This story exists in the same continuity as Impossible Things (as will anything else I happen to write in this fandom, that's how I roll), and everything that happened in the "dream sequence" was actually real in this universe.
xxx
Do you remember we were sitting there by the water?
You put your arm around me for the first time
You made a rebel of a careless man's careful daughter
You are the best thing that's ever been mine
- Mine, Taylor Swift
However big, however small
Let me be part of it all
Share your dreams with me
You may be right, you may be wrong
But say that you'll bring me along
To the world you see
- A Million Dreams, The Greatest Showman
xxx
Truly Scrumptious had spent her entire adult life thus far deftly dodging various potential suitors: men who wanted her money, or her beauty, men that her parents had desperately wanted her to allow to court her.
Her parents, her mother, especially, had been keen to find their only child an advantageous match among the members of her own class. But whenever Truly had relented and allowed one of those men to court her, she'd never felt a rush of excitement, a glow of warmth in her heart, a spark of attraction, anything to make her inclined to accept a proposal if it came. So she'd made a habit of - gently - throwing each suitor over as soon as it became apparent to her that he would prove to be no great love to set her heart awhirl. She'd made it quite clear by now that she would rather be alone than to consider for one second pledging herself to a man she did not love with all her heart.
Once she'd reached the age of twenty-five, Lord and Lady Scrumptious had grown exasperated with her romantic ideals, and Truly had recently begun to feel a twinge of worry that they might soon do what they'd always vowed they wouldn't, and promise her hand to a man against her will. After all, she was the sole heiress to a fortune and a candy dynasty, and becoming a spinster was simply not an option.
But now none of that mattered anymore, because, on a luscious September evening, she was sitting on her bed, admiringly tracing the intricate lace patterns on the wedding dress she'd be donning in less than a day, and dreaming of her beloved Caractacus Potts, the inventor who'd flown away with her well-guarded heart one summer's day. He was no peer of the realm or industry tycoon or landed gentry, but that didn't make a whit of difference to her and never had. What Caractacus could give her was everything she'd ever wanted: true love, a place to belong, family, spontaneity, laughter, freedom. Passion, she added with a rosy blush staining her alabaster cheeks, though the true extent of that aspect was still quite a mystery to her. Still, she'd never encountered even the faintest glimmer of it anywhere else, yet just the thought of his kisses was enough to make her tremble all over.
This was the way it was always meant to happen, Truly could recognize now - everything in her life up to this point seemed to indicate that she'd practically been fated to marry a man beneath her station, and very happily so. Caractacus did have quite an impressive income now, of course, thanks to the Woof Sweets and the lucrative partnership with her father, but the truth remained that she'd have married him with paper rings in a heartbeat, and he knew it.
And those children, dear, dear Jemima and Jeremy... it should have felt intrusive, to step into their lives as their new mother, but they'd welcomed her from the very first, longed and dreamed and wished for her to be their mother, and she'd adored them utterly for just as long as they'd adored her. Though she'd not exactly approved of Caractacus at the time, the twins had extended their hands to her first, and following their lead, she'd walked - or driven - right into everything she had been missing in life.
Truly's existence had always been tidy, orderly, polished and perfect. She'd grown up walking on marble floors and swathed in floaty organdy and tulle, everything crisp and clean and spotless. Her parents had made sure she had the very finest of everything - an excellent education, finishing school, piano lessons, dance lessons, all of the pretty clothes and modern conveniences a girl could ever desire.
But it was all so sterile. When she was small, her mother and father did not sing to her or dance with her or pick her up and whirl her around. Far from joining in on her imaginative childhood games, they'd started to openly disapprove of her playing by the time she was nine years old.
"Soon you will be a young lady, and it's high time you stopped behaving like a silly little girl!"
A lady, a lady, a lady. An English rose, whose main purpose was to bloom and look lovely.
Some girls might have rebelled. A different girl, maybe a girl more like Jemima, would have insisted on mussing her fancy clothes in the mud, catching frogs and bringing them home, chopping her long curls off, skipping school to run wild. Such a girl would have fought her upbringing, even if, ultimately, all she could manage was to be cowed and subdued by powerful parents to the same result.
But Truly never rebelled, not once. She liked being neat and clean and doing good and being praised and wearing frilly dresses, so she grew into the role her parents had prepared for her without resistance, and she blossomed into the singular loveliest rose in the Dorset countryside, never realizing until it was too late that she was quite trapped.
