edward had been sitting when she met him three days earlier was a large cardboard box with file folders, manila envelopes and loose paper, some file clipped with small receipts, some standing alone.

Upon seeing the expression on her face, Edward winced.

"Most of it is from the past year," he explained as Isabella began to pick at some of the papers. "Da was more organized."

Isabella nodded as she looked at a random shipping invoice.

Edward bent down and pulled open a large drawer towards the bottom of the desk. The drawer was considerably more organized than the box, while the file folders organized and labeled with precise handwriting. "This is from the past eight years, I think. Most of it's from Da but some might be from Carlisle from earlier too. He can explain anything that doesn't make sense if ye run into anything."

Isabella rubbed at the side of her face as she looked at the piles in front of her. "Do you have a balance sheet?" she asked, "Or any updated consolidated financial documents?"

"Oh aye," Edward said, rubbing at the back of his neck and nodding at the box. "When the GRG stepped in a few months ago…the RBS ploy, ye'll remember? Aye, well they required updated documents as part of their 'consulting' process that was meant to turn the business around," he explained, bitterness creeping into his voice. "They'll be in there somewhere. Of course, those are from four months ago and MacLeod disagreed with how they were done, or so he said, so…I dinnae ken how helpful they'll be."

Isabella blew out a breath and lowered herself into the leather chair behind the desk.

Edward watched her face, scratching at his jaw. Other than a clear wariness at the disorganized mess in front of her, he could glean nothing of her thoughts or even regrets about what she had gotten into.

"If ye want, I can sort it out so that ye can at least make sense of it?" he offered. He stopped short of offering to explain some of the documents to her – he didn't know much about her background, but from the way she spoke, she was not a novice when it came to financials.

"Thank you, but that's alright," she replied.

"Right, okay," he agreed. "Well, I suppose I'll let ye get…acquainted with Sleat then, and I'll be in the still house if ye need me, aye?"

Isabella nodded, staring down at a different invoice date three weeks ago.

"Right, well, I'll leave ye to it then."

~O~

As it turned out, Sleat did not have a business plan.

Isabella spent four hours sorting all of the documents in the box into general categories and knew she had plenty of sorting left to do, but as she identified and categorized documents, she started to piece together the fact that Sleat was struggling both because of the economic slowdown but also because of a business model that had been successful in the 1900's but did not allow them to compete in 2008.

Beyond those concerns, she did have to admit that MacLeod was correct in accusing Sleat of having improperly done statements. Once she extracted the statements out of the box and did a cursory glance over them, she identified several glaring errors that made her wince upon seeing. It had been awhile since some of her International Finance courses, but she was easily and repeatedly identifying errors.

Next to her sat a notebook of random scribblings, including an increasingly growing to-do list and several observations about some of the documents she was looking at. She had barely managed to sort the papers into stacks when there was a knock on the door. Isabella looked up at the clock in surprise to see how much time had passed since Edward had left her alone in the space.

A head of ginger colored hair popped into the office after the knock.

"How are ye coming along then?" he asked, pleasantly but a guarded tone to his voice.

Isabella looked at the stacks in front of her and maintained a neutral expression.

"That bad, aye?"

She made a note to work on her neutral.

"It's a start," she replied.

Edward's lips quirked up. "Aye. Were ye getting hungry at all?" he asked. "Esme called and mentioned she could use a wee bit of help cleaning up from the festivities at the Isles."

Isabella nodded her consent, perking up at the thought of seeing the Englishwoman.

Edward opened stepped forward to open the door further for her. "And by the looks of it, ye could use a good dram."

Isabella blew out a breath and locked eyes with him. "I daresay you're right, MacDonald."

Upon arriving at Isles Inn, they learned that Esme simply needed a few of the extra tables that had been brought in for the festivities to be put back in a storage shed. Edward and Jasper got to work immediately, leaving Esme and Isabella relatively alone in the pub. There were a few patrons by the fireplace, but they had full pints and were deep in conversation.

She was surprised by how familiar it was to be in the pub. The atmosphere was warm and cozy and welcoming in a way that made her shoulders relax, just the slightest.

"Good to see you, love," Esme had said when the three of them entered the inn. Isabella let the older English woman hug her, unknowingly leaning into the embrace.

"Come, sit down with me," she invited warmly. "Can I get you anything to drink? Whisky? Beer? Wine?"

Isabella shook her head and waved a thanks.

Off to the side Edward and Jasper figured out how to fit the table through the door frame. Isabella heard Jasper say a string of words that must have been Gaelic, and she would have wagered them to be profane in nature.

Isabella took the seat at the table Esme gestured to. As she sat down, she saw that it was covered with various different slips of paper. Unable to keep her eyes from wandering, she read a few lines on what looked like an invoice. It was dated from Saturday and had several late fees in addition to large amounts of alcohol with large prices accordingly on the right.

