The witching hour - By Anne Rice Page 0,517

“Blue Moon” or “The Tennessee Waltz.” The wedding cake, except for a piece to be saved for sentimental reasons, had been devoured down to the last crumb.

A group of Gradys, connections of Cortland, delayed on their journey from New York, flooded through the front door, full of apologies and exclamations. Others rushed to greet them. Rowan apologized for being shoeless and disheveled as she received their kisses. And in the back dining room, a large party which had come together for a series of photographs began to sing “My Wild Irish Rose.”

At eleven, Aaron kissed Rowan good-bye, as he left to take Aunt Vivian home. He would be at the hotel if needed, and he wished them a safe trip to Destin in the morning.

Michael walked with Aaron and his aunt to the front door. Michael’s old friends went off at last to continue their drinking at Parasol’s bar in the Irish Channel, after extracting the promise from Michael that he would meet with them for dinner in a couple of weeks. But the stairway was still blocked with couples in fast conversation. And the caterers were “rustling up something” in the kitchen for the New York Gradys.

At last, Ryan rose to his feet, demanded silence, and declared that this party was over! Everyone was to find his or her shoes, coat, purse, or what have you, and get out and leave the wedding couple alone. Taking a fresh glass of champagne from a passing tray, he turned to Rowan.

“To the wedding couple,” he announced, his voice easily carrying over the hubbub. “To their first night in this house.”

Cheers once more. Everyone reaching for a last drink, and mere were a hundred repeats of the toast as glasses clinked together. “God bless all in this house!” declared the priest, who just happened to be going out the door. And a dozen different voices repeated the prayer.

“To Darcy Monahan and Katherine,” someone cried.

“To Julien and Mary Beth … to Stella … ”

The leavetaking, as was the fashion in this family, took over a half hour, what with the kissing, and the promises to get together, and the renewed conversations halfway out of the powder room and halfway off the porch and halfway out the gate.

Meantime the caterers swept through the rooms, silently retrieving every last glass and napkin, righting pillows, and snuffing candles, and scattering the arrangements of flowers which had been grouped on the banquet tables, and wiping up the last spills.

At last it was over. Ryan was the last one to go, having paid the caterers and seen to it that everything was perfect. The house was almost empty!

“Good night, my dears,” he said, and the high, front door slowly closed.

For a long moment Rowan and Michael looked at each other, then they broke into laughter, and Michael picked her up and swung her around in a circle, before he set her gentry back on her feet. She fell against him, hugging him the way she’d come to love, with her head against his chest. She was weak from laughing.

“We did it, Rowan!” he said. “The way everybody wanted it, we did it! It’s over, it’s done.”

She was still laughing silently, deliciously exhausted and pleasantly excited at the same time. But the clock was striking. “Listen,” she whispered. “Michael, it’s midnight.”

He took her by the hand, hit the wall button to shut off the light, and together they hurried up the darkened stairs.

Only one room on the second floor gave a light into the hallway, and it was their bedroom. They moved silently to the threshold.

“Rowan, look what they’ve done,” Michael said.

The room had been exquisitely prepared by Bea and Lily. A huge fragrant bouquet of pink roses stood on the mantel between the two silver candelabra.

On the dressing table, the champagne waited in its bucket of ice with two glasses beside it, on a silver tray.

The bed itself was ready, the lace coverlet turned down, the pillows fluffed, and the soft white bed curtains brought back and tied to the massive posts at the head.

A pretty nightgown and peignoir of white silk lay folded on one side of the bed and a pair of white cotton pajamas on the other. A single rose lay against the pillows, with a bit of ribbon tied to it, and another single candle stood on the small table to the right of the bed.

“How sweet of them to think of it,” Rowan said.

“And so it’s our wedding night, Rowan,” Michael said. “And