And despite all of that, there remained a certain sort of rebellious spirit within her that always wanted more than tea parties and needlepoint and a loveless marriage to a stodgy man picked out by her father. Her parents had quashed her childhood imagination until it disappeared from view, but that couldn't destroy those deeply-buried secret longings to have adventures and laugh with childlike wonder until her ribs hurt and hitch up her skirts and run barefoot along a beach.
No wonder she'd grown so lonely, no wonder she'd developed such an ache in her heart for something warm, something true. No wonder she'd fallen head over heels in love with a man whose life couldn't be further from perfectly polished!
Even the first time they'd met, the way they'd argued, had ignited a sort of fire in her that she'd badly needed, even if it hadn't been a particularly pleasant one. She had to laugh, now, remembering Caractacus' rude retort that maybe it was about time someone spoke to her that way - he'd apologized for it since, but he'd been right, after all, hadn't he? She'd needed to feel something other than self-righteousness and ennui for the first time in years, needed to be shaken off her prim-and-proper pedestal before all the rest could happen.
(With the perspective she now possessed, Truly wondered if the instant attraction between them had fueled the ferocity of that row, if they'd both been so outraged about those sudden unwanted feelings they'd had no idea what to do with that they'd taken it out on each other. Wasn't it easier to deny you wished you could kiss someone when you thought you detested him or her, after all?)
In a strange way, she'd admired him for challenging her with such confidence, even if he'd been so obviously wrong. And, well, she supposed it was her admiration for that verve that had led her to openly defy her father and champion his cause in the sweets factory.
It didn't hurt, either, how much she'd already adored those children, how determined she'd felt not to let them down.
Though her parents had discouraged flights of fancy, Truly had long imagined herself as one of those princesses from some fairy-story, living in luxury but cursed to be forever trapped within the palace walls. It was why she'd so readily been able to spin the tale of a living doll bound to a music box, bewitched to dance at the whim of her masters over and over until somebody came to set her free. It was why it had broken her when Caractacus had assumed she'd find the idea of marrying him ridiculous - this one real, true thing she'd ever found cruelly taken from her by the social status that was meant to be a privilege.
But then he'd come back for her the very next morning, seized the moment and thrown all those concerns aside, proposed and kissed her and then gone back and announced to her father that he was going to marry her, no questions asked.
Nowadays, it felt like all the world was singing. Though she still lived at the Scrumptious estate for a few more hours yet, the doors had been thrown open for her, the golden cage unlocked, the wide-open blue skies beckoning to be explored, both literally and figuratively. After years and years of yearning, she was free, and it had come about in the most perfectly romantic of ways.
Truly sighed and stretched her arms languorously above her head as she laid back on her soft bed, closing her eyes for a moment and allowing herself to drift into a dreamy reverie. It was strange, but wonderful, to think that she'd sleep in this bed only one more time, and then she'd be falling asleep at his side for all of her days.
She remembered waking up next to Caractacus in the starlight as Chitty flew them over the North Sea, the way her heart had beat all unruly as she'd blinked awake and become aware of this strange intimacy and vulnerability. This man, whom she'd barely known for a week but whom she was already falling in love with, had seen her sleeping, something that no other man in the world could say. Of course, they were in extreme and extraordinary circumstances, so no one could fault either one of them for the impropriety. But still, absurdly, she'd had the rather vain thought that she hoped she looked pretty while sleeping, as well as hoping that the tender affection lighting up her face when she woke to see him there hadn't been too obvious.
It certainly wasn't merely the idea of sleeping that intrigued her now, of course. Truly's heart skipped along in a frenzy of nervous excitement as she contemplated, far from the first time, what it would be like when the two of them were finally, completely alone as man and wife tomorrow night. She could envision his hands unlacing her corset, his chest tantalizingly bare, that charmingly lanky frame she'd gotten such an intriguing glimpse of on their days at the beach, how his skin would feel so warm against hers... but not much more. It was rather frustrating, how little she really knew.
Caractacus, of course, had his late wife and two darling children to show for it, so he knew all about the marital secrets she'd been trying in vain to understand. But it would be wildly improper for her to just ask him to explain, as well as incredibly unromantic. And, though she did have several married friends, she didn't feel that she was sufficiently intimate with any of them to ask something so indelicate over afternoon tea.
Truly had an idea of the most basic mechanics, she supposed, but she couldn't quite imagine how it happened. Specifics were maddeningly impossible to ascertain from any of the books she'd been able to get her hands on, either scientific or poetic.
Such things, of course, were not considered appropriate for a maiden to know - but what about when a maiden was intended to become a wife very, very soon? Shouldn't she have some recourse?
In what could only be called a darkly ironic answer to her unspoken question, three firm raps on her door startled Truly out of her reverie.
Her mother's reedy voice and clipped syllables rang out unmistakably from the other side. "Truly, dearie?"
"Yes, Mother?" She sat up in a hurry, cheeks flushed.
"May I come in?"
Truly tried not to sigh in sheer exasperation. "Yes."
Without delay, Lady Scrumptious swept into the room, both her skirts and her presence far too large for this small and intimate space. That was the only way Truly had ever really seen her parents behave - pompous, grandiose, distant. She could scarcely believe that she'd ever thought her mother an example of the sort of personage she ought to aspire to be.
"I'm glad to find you here and not gallivanting about the countryside, for once!" Lady Scrumptious perched herself next to Truly at the foot of the bed, laying a hand on her daughter's arm. "There's something I've been meaning to discuss with you, and, what with your wedding tomorrow, I'd be remiss not to have this conversation with you now, however difficult it may be."
Though she attempted to remain stoic, Truly's eyes narrowed anyway, her body tensing as she prepared herself for something dreadful. "Is that so? What is it, then?"
Lady Scrumptious drew in a deep breath, then released it. Then she did so again, and again, until Truly had to fight the urge to tell her to get on with it, already.
"I know I told you, when you were much younger, that one day, when you needed to know, I would tell you precisely what goes on between a man and his wife. Now that the day is upon us, I think it's high time I make sure you're prepared for the duties of marriage. That is - " she cleared her throat conspicuously " - the marriage bed."
No, no, no.
Truly felt her stomach turn over, and it took all the self-control she possessed not to physically flinch away from her mother's touch on her arm. No matter how much she yearned to know more clearly what to expect tomorrow night, there was nothing, nothing in the world she wanted less than to hear her mother's opinions on this topic.
"Mother, really, I think I can manage," Truly pleaded, weakly.
"And manage you shall! You've always been a resilient girl." It was entirely unclear if her misunderstanding was deliberate or not. Lady Scrumptious followed it up by chucking her daughter under the chin, a little too forcefully. "Now, granted, our hopes for you were always that you'd marry - well - well, and I do not quite know how to advise you about a man who is not a gentleman."
"Caractacus is a perfect gentleman," she protested, almost by reflex at this point.
"You know what I mean, darling daughter, don't pretend you don't. Your father may be fond of him, but the fact remains, he is not a man of breeding, and an American, at that, so heaven only knows what you may have to endure - "
"Endure? I love him. I've chosen to marry him." Truly did not bother to correct her mother for the thousandth time that, though he was raised there, Caractacus was only half American, as that seemed the less important point here.
"And we've chosen to give you our blessing." Lady Scrumptious gave her daughter a tight, strained little smile - her father's blessing for the match had been far more enthusiastic than her mother's, though she would have married him without either. "But really, Truly, you're not listening to me. All I want you to know is that the things that will take place on your wedding night may be rather unpleasant, especially at first. But it doesn't last so terribly long, and it's what must be done to have children - your own children, that is - so it's more than worth the discomfort."
Your own children. Truly pressed her lips together, trying to hold her tongue, trying to believe the most charitable interpretation of those words in which her mother had not just deliberately slighted Jeremy and Jemima. Of course, she very much wanted "her own" children with her soon-to-be husband, in addition to the two she already loved so dearly, but such a remark was uncalled for.
"Why, there are times when there can even be an odd sort of enjoyment in it, though I certainly wouldn't expect too much. It's mostly a sentimental enjoyment on the woman's part, you see. And if your husband is decent and kind, which I can only hope your Mr. Potts is, you should not have to endure it more than several times a month. After all, there is only one week out of the month in which conception - "
"Mother, enough!"
Could a person actually die of embarrassment? Is that why it was called mortification?
"It may be better simply to let your thoughts drift elsewhere while it happens. And try not to let it affect your respect for your husband too much, dearie. It's a terribly undignified thing, yes, but men, you know - "
It had been a long, long time since Truly had stormed out on either of her parents. As a proper lady and a dutiful daughter, she always sat quietly and let them speak their piece, no matter how rude or inane, even if she was clenching her jaw all throughout.