Their wedding.

Esme sat down and promptly gathered all of the papers, an air of embarrassment in the way she hastily collected them all.

"Please tell me once you have the total cost from Saturday," Isabella said calmly, "And I will write a check."

"Oh love," she waved dismissively, "Don't trouble yourself."

"It was….it was our wedding," she attempted to vehemently disagree but found herself stumbling over the words and in fact the notion that she was married. "That's not your financial burden. We will pay for it."

It had been a simple wedding – she hesitated to call it small as she was still fairly certain that most of the island had been packed into the inn – and as such, shouldn't have cost a tremendous amount of money. But anyone who had ever planned any wedding knew there were still enormous costs associated with food and alcohol.

Esme was shaking her head as she replied firmly, "We are Edward's godparents. We will make it work somehow."

But Isabella could see some apprehension slip into her eyes as she glanced down at the bills.

"But we-"

"Bella…I know this is all so frightfully unfamiliar to you, and I do not fault you in the least for that. That being said, I find myself in the position to likely have a better understanding of Edward's finances than yourself. The past few months have been…tough. For all of us in a lot of ways. But Edward has been hit hard…he hasn't the funds to contribute and Carlisle and I don't want him to. We will find a way to cover this."

Isabella had so many thoughts trying to make their way out of her mouth that she found herself, not for the first time, saying nothing at all.

Esme smiled lightly. "Once you become a parent, you become quite used to taking care of others. It's an odd part of your human nature that comes out of you."

It doesn't come out of everyone.

The thought slipped in and out of her mind.

"Besides…what you're doing with the distillery? That is much more important than these bills. Sleat has been Carlisle's livelihood for…20 years. Jasper's ever since he's been old enough. Both of them find work elsewhere when they can but…" she trailed off with a helpless sort of shrug, a what can you do? gesture.

Edward and Jasper walked back into the inn, laughing. Isabella watched as they easily picked up the next large table and Edward made a snarky comment about Jasper's lack of spatial reasoning. As they moved, she was glad her new husband couldn't see her stare and permitted her the opportunity to see him perhaps a little more clearly.

A wee bit later, Edward could hear the steady sounds of his aunt and Isabella chatting companionably over some glasses of wine. While the conversation was admittedly being dominated by the British accent, he heard her soft American voice every once in a while.

Alice was back in the kitchen, either tidying or cooking, he wasn't sure. She had given him a hug when she saw him. He has asked when she was coming back home, but she had merely chuckled and said she wouldn't dream of intruding on the "honeymooners."

He couldn't hear everything the two women nearby were saying, nor was he trying, but it sounded like Esme was telling her which places on Skye drew the most tourists and at what times, occasionally pausing to ask if Edward had showed her upon learning of his tour guiding the previous day. He felt eyes on his back but didn't turn as he nursed his Tennent's Lager.

"Annnnd Maw's found a new best friend," Jasper commented with a role of his eyes. He was sitting next to Edward at the bar, drinking his own beer and exchanging flirtatious comments with Fiona here and there.

At that, Edward did glance over at the two women. Esme was gesticulating with wide eyes as Isabella listened and smiled. His aunt had always been a story teller – if anything it had only become more pronounced when she moved to Scotland, according to her husband.

He returned to his pint. "Aye," he agreed non-committedly.

That apparently was not the response his cousin was looking for.

The blonde eyed him suspiciously.

"How are the two of ye getting on then?" he asked.

"Fine," he replied, lifting his beer. "Given the circumstances."

Jasper was evidently not convinced.

"Ye two looked like a right pair on yer wedding. Happy with each other," he commented. "Not so much anymore."

Edward raised an eyebrow, annoyance and Scots slipping into his tone. "With all of mae friends and kin watching mae every move? Aye, we best have looked like a right pair at the wedding."

"All of that was show?" he pressed. "All of it? I saw ye, mate."

"Good for ye, ye numpty. Yer maw will be pleased yer eyes work."

Jasper ignored the sour tone in his voice.

"She's bonnie."

"Aye, she is."

Jasper opened his mouth, but Edward continued.

"And she is busy helping with Sleat. This is a business agreement. No more and no less."

His cousin finally picked up on the edge in his tone, recognizing that his prompting was firmly pressing on a nerve.

"The lass has a nice arse," he commented as he took another drink.

There was an audible thwap and Jasper's beer ended up on him his shirt.

"Oi! Whit was that for?!"

"Haud yer wheesht! Pretend or no, the lass is still mae wife."

Jasper's mouth threatened to turn up into a grin, but Edward had already turned back to his beer in annoyance and an apparent end to the conversation.

Jasper lifted what was left of his beer to his lips, the glass hiding his smirk.

Cheers to you all. Hoping your autumn season is filled with gratitude and peace.