Chapter 12
Chelsey felt nervous. She was standing next to Rupert in the blacksmiths cottage.
She just realised why they called it an over the anvil marriage.
The trip to Gretna Green had taken two nights. Rupert had got them separate rooms at each inn they stopped for the night. He had told the inn keep that he snored and his wife would like a different room.
Chelsey suspected they knew they were not married but didn't say anything because of how well Rupert paid them. She remembered travelling with her father. He had always expected the best and demanded it because of his title.
But she could see it in the attitude of the workers they were not very happy. But every where they stopped people seemed to hurry to help Rupert and her to male their stay more comfortable.
Most of the time when they stopped to change horses she didn't come out of the carriage. Most people would think that Robert was a gentleman travelling a alone. He always brought a basket of food for Chelsey until her side of the couch had been filled with baskets of food. Considering that that they had changed horses about ten times.
They hadn't bothered to stop at an inn for lunch the next day because they had enough food for them and their while party. SSo she and Rupert had had a little picnic in a little meadow while their party had also had their meal.
She should really ask him more about his business after all she was marrying him. She should have some idea what he did. She knew it was something to with ships.
That much had come up during the conversations in the last two days.
After the first initial bout of nervousness and being afraid of breaking down she had managed the next two days very well.
Rupert hadn't asked her anything that would make her cry. She had expected to him to ask about the baby's father. But he hadn't. Infact she felt that she had spent the two days talking and he mostly listening.
He had told her something's his aunt and cousins. His house in America. New York sounded so busy. Even something's about his business. Mostly about America it self and she had been fascinated.
She had talked about how she had taken care of her mother. How she had agreed to marry Wilbur. All the harebrained and ridiculous excuses she had come up with not to marry him.
She had talked about Margaret, how Margaret was the only person Chelsey liked in the family.
She took a deep breath. It was happening now.
She looked at her two witnesses. They were the baker and his wife from the next door. The blacksmiths wife had handed her a bunch of wild roses. There were two more in vases on the table. She wondered how many people got married here every day.
She was getting married wearing black. She should have chosen a violet. She had one in her pellise. But she had not thought about wedding attire when she dressed that morning.
She had always thought that she would have worn a pastel pink gown for her wedding. She had imagined her father going with her in the coach to the church driven by white horses.
She had been sure Margaret would have been her matron of honour.
She had imagined a church full of relatives from her side and from her husbands side.
But he she was getting married in the blacksmiths cottage. Apperently he was licensed to conduct marriages as well. With an earth floor beneath her feet.
With two people who she had never seen in her life standing for her.
""Do u have the rings? " The man asked.
