Zeller had probably sneaked them into his wine.
They arrived at the church just ahead of most of the guests. Though, of course, there were always a few that came unreasonably early and loitered about just to unsettle the bride and groom.
In Ambrose’s case, it was clearly sanctioned directly by the vicar himself. He found the good Reverend Matthew Everly holding court with Thaddeus Beck and Roland Reed almost the instanthe had passed into the churchyard, and all three had stopped speaking to turn and stare at his approach in a way that gave away, immediately and without question, the fact that their chittering had been about Ambrose himself.
“Good morning!” called Reed, grinning. “I’ve just met your wedding present. It’s a delight.”
Ambrose glowered at him as best as he could. “I will not ask.”
“It’s best you don’t,” Beck agreed, giving an unsettling little smirk and leaning up against the church walls. “I thought you’d be late.”
Ambrose scoffed. “Why? I’ve never demonstrated tardiness to you before.”
Beck only shrugged. “A hunch, I suppose.”
“All right, enough,” chided the parson, who looked altogether too entertained by the exchange. “Let’s get inside.”
Ambrose wanted to ask someone, anyone, really, if they had seen her yet. And if so, how she looked and what she looked like and what they thought it meant and so on. He didn’t, because he did not care to humiliate himself today, or at least, not so early into the day.
He sighed, listening to the instructions being given to him about the ceremony while trying to keep the wasps at bay as they stung and stirred in his ribcage.
Not for the first time, he did wonder if it had really been so bad, back when he felt numb all the time.
He had done this to himself, of course, at least in part. He’d had to go sit in the washroom and plunge his whole head into thebasin after that last encounter in his bedchamber, and it hadn’t even helped that much. He’d been requiring more washbasins every few hours in the two days since, unable to stop thinking about all the different ways that scene might have unfolded, if he hadn’t gotten so damned smug about it.
Still, the memory as it was was a fine thing. Very fine.
He shook himself, glancing up at the stained glass windows, and reminded himself not to get aroused in a house of God.
It was only that this business of delayed gratification was new to him. Ambrose had never struggled to satisfy the itch when it had arisen in the past. He’d never even found it to stir for a woman who was not already midway to undressing and awaiting him in a nest of sheets.
Even that had been boring after a time. It hadn’t felt like release so much as another performance. It didn’t entirely stop him, of course, but it had been just like everything else. Just like the gambling and the parties and the fine purchases. Just another thing that was meant to shift something inside and instead only landed with a muffled thud in an already crowded pit of disappointment.
Was this all he had needed all along? A woman who bristled and told him not to touch her? Was it that simple?
He somehow doubted it.
And now the wasps were in his skull too.
He groaned and pressed his thumb between his brows, trying to will them away and failing.
“Jitters?” asked Reed, coming to drape himself all over the altar and gloat. “Grooms get them, you know.”
Ambrose dug his finger in a little harder and opened his eyes just a slit to glare at the other man. “How would you know?”
Reed only grinned, his freckles moving around the wide expanse of his mouth. “I half grew up in this church,” he told him. “A lot of weddings.”
“Where was the other half?” Ambrose shot back, sarcasm doing more to dispel the wasps than any amount of earnest agony had managed. “Jail?”
“A brothel,” Reed answered, looking unbothered by the confession. “My parents are whores.”
Ambrose paused, blinking. He dropped his hand and stared at the other man, who was grinning at him like he enjoyed telling people this.
“Yes,” said Reed, quirking his golden head to the side, the light turning the ends of his curls an odd burnished pink. “Him too.”
Ambrose paused, blinking at the surprising lack of wasp stings in the room at the moment. “And you didn’t choose to go into the family business yourself?” he asked. “Seems a fair sight easier than ejecting rowdy gamblers.”
Reed scoffed. “I don’t think it is. But I suppose I always could if enforcing doesn’t work out. I thought you’d understand, Aster.”
