83. Concerning Hermione's wedding

Hermione had created a contract for her marriage with James. However, where Arabella and I were approaching it very much as a union of equals (though without explicitly saying so, as M. Dumas once wrote 'one should be careful of what one writes'), my sister had used her contract to consolidate a position of strength in their marriage.

In my name, you will recall, my youngest sister had set several clauses in the contract, which James' family - his mother - had disagreed with. Hermione had asked 'me' - on their behalf, to alter those conditions (as you will further recall that she had made all of the decisions herself), and those clauses had then been amended in various ways. The result was that Hermione was now guaranteed a status in the marriage which meant that she would need to be consulted when certain decisions were made, that she and James would have equal access to their family monies, and that her own money was vouchsafed to her control and no other.

Unless there was a male heir, Hermione also had the primary position in terms of inheriting the estate, which our solicitors agreed, was a particularly strong clause, and even with a male heir my sister would automatically become the guardian of the child and the boy's estate until he reached the age at which he would inherit. What she had done, in effect, was to insulate her and her husband from the Barthomley family empire. There was nothing to prevent James from participating in family enterprises, nothing at all, if he chose to. But Hermione's contract allowed them to establish themselves, for themselves, outside of any manipulation from within the family.

Because of the manner Hermione had "wrung" concessions from me, she was in distinctly good odour with James' mother, Eugenie, and she spent nearly as much time at the Barthomley house in Belgravia as she did at our own house in Mayfair.

Hermione also made certain that James knew that she enjoyed riding out on Rotten Row, and the two of them often rode together, sometimes with Charlotte acting as their chaperone and sometimes with me. Hermione was often the first to trot or canter, ensuring that when her husband eventually asked about the lack of a maidenhead, if he asked, then the evidence would be clear.

I found that James was less nervous when I was about, but he still looked like he would jump if I said 'Boo!' to him. What I did notice was that he seemed less of a twit these days, and more serious. I was actually coming to like him.

One area in which James did surprise me was in his horsemanship. The first time we rode out together, he came into the yard at Mayfair upon a very nicely set up grey gelding. The horse had been prepared beautifully - brushed to a high shine, his mane and tail brushed out just so. James himself had an almost perfect seat upon his mount and the pair looked as if they had been made for each other. Mr Barthomley had a gentle hand and did not tug and saw at his horse's mouth, but instead, his movements were fluid and very much in tune with his mount.

I could not fail but to complement the young man, someone had taught him very well, and he was an exemplar of their teaching.

You would have thought that I had given him his own personal key to the Kingdom of Heaven, his chest swelled, and he stuttered as he thanked me, before waxing lyrical about Naiad as we rode out of the yard. Hermione, riding between us on a fine boned dark bay mare, beamed at the way her fiancée had taken the compliment.

I also had the same conversation with James that I had had with Henry. Obviously, it was not the exact duplicate of the one I had had with Mr Adams - there were certain questions which never arose, and because of that were never addressed. However, I did explain that although I was giving Hermione into his care, she would always remain my baby sister. I could tell from the way that James' complexion paled, that he fully understood the implications of that simple statement, and that there would be no need for any more explicit threats.