The pub quieted down after the Lakes men left. As soon as Ted stepped back inside, Bert and Jerry attempted to continue their teasing, asking if he and June had kissed and then miming far more than kissing. But their antics were mostly ignored by the other patrons, who had shifted into smaller, bleary groups intent on talking about their farms and businesses and the upcoming summer festival.

“You handled that well,” Andrew assured him as he approached the bar from the smaller and quieter of the pub’s two public rooms. He thumped Ted on the back before heading out the door and home for the evening, saying, “June Lakes will come around eventually and see what a top-notch man you are.”

“Thanks,” Ted called after his friend with a weary smile. If only he believed it were true.

He headed back behind the bar, tidying everything that was already tidy and counting down the minutes until the pub would close for the night. His thoughts stayed with June though, as they always did. She had looked tired. She always looked tired, but there was something deeper in the weariness and defeat that had lined her brow and stooped her shoulders. She could have just been embarrassed over the fuss the men had made about them, but he didn’t think that was all.

She was unhappy, which ripped at Ted’s heart. She’d been unhappy since the sad day her mother had died after a short illness. Mary Lakes had been an outstanding woman and June took after her in so many ways. How Mary had ended up married to a rotter like Roger was anyone’s guess. The day after she’d died, June hadn’t returned to school. She’d been put straight to work by her father and brothers and, as far as Ted knew, she hadn’t had a day of rest since then.

“Cheer up, man,” Bert laughed, slapping him on the back as he left at midnight. “We were only having a laugh.”

“Right.” Ted nodded, shooing Bert along so that he could close up the pub. “Just a laugh.”

The rest of the men who’d wasted their evening at the pub swayed and stumbled out the door, some supported by their friends, heading home. The shift in noise level as Ted shut and locked the door was striking. Ted ran a hand through is hair, staring at the mess in the front room that Lakes and his friends had created. But at the same time, a rush of fondness for the pub itself hit him. He liked the space, liked the potential it held. As he marched around the front room, picking up discarded mugs and glasses, righting chairs, and then scrubbing down tabletops, he wondered what June would make of the place if she could see it without the encumbrance of a bunch of rude and rowdy men.

His thoughts turned full-circle as he moved from the front room to straighten up the back room. June had too much to deal with. Her father was a cruel taskmaster, but it was her brothers that worried Ted, Wat in particular. The comment big, brutish Wat had made about not minding June in his bed had filled Ted’s gut with ice and his blood with fire. It was bad enough to think of any man having nefarious intentions toward June, but her own brother?

The thought of all the horrific things that could happen wouldn’t leave him alone as he stacked chairs on top of tables and prepared to mop the floor. He couldn’t stand by in his solid, secure pub while June was in any kind of danger, or while she was unhappy. Instead of heading to the back of the pub to fetch a mop and bucket, he marched out the front door. He wouldn’t be able to rest until he knew June was safe.

It was well after midnight, and Brynthwaite was dark and silent. The heat of summer hung in the air, hotter than summers usually were so far into the Lake District. He strode through black streets, squinting to make out his way to the Lakes’ small house, near Brynthwaite’s public stables, where Roger worked as the town farrier. It wasn’t the first time he’d slipped quietly across town to make sure that June was safe and secure, and he had a depressing feeling that it wouldn’t be the last time.

His heart sank as he approached the house. Several windows still had light in them, meaning someone was still up. Ted could hardly imagine what kind of chores would keep June up into the wee hours of the morning. But it was worse than that. As he approached the ramshackle, single-level house, he could hear shouting.

“Don’t you go telling me what to do,” Chaz’s voice sounded through the open window of one of the back rooms. “You’re not my mother.”

“I might as well be,” June snapped back. “Now get your boots off before I pry them from your stinking feet myself.”

“You can’t talk to him like that,” Billy whined, sounding worse for wear.

“And you,” June said. “Are you going to lie around in your own sick all night or are you going to take yourself to bed?”

Billy mumbled something that Ted couldn’t hear. He picked up his pace, debating whether to knock on the Lakes’ front door or to look in at the window.

“Why’re you so keen to get us all in bed, eh, sis?” Wat growled, his voice as menacing as it was drunken. “You lookin’ for a bit of fun?”

The crude question was followed by a sharp yelp from June. Ted broke into a run, heading straight for the window. He reached it in time to see June wrenching out of Wat’s arms and shoving his hand away from her chest. She turned to kick her brother in the shin, but that only seemed to encourage him.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Ted shouted, ready to launch himself through the window to come to June’s rescue if he had to.

Wat stumbled back, eyes wide with guilt. Chaz flinched so hard that he fell off the chair where he sat. Billy was already on the floor, pale and damp, as though he’d been sick on himself. A terrible stench of sick, unwashed bodies, and rubbish wafted out the window.

“What are you doing here?” June shouted, rushing to the window. Her face was a mask of fury that didn’t ease up one bit at the sight of Ted, rescue or not.

“I wanted to make sure you made it home safely,” Ted explained, embarrassment at being caught peeping in at her warring with righteous indignation over the way she was being treated.

“I left the pub nearly two hours ago,” she said. “And I told you I didn’t need your help.”

Behind her, Chaz attempted to push himself to his feet, but ended up casting up the contents of his stomach onto the floor instead. June sent a disgusted look over her shoulder, then rounded on Ted once more, blazing with fury.

“Why did you serve them so much beer? They’ve been sick all over since getting home,” she snapped.

