Page 52 of To Sketch a Scandal (Lucky Lovers of London #4)

“He’s always put some of those old-fashioned things into the Fox,” said Warren as he finished up the best explanation he could.

“His family was like yours, I think, bunch of arseholes. So it’s the closest he’s got to traditions.

It’s sort of funny and quaint, really, when it’s not, you know, directed at you personally.

” He already had Matty’s hand in his, but now he squeezed it and held it up to examine the lovely link of them together.

“That said, there is a perk to being the victims of his particular madness.”

“Oh?” said Matty. “And what’s that?”

Warren leaned in to whisper, not because he didn’t want anyone to hear what he said, but so he could feel Matty shiver when he said it.

“Marriages require consummation.” He nipped Matty’s lobe, getting the reaction he was after in spades.

“Not only do we get to fuck when it’s done, we are absolutely required to do so. ”

“Oh dear,” said Matty. “What a trial. Please tell me we don’t have to produce a bloody sheet; I’m afraid they’ll all be disappointed in that case.”

“What? You’re not a virgin?”

“Afraid not. Will you still have me?”

“No,” said Warren, shaking his head without a moment’s hesitation. “Definitely not. It’s off to the bawdy houses with you, lass. Nothing doing.”

Strange blighter Warren had attached himself to, because Matty just beamed like Warren had paid him an extravagant compliment and snuggled in tighter.

* * *

After the infamous drag party fainting, it was decided (by one vote) against forcing Matty into a corset against his will when he’d never worn one before (or so he claimed; Warren caught a little sparkle in his eye he’d have to ask about later).

The ordeal instead involved outfitting Matty in a white silk robe and Warren in a borrowed tailcoat.

They stood in front of the bar together while Forester joined their “hands, hearts, and minds,” before reminding them that they would need to handle the joining of the rest of themselves in the back when all was said and done, or it “won’t count, and you’ll have to do all this again. ”

There was hooting. Hollering. Drunken singing.

Charlie looked very smug at having been right and Noah looked a little sullen at the loss of his ill-fated bet.

It felt like a damn age, but having been in the jeering audience of these things plenty of times before, Warren happened to know that Forester’s molly ceremony was no English mass (and certainly nothing like weddings as Warren knew them best—he really dreaded what ideas Forester might get in his head if he ever learned about that ).

All in all, it was the usual five to ten minutes of sappy sentiment and sex jokes, and then—

“Kiss your bride, Bakshi,” Forester said.

These things, of course, were done mostly for the sake of the show. Forester did get earnest requests for ceremony and celebration from lovers, but most of the time, it was hazing and theatrics, done to build community and lighten a mood that could get heavy sometimes.

So, as Warren looked at Matty in his silly robe, doing this thing that to Warren hardly even looked like a wedding in the first place, he knew his role.

He knew what to do to get the cheers and the whistles.

He knew that, under this unlikely circumstance in which Warren Bakshi the barkeep had consented to a molly house marriage at all, this was his moment to play that card to its fullest. They’d expect him to give a kiss that was dirty and handsy and arguably illegal across the British Empire.

As he hesitated, Matty watched him curiously. He looked very beautiful, as he always did, taking all this nonsense on without question or complaint, giving his all in the circumstances he was in.

And Warren found, as he looked into that face that had become such a comfort to him during this time of immense change, that he really did want to do what he’d not been able to manage earlier.

He wanted to make a scene, a confession, a declaration that something in him had changed.

The extent of that change remained to be seen—their routines when the class came to an end, what Matty would pursue when it did, whether Warren might take Mother’s advice and give up the barkeeping side of his time at the club, the level of closeness he and Matty could reveal to Warren’s family, whether Warren had notched his last bedpost or if they’d remain flexible in that capacity. Those things weren’t settled.

But he wasn’t worried about them. They’d be what they needed to be for each other. He knew that much, at least, and it was plenty.

“Warren?” Matty said, dimples slowly appearing on his cheeks. “If you ever want this bloody thing to end, you have to kiss me.”

There was only one way for a man with Warren’s reputation to make the sort of scene he wanted. He slowly and gently took Matty’s face in his hands, touching noses first.

“I love you,” he whispered. Then, with more honey than heat, he ever-so-softly kissed this uncanny, unlikely, completely unforgettable companion of his to the sound of absolute, stunned silence of everyone else in the room.

He pulled back to find Matty grinning without any trace of blankness or hesitation. The perfect prize he’d been constantly hunting since the first night they met, and hoped to keep winning for a long time to come.

And just as everyone was picking their jaws up off the floor to spur them on to their marital duties, he heard Charlie Price whisper to Noah Clarke, “Feeling lucky you called that bet off right about now, aren’t you?”