But she could listen to no more of this, especially on the eve of her wedding. Rising to her feet without another word, she fetched her coat, hat, and scarf and marched from her room. She could hear her mother calling out behind her in protest, but she didn't feel the slightest inclination to so much as turn her head. In fact, she only quickened her pace as she moved down the hallway and the grand staircase and out of the Scrumptious manor, only pausing to give her heartfelt apologies to a maid whom she'd nearly bumped into in her indignant haste.
She counted herself lucky that her parents' indulgence of her had included her own motorcar in which she could escape them!
xxx
The Potts family no longer lived in the run-down cottage by the old windmill. With Caractacus' new fortune, he'd purchased a spacious, inviting house nearby, big enough for all four of them with plenty of room besides, and a cottage for Grandpa on the lawn. The only thing he hadn't yet done was build himself a new workshop, so for the time being, his inventions were still housed in the windmill - construction on the new workshop, which would include a few clever mechanisms designed to be even more efficient and reliable than the old windmill, was planned to conclude just before Mr. and Mrs. Potts returned from their honeymoon tour on the continent.
Their engagement hadn't been all that long, as they were both so impatient to be a real family at last - and the Scrumptiouses were more than eager to see Truly married off, even if it was to be to a nouveau riche eccentric inventor - but about three months had still been required for Caractacus to be able to provide her with a proper home. She loved him and the children so much that she'd been perfectly willing to make a life with him in his tumbledown cottage, even if there hadn't been any windfall of money, but it would all be far more pleasant and practical for them this way.
And, given that their initial courtship had lasted all of a week, they both had to admit that it was good for everyone involved to have time to properly prepare and get used to the idea before jumping into a marriage headfirst.
The presence of the twins meant that their engagement had been de facto chaperoned the vast majority of the time. If Jeremy and Jemima so much as caught a glimpse of them sharing the chastest of kisses, their childish giggles of delight would ring out all around, and Caractacus and Truly would pull apart, laughing and blushing themselves. It was all terribly sweet, but also not very conducive to getting to know each other in the way that engaged couples crave and require.
When the children were at school, or fully occupied with their games or their Grandpa, that was when the lovers could find their chances to slip away and spend some time together. They had a few favorite spots - regrettably, the gorgeous grounds of the Scrumptious estate would have made a splendidly idyllic venue for romantic rendezvous but were not an option for obvious reasons, though they were certainly lovely to stroll through arm-in-arm on occasions when they didn't mind running into her parents.
But there was a spot nearby the pond she'd driven into far too many times, a little alcove shaded by trees, that made a fine secret hideaway. Or, even closer to home, they could climb to the crest of the next hill just beside the new house they were soon to share. From up on the hill, they could see acres of countryside, including the friendly wave of that windmill across the way... but their opportunities for privacy had been so rare and valuable during the past months that they'd spent very little time on that hill merely appreciating the scenery.
On this evening, when Caractacus opened the door of the house that would soon be theirs, he broke into a delighted grin the moment he caught sight of her, and Truly's heart warmed with affection. Just the sound of his voice made her smile - her parents had raised their eyebrows at his American accent, but she'd always appreciated it. It was something else that made him stand out from every other man she'd ever known, something else that made him uniquely her Caractacus.
"Truly! I didn't know if you'd be by tonight. I thought you'd have, I don't know, maids rolling up your hair in curlers or something."
She laughed lightly as she unwound the scarf around her head and removed her hat. "I'm meant to. Mother will be ever so cross when I return, but she'll recover." She gave him a sly smile and a sidelong glance. "We'll call it... playing truant."
Caractacus cocked an eyebrow. "Am I a bad influence on you?"
"Perhaps." Her eyes sparkled with merriment.
In response, he wrapped an arm around her waist, giving her a quick whirl around and planting a warm kiss to her cheek. "Good."
"And you, I'm glad you're here, but I'm surprised you're at home and not in your workshop!" She reached up and straightened his tie as she spoke, a sweetly intimate little habit she'd acquired, although clearly no one outside of his family was going to be seeing his tie tonight. "I very nearly went looking for you there first, but I did think the hour might be rather late for that."
"Yeah, well, the kids insisted that the only way to be certain I won't get any grease on my wedding suit - or your dress, in fact - is to keep away from any and all gadgets at least twenty-four hours in advance." Plucking a handkerchief from his pocket, Caractacus wiped his hands reflexively, though they were perfectly clean already. "I can't say they're wrong."
She looked past him, into the house. "Speaking of Jeremy and Jemima..."
"With Grandpa, over at the cottage. Playing some sort of elaborate game involving pirates... and soldiers? I didn't ask for an explanation."
Truly let out a small sigh of relief. Of course, she was always beyond delighted to see the children - her children, officially starting tomorrow - but right now, she desperately needed to speak to Caractacus alone. Or not speak, perhaps. She just needed something, anything from her fiancé that would clear away the bitter taste of her mother's words.
"Oh, darling. I've just been dying to see you all day. I was dearly hoping we could steal just a little time alone tonight, and it seems we have the perfect opportunity. Walk up the hill with me?" She added, matter-of-factly, "And do bring the picnic blanket."
He seemed to be observing her closely as they strolled across the lawn and ascended the gentle slope of the hill, but he didn't ask for any explanation until they'd reached the top, spread out the yellow gingham picnic blanket, and sat side by side, her head leaning on his shoulder as they gazed out at the sunset over the valley.
"Is something the matter? When you arrived here tonight, you seemed..." He bit his lip. "Preoccupied."
She let out a sharp little exhalation. "Nothing but foolishness - my mother's foolishness, to be precise." Still, she couldn't bring herself to say it, but she could think of a remedy that he'd surely find agreeable as well. "I was hoping you'd kiss me and make me forget all of it. Or perhaps I could..."
Caractacus didn't look entirely satisfied with that answer - and why should he be? - but when she leaned up on her knees and kissed him with all the confidence and skill she'd learned over the past three months, he seemed to forget about it pretty quickly, too. True to form, he tightened his arms around her and kissed her back until she melted completely, whispering a series of sweet nothings in her ear that eventually devolved into murmuring her name again and again between heated kisses.
Truly, Truly, Truly...
Frequently, Truly wondered why two such stuffy and humorless parents had bestowed their daughter with the most patently ridiculous name imaginable. Perhaps it was their lack of humor that had led to this - perhaps they had somehow never even realized how it sounded when taken as a whole? She had never dared to be so impertinent as to ask.
But without her surname taken into account, Truly, itself, was a pretty name, and one that she was quite fond of. She especially enjoyed it when Jeremy and Jemima sweetly sang it to her, or when Caractacus said it with such heart-melting affection.
All that being said, she was more than delighted to be taking her husband's name tomorrow, for more reasons than one.
"Truly Potts," she said in a slight singsong when they'd come to a brief lull in their canoodling, her forehead leaning against his. "I'm quite used to the idea, you know. I've been trying it on ever since our first picnic at the seaside."
"Me too. I mean, not trying it on, but trying it on you. You know what I mean." His eyes took on that wistful expression he'd always watched her with when their feelings for each other had been unspoken. "As soon as you started smiling at me instead of glaring, I was so lost. That moment you walked up to me while I was tinkering with Chitty, and I hit my head when I saw you, well, it wasn't just because you startled me."
He was being so endearingly vulnerable, but the corners of her mouth quirked up in amusement at the thought this provoked, and she wound her fingers into his deep brown hair as she asked: "Are you suggesting that it took some sort of head trauma to make you fall in love with me?"
Caractacus laughed, shaking his head ruefully. "I should've hit my head harder, if it would have stopped me from being such a fool about the whole thing! Even after all we went through together, me calling the idea of us getting married ridiculous..."
"Oh, enough with that now," Truly admonished, pressing a finger to his lips. "I know exactly what you were trying to say. You didn't think I was a snob, you - you loved me and believed I was beyond your reach, so you tried to break your own heart before I could do it. And don't you know you've already made up for that remark a thousand times over?"
"A thousand doesn't seem like enough. I'm planning on making it a million - a billion!"
"Well, you can start by making me Truly Potts tomorrow." She made that pronouncement with a prim, decisive nod. "It will be nice to have a name that doesn't instantly earn me disbelieving laughs when I introduce myself - or leers from men. Perhaps it will elicit a bit of confusion, but I can handle that."
His eyes glimmered. "Is it alright if you're sometimes still Truly Scrumptious to me, though? I really couldn't imagine a better name for you." He trailed his lips across her neck, tongue darting out to lick at her skin, and she shivered and shook all over in the most pleasant, maddening way. "Think I'd like to whisper it against your skin, sometimes, when you're my wife."
In response, she could only let out a high-pitched little gasp of approval, especially when he pulled her into his arms again and captured her lips in a deep kiss. As he kissed and caressed her, she twisted against him, aching in frustration, body wracked with a frantic need she couldn't fully understand. That summer storm he'd started within her had grown and grown in breadth and intensity over the past months, now raging throughout her entire body as well as her heart, even the places that an unmarried lady most decidedly wasn't supposed to think about. Without any conscious thought on her part, her hips moved subtly in a sort of desperate, instinctual attempt to find some relief.
How could her mother expect her to believe such nonsense - when just the touch of his mouth without removing a stitch of clothing made her feel like this -
But perhaps the rest is worse, a cynical, doubting voice reminded her.
All at once, the desire coursing through her body turned to cold anxiety, and Truly sat up straight, her body nearly as stiff as when she'd had to pretend to be a wooden doll.
Caractacus frowned, slackening his embrace and studying her face with obvious concern. "Are you all right, sweetheart? I didn't go too far, did I? I promise I'd never - "
"N-no, it isn't that at all. I just..." She wrung her hands in her lap. "This isn't quite proper of me to ask, but I need to know. Is being married - for a woman - is it unpleasant?"
In an instant, his face fell, and he looked more anguished than she'd seen him since Vulgaria. "What... Truly, you're not having second thoughts, are you?"
"Oh, no, no, heavens, no! Never!" Truly felt a sharp pang in her heart at seeing him so dismayed due to her clumsy wording, and she clasped his hands tightly in reassurance, pressing kisses to them for good measure. "Why, it's only - just before I came to see you, my mother was trying to tell me, well, to insinuate, that there are certain aspects of marriage that a woman must endure. Must tolerate." She hoped she'd said enough, but when he continued to stare back at her with confusion in his bright blue eyes, she added, wincing: "In order to have children."
The fear was mercifully gone from his expression now, but poor Caractacus looked as flustered as she'd ever seen him. "Oh, I, I see - "
"And you have been married, so you must tell me, must assure me, it can't really be so, can it? I mean surely if it were, nobody would, nobody would - " She let out a little huff, frustrated with her inability to articulate herself while also retaining at least some dignity and discretion. "All I know is that when I'm with you, when you kiss me, I feel like - like marriage will be just perfectly wonderful. But maybe there's something I don't know. I mean, there undoubtedly is. The trouble is, nobody tells a lady anything, unless they do it like my mother just did!"
Her dear inventor dragged a hand across his forehead as he considered all the words she'd just heaped upon him. "Now, I know that with the kids underfoot, and my Pa, we've hardly gotten to kiss more than is perfectly proper, and that's a bit of a shame."
She giggled at that, despite her keyed-up state. "Unfortunately so."
"But when we kiss, when we're alone and we really kiss - I don't think I'm overstepping to say that you enjoy that very much, don't you?"
"Aw, really, now," she demurred, playful and coy.
Her deflection made him grin - he was always delighted by the prospect of a bit of verbal sparring with her. "I am first and foremost a man of science, and I wouldn't make such a statement without ample evidence. I think I've gathered quite a bit of that, though I certainly wouldn't mind gathering some more..."
He pressed a series of quick, light, teasing kisses to her lips and her cheeks, causing Truly to laugh and squirm in his embrace, but fortunately, he did not allow himself to get entirely distracted from making his point.
"And from that evidence, I think I can make a reasonable conjecture that sometimes, you feel like you want something more. You think about it, dream about it, even. And that's when you feel like it will be, what's that you said - 'perfectly wonderful'?"
All breathless and flushed, Truly nodded. "When I imagine, or well, when I try to imagine, what it will be like when I'm already your wife and we don't have to stop, it seems as if there's nothing in the world that I want more than - than that. That's part of why I think that Mother must be wrong."
"She is." There wasn't a trace of humor in his expression now. "Because, I don't mean to impugn your father's good name, but it sounds like he never was a very good husband to her."
Truly was far too much of a lady to snort, but the sound that emanated from her came awfully close to that. "You're not impugning anything. My entire life, my parents have shown me only somewhat more warmth than a pair of marble statues. I'm hardly surprised to learn they were always the same to each other, as well." She nestled her head against his shoulder. "That's why I love you so much, and your life, your world. Everything is warm."
"Well, I just want you to remember that when it's a good husband, and a good wife, who really and truly love and care about each other the way we do, it shouldn't be anything like what your mother said. It should be a lot more like - what you've been imagining." His cheeks redden ever so slightly. "If it causes you any discomfort, it should only be for a moment, and only the first time."
Good husband, good wife... she rolled the words around in her mind. Oh, she intended to be a very, very good wife, if the way she felt during their kisses was any indication.
"Listen, you know I wasn't married for all that long, and there was never - anyone else but her." He gave her a crooked smile, and her heart warmed at his admission - he was more of a gentleman than some of the blue-blooded men of her acquaintance, for certain! "But I promise, I know enough about being a good husband to know that I'm going to make it absolutely wonderful for you." He tapped his temple with a wry grin. "And I do have an inventor's mind, I'll remind you."
"A genius." Truly beamed at him, delighted and intrigued. Was inventiveness some sort of advantage in the marital bed?
For a moment, his jovial mood seemed to diminish slightly, and he pressed his lips together, as if he was struggling to decide whether or not to say what had come into his head. "I don't think I'm supposed to ask anything like this before we're properly married, but you do have... some idea of what to expect, don't you? That is, it sounds like you do, but I wouldn't like to think of you being shocked completely, so I really ought to ask."
She blushed with a nervous laugh and looked down at her hands. "Somewhat. My mother told me nothing, but I am twenty-five years old and I do read, and schoolmates whisper, and servants talk... so you aren't going to shock me completely, tomorrow night. I know certain things, I just don't know - how it happens. Not that I'm asking!"
Caractacus paused, tilted his head. He had that tinkering-with-something look in his eyes, the look that Truly now well knew meant that he was currently turning some marvelous mechanism around and around in his mind's eye. "Well, you know, it's maybe a little bit like - ah! Remember when I showed you how the internal combustion engine works? With the piston going like this, you see - "
"Caractacus!" Truly practically wailed, grabbing his hands before he could make any further demonstration, flushed with embarrassment and mirth and perhaps a little too much curiosity. "You don't have to try and explain. That is, please don't. Not like that!"
He gave a sheepish laugh and a lopsided smile, running a hand through his hair and mussing it even further. "Ah, you're right. I'm very sorry, darling, sometimes I get so lost inside my own head that I don't realize what I'm saying. That was pretty awful, wasn't it?"
Leaning in, she planted a soft kiss on his lips. "You're entirely forgiven."
In truth, she was almost glad that he'd made this egregious blunder - though she still had her questions, it was somehow the clearest answer on the topic she'd ever received, and she thought she nearly understood now. The mere thought of what he'd been suggesting was making her tremble wildly again - she hoped he didn't notice.
He recovered his confidence with surprising speed, and declared, "Anyway, I promise I can find far better ways to show you tomorrow night when we're all alone."
Caractacus shocked her then by doing something he'd never done before - pulling her into his lap. He seemed to take great care to make sure that she was balanced on his thigh and not directly in his lap - Truly knew just enough to surmise why that might be, and she felt another twinge of unladylike curiosity.
But what he said next was enough to knock all the rest of her thoughts from her mind.
"As a matter of fact, do you know what the first thing I want to do on our wedding night is?"
Truly held her breath. This was a treacherous precipice to be treading, but, with their honeymoon merely twenty-four hours away, it did not seem so unthinkable to let him tell her. Certainly she wanted nicer thoughts in her mind tonight about the things to come than the ones her mother had tried to fill her head with!
"Oh - no?" she whispered. "Tell me."
He leaned in very close to her, and his voice was deeper than she'd ever heard it. It felt as if he was letting her witness a side of himself that he'd always carefully restrained until this moment. "I'm going to kiss you all over and find out just what you taste like, Miss Truly Scrumptious, and then, I think, you'll finally understand just how wrong your mother was to say those things."
Oh, she was melting, melting, she was surely going to end up like the sugar in one of the vats at the factory - but she was shivering all over too - and also fairly certain she'd forgotten how to breathe. Within her body, all was chaos, no part seeming to work as it should, well, except for one part, which, though she couldn't be certain, may have been working a little too well under these circumstances.
"Taste like?" She couldn't even begin to imagine what he meant, as he'd already kissed her quite extensively over the past three months, even done that wonderful little maneuver with her neck that she wasn't certain strictly qualified as kissing... oh, how she wanted to know absolutely everything.
In return, he simply nodded.
"I have... never been spoken to that way before, Mr. Potts," she teased, her voice light and breathy when she finally found it.
"Well, maybe it's about time." His blue eyes sparkled with mischief and something she couldn't yet identify.
Now there was no more hiding behind jokes and laughter and teasing - she looked up at him with longing, inviting eyes, and within moments, his mouth crashed over hers, tongue slipping between her eagerly parted lips. As they kissed again and again, she clung to him as if she needed his support just to remain upright, and, in truth, she wasn't sure if she didn't. All of the new thoughts he'd just put into her head were whirling feverishly through her mind, and she felt almost weak with wanting.
Beneath her ladylike manners and high collars and his quick jokes and boyish charm, this was what remained: the love of a man and a woman at its most essential, this desperate, primal need for each other that, tomorrow night, could finally be satisfied. The prospect still made her nervous, but it was more of a fear of the unknown and the unfathomable intimacy of it all - her mother's absurd advice had been completely swept from her mind.
Despite the dangerously heated conversation they'd just been having and the torrid embrace in which they were now entangled, Truly had no worries that Caractacus would take any of it as an invitation to go too far. He'd never, not once, placed any pressure upon her to spoil the sanctity of their wedding night, and it made her feel safe, knowing that she could trust him so fully. Besides, they were outdoors, and not in the least bit isolated - and anyway, they really didn't have to wait for so much longer, which, if anything, would make it easier to stop themselves when needed.
Perhaps that was why, as they continued to kiss, she allowed herself to slip from her perch on his thigh so she was sitting fully in his lap, evading his valiant attempt at gentlemanly discretion. Immediately, she could feel him against her as she never had before, and oh, now she thought she understood.
With a gasp, she wriggled in his lap without really considering what that might do to him.
Caractacus groaned in response to that motion, a deep, intimate sound that made her almost swoon with desire - and then all at once he pulled back from their kiss, looking alert, alarmed, eyes wide with guilt.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean for you to feel - "
She shook her head, her chest rising and falling rapidly with her breath. "No, don't be sorry. Didn't I - aren't I the one who moved from where you placed me?"
"Well, yes, but maybe you didn't know - "
"I wanted to know."
For a moment, they sat and stared at each other, caught up in the overwhelming breathless rush. It seemed as if they were both contemplating if it were even wise to resume their petting, caught between desperate desire and the need for caution. Truly knew that she probably ought to move out of his lap, immediately, but she was so reluctant to do so that she felt frozen. He reached up to touch her face, running his fingers through the blonde curls that had fallen loose from her chignon, and leaned in...
It was only when the merry sound of singing from far below broke through the evening air that the couple parted in a rush, tumbling onto the picnic blanket in opposite directions.
"Port out, starboard home! Posh with a capital P-O-S-H!"
Out in front of Grandpa's new cottage, Jemima and Jeremy were marching along after the old man, all three of them singing, with Edison the sheepdog running along behind. It was difficult to see from this distance, but it looked like the three of them might be wearing... newspapers on their heads? Well, to be more specific, newspapers that had been folded into what Truly could only assume were meant to be some sort of pirate hats.
With a hand raised to her mouth, Truly started to giggle, and Caractacus was laughing too, and all at once the tension - and the spell - was broken.
Caractacus wrapped an arm around her waist and grinned at her. "We'd better go find out what our kids are getting up to, shouldn't we?"
She beamed at him - she still hadn't gotten used to him calling the children ours, and it lit her from within every time. "We'd better, before your father gets them carried off to China or Australia or some such!"
As they folded up the blanket together, he inquired, "Will you be joining us for supper?"
"My mother and the maids can surely spare me for another hour or so. And I'd much rather be here than there. Setting a little hair to curl overnight doesn't take as long as you'd think, anyway."
Running his fingers through his own hair in an attempt to fix the mess she'd made of it during their romantic interlude, Caractacus flashed her a grin. "Hey, and maybe when we get down to the house, you can throw another bucket or two of cold water on me. I think it could really come in useful, this time!"
Truly elbowed him daintily in the ribs, trying to hide her smile. "Really, now."
Though she really should have expected it by now, she was startled and deeply amused when he staggered backwards in an exaggerated response to her very light shove, making a great show of almost falling over. Just before he let himself lose his balance, Truly grabbed his hands and pulled him upright, laughing delightedly all the while, and he finally dropped the act and burst into laughter as well, pulling her close for one more brief, heartfelt kiss.
Hand in hand, they ran down the hill together, graceless and messy and so very free.
xxx
Author's Note:
Though it wasn't my initial plan when I started writing, there is going to be a second chapter to this (or it may be posted as a separate story due to the difference in rating... I'm not sure what to do). Yes, it will be the wedding night. Yes, I feel a little embarrassed about that but oh, well. In for a penny, in for a pound, right?
Please be aware that if I decide to post it to this story, which seems the most likely option, that the rating will change.