Gabriel's hand went to his neck. "It's fine."
"It's a disaster that perfectly represents your mental state, which is to say barely holding together through sheer force of will and likely to unravel at the slightest provocation."
"Your support is overwhelming."
"My support is the only reason you're not currently breaking down Clara's door like some unhinged hero who's forgotten that the wedding is in an hour and he should probably be at the church rather than terrorizing his bride."
"An hour," Gabriel repeated, the words carrying the weight of both eternity and instant. "In an hour, she'll be my wife."
"Assuming you don't do something spectacularly self-destructive in the next sixty minutes, yes."
"Why would I do something self-destructive?"
"Because you're you, and happiness makes you suspicious, and you've been looking for ways this could go wrong since the moment she said yes in the garden."
Gabriel stopped pacing to stare at his friend. "That's disturbingly perceptive."
"I've known you for fifteen years. I've watched you sabotage every good thing that's ever happened to you except your military service, and you only didn't sabotage that because there was a war on and self-destruction would have been unpatriotic."
"I didn't sabotage Clara."
“She knows you better than anyone else.”
Before Gabriel could formulate a response, Mrs. Potter appeared at the top of the stairs, wearing what appeared to be her best dress and an expression of barely suppressed emotion.
"Your Grace, you need to leave for the church now or you'll be late, and given that half the county is already taking bets on whether this wedding will actually occur, arriving after the bride would be poor form."
"How do you know about the betting?"
"Because I have five pounds on you arriving early and pacing the altar like a man awaiting execution, which you're currently making me lose, so please, for the sake of my gambling reputation, make haste to the chapel.”
"You bet on my wedding behavior?"
"Everyone's bet on your wedding behavior. Cook has money on you crying during the vows, Peter thinks you'll forget Clara'sname from nerves, and Mary's convinced you'll kiss her before the vicar gives permission."
"That's... actually all quite possible."
"Which is why the odds are so interesting. Now go, before I have to explain to your bride why her groom was late to his own wedding because he was having an existential crisis in the hallway."
Gabriel took one last look at Clara's door, then allowed Edmund to steer him toward the stairs. "What if…"
"No what-ifs," Edmund said firmly. "You've had three weeks of what-ifs. Today is about actually entering into matrimony with the woman you love without overthinking it into disaster."
"I don't overthink."
"You once spent three hours analyzing whether Clara meant 'good morning' as a greeting or a observation about the weather."
They reached the entrance where the carriage waited, decorated with white ribbons that someone, probably Mary had added despite Gabriel's insistence that they weren't "decoration people."
"I'm to be wedded. Gabriel said, the reality hitting him anew.
"Yes, we've established that. Get in the carriage before you have another revelation and we miss the ceremony entirely."
"Edmund, what if I'm terrible at being a husband?"
"You'll be terrible at it in new and interesting ways that Clara will find alternately charming and infuriating, just like everything else about you."
"That's not reassuring."
