Midnight Hour Chapter 16 Amidst the Spires
Several Years Later, on Daniel & Mari’s Wedding Day
“Our stop is next,” Dan said, consulting the rail guide he had picked up at the Oxford station.
“We aren’t going all the way to Cowdenbeath?” Mari asked, peering through the railcar window at the nearly dark sky.
“It would be tomorrow morning before we got there,” Dan answered. “I booked a bed and breakfast for us to stay in tonight, and we’ll catch the train again tomorrow. Unless you want to use a sleeper car tonight.”
Her blush told him she had allowed herself to fantasize about romantic excursions outdoors, but not much about the practical side of their wedding night. Mari made a quick recovery, however.
“Oh, I think we could make good use of the tight space a single bunk offers,” she replied, and it was his turn to blush.
“We can take our time. I just thought a B and B would be a more comfortable place to sleep,” Dan said.
Mari smiled her appreciation, but couldn’t help teasing him.
“How long are you planning to wait, Dan?”
“I was hoping sometime before we left Scotland, even if I had to persuade you to duck into an airport restroom with me.”
“I don’t think we’ll have to do that. Unless we want to,” Mari said.
The conductor called for Crewe Station, and the couple organized their belongings for getting off the train.
“You asked about our first stop in Scotland, not England,” Dan said, smirking at his new wife. “Thank God I didn’t have to come up with something to tell you so I could keep this a surprise.”
“I love you, and I like how much thought you’ve put into all of this,” Mari said, and kissed him long enough that when the conductor came to help them with their luggage, he had to rap on their window several times to get their attention.
“Congratulations,” the conductor told them as he helped them disembark. He gave them a wave as they called their thanks.
Dan led the way to the front of the station and flagged a cab. He seated Mari inside, helped load the luggage into the trunk, and gave the bed and breakfast’s name to the cab driver.
“Unless you want to do supper first,” Dan suggested to Mari. “It is a bit early to settle in for the night.”
The cabbie gave him a look of disbelief, but offered both the name of a pub a few doors down from where they would be staying and to deliver their belongings.
Over dinner they shared a half-pint of cider and black currant cordial and a sheperd’s pie, neither one of them very thirsty or hungry, but knowing breakfast was a long way off. They ambled to their lodging, kissing under a streetlight in the nipping winter air. The front door was unlocked and the owners had left a key for them on a tray in the entryway. A slip of paper with their room number was under the key and Dan lifted both in his left hand, turned back to Mari, and lifted her in his arms.
“Up the stairs, Dan?” she questioned, wrapping her arms around his shoulders in preparation for the climb.
“Why not?” Up he climbed without missing a step or faltering, and he proceeded down the hallway to the last door on the left as though he had been in the house before. Somehow he managed to unlock the door, open it, and carry Mari through without setting her down until they were inside and he had closed the door once more.
“I’m impressed,” Mari said.
“I’ve only just begun, and other lame beating my chest kind of statements,” Dan replied with a grin, and helped her remove her coat before taking off his own. He then looked about the room, his eyes landing on a bottle in an ice bucket sitting on a table near a fireplace.
“From you?” Mari asked.
“No,” he answered, and walked over to find a note tied with twine around the bottle’s neck. “From the Bob-Whites.”
“Mead,” Mari read the label. “Hand-bottled in Ireland.”
“Gotta be Jim’s promised surprise,” Dan surmised. “Shall we?”
“Yes, please,” Mari nodded.
While he undid the foil wrapping and worked to pop the cork, she moved to light the fire that had been laid in the fireplace. Dan joined her on the rug and handed her a glass of mead which they shared, taking small sips and snuggling until the glass was emptied.
“Would you like to join me for a shower?” Dan whispered against Mari’s cheek.
She snuggled closer to him before answering by unbuttoning and removing his vest and loosening his tie so she could lift it over his head.
“Taking it slowly, but still moving forward?” Mari murmured, brushing her fingertips along his jawline.
She stood, kicked off her heels, and took Dan’s hand to help him stand. He thought she would release it, but she turned her front away from him and led both his hands to the buttons that ran up the back of her blouse.
“As far forward as either of us want to go tonight,” he replied, feeling like he could be knocked over with a feather because of how far they had already gone.
Several hours later, the bottle of mead still more than half full, Dan and Mari were back on the rug in front of the fireplace. Perhaps out of nerves, perhaps out of a desire to prolong the moment, a thought came to Dan and he broke out in a laugh mid-kiss.
“What is it?” Mari asked, imperturbed. She ran her fingers through his shaggy hair and linked her fingers together behind his neck.
“Before I say what made me laugh, I need to preface it by reminding you that as a good choir boy at Saint Patrick’s, I had to know all the important feast days.”
Mari raised an eyebrow in curiosity.
“Do you know what December eighth is in the liturgical calendar?”
“No,” she said patiently.
“The Feast of Immaculate Conception,” he said, realizing too late she might not find that as amusing as he did. She did pull back and her eyebrows drew together, but she settled back into his arms pretty quickly.
“Remind me of that in the morning and I might laugh then.”
“Do you want to pause and get something? I have-”
“Shh,” Mari said, kissing him. “Nothing between us for our first time, like we planned.”
And so it was that, as church bells across Crewe, England began sounding the moment when time is both night and day, Dan and Mari became one.
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