“I didn’t give them more than two pints each,” Ted defended himself halfheartedly. “They have a tendency to snatch up whatever anyone else leaves unattended for too long.”

June huffed, crossing her arms. “Go away,” she said. “I don’t want your help.”

Her eyes told another story. They said that she didn’t want Ted, or anyone else, to see the misery she was subject to or the way she was barely holding on. Anger might have been foremost in her expression, but despair and shame were just as strong. It broke Ted’s heart to see her laid so low.

“June,” he began.

“What’s all this?” Roger asked, stomping into the room in nothing but his drawers. He spotted June and Ted at the window and broke into a laugh. “Has our June got a gentleman caller?”

“It’s just the barkeep,” Chaz slurred, gulping as though he would be sick again.

Roger’s face darkened. “Come to collect that tab, have you?” He marched to the window and pushed June out of the way.

“Hey!” Ted shouted, wishing he was in a position to punch Roger in his bulbous nose.

“Come around to the front,” June said, heading out of the room.

Ted glared quickly at Roger before backing away from the window and marching around to the front of the house.

“I haven’t got anything for you,” Roger called as he followed June. “You can’t squeeze blood from a stone.”

The conversation paused as they all made their way to the front of the house. June opened the door and stepped out onto the front step, followed quickly by Roger, who pushed her aside once again.

“Stop handling her like that,” Ted growled, balling his hands into fists and stepping over to loom in front of Roger.

“I’m not paying you a single farthing,” Roger barked, ignoring Ted’s concern for June. “That beer of yours is rubbish anyhow.”

“I haven’t come to collect the tab,” Ted seethed. “I’ve come to check on June.”

“I don’t need you checking on me,” June said without conviction.

Wat stumbled through the door, grabbing her around the waist and yanking her close to his side. “Yeah, she don’t need you checkin’ on her.”

Fear flashed through June’s eyes as she struggled to get away from Wat. Ted shifted from foot to foot, ready to pummel the brute into a pulp.

“I’ll pay you next week,” Roger went on, oblivious to everything else. “I’ve got no money now.”

“He going on about the bar tab?” Chaz asked, dragging himself into the doorway, looking like he would either be sick again or pass out.

“I told him we ain’t got money,” Roger said.

“Then give him something else,” Chaz slurred, then turned back into the house to be sick.

June let out an indignant grunt, finally pushing away from Wat. “This is ridiculous. All of you, inside! Get out of your dirty clothes and into bed before I hit you all over the head with a pot and drag you into a pile in the back yard.”

“You can’t talk to us like that,” Wat bellowed.

“Oy!” Roger exclaimed, brightening. “You want payment for your stinkin’ bar tab? Take June.”

“What?” June, Ted, and Wat all asked at the same time.

A second of silence followed before Roger burst into snorting laughter, doubling over. “It’s the perfect solution. He’s always so addlepated about our June. And it’d get her noisy, bossy self out of our business.”

“You can’t sell me for the price of a bar tab, you wretched old goat,” June snapped.

“Why not?” Roger asked. He turned to Ted. “I’ll give you June if you wipe our bar tab clean.”

Ted didn’t hesitate, not even for a moment. “All right,” he said. His heart raced with victory, and his hands itched to reach for hers so that he could flee and take her away from her misery forever. “I’ll take her and cherish her with my whole heart.”

“Dad, you can’t give June away,” Wat said, crossing his arms. “She’s ours.” He gave June a sideways look that made Ted’s blood run cold.

“’Course I can,” Roger said. “You, girl. Go with him.” He pointed to Ted. “Better still,” he went on with a raucous laugh, “we’ll all go. Straight down to the church. Rev. Goodall will marry the two of you right this very instant.”

“Yes, he will,” Ted said, heart racing even faster. Getting June away from her father and brothers was one thing, but the only way to keep her away was if the two of them were wed.

“Go on,” Chaz blurted, appearing in the doorway once more. “Off to the church with you.”

“It’s too late to go to church,” Billy said, dragging himself up to lean against Chaz’s side. “I need June to help get my drawers off. I think…I think I might have soiled myself.”

“All right, fine!” June shouted, surprising everyone to silence. “Let’s all go to the church.” She stepped over to Ted, grabbing his hand. “You want to sell me to pay your bar tab, then fine. Let’s get it over with.”

“Right,” Roger shouted, stumbling down the front steps and following as June dragged Ted along. “Let’s have a wedding.”

June was certain she’d gone mad, but she’d reached the end of her rope, and the loose ends were too jagged for her to bear. Ted remained suspiciously silent as she tugged him down the dark lane and onto the road that would lead them to Brynthwaite’s church. He’d shifted his hand to hold hers and, like it or not, she felt a certain sense of security in his grip. He wasn’t going to let her fall. He might have been the last person she wanted to see her at her worst, but he wouldn’t hurt her. She couldn’t say the same for her own kin.

“We’re having a wedding,” her father called out as they passed the few houses at the edge of town. “Ding dong the bells!”

“Thank God the church is on this side of town,” she grumbled as they all shuffled along.

“We’ll make it quick,” Ted murmured in reply.

She turned her head to stare at him, but couldn’t make out much in the dark. He seemed far more excited than the whole farce warranted, though.

They reached the church, and in typical Lakes male style, her father and brothers broke into the vicarage to rouse Rev. Goodall from sleep. They managed to bundle him down to the church door in nothing but his nightshirt.

“What’s going on here?” the startled minister asked, rubbing his eyes.

“You’re performin’ a wedding, that’s what,” Roger answered.

“A wedding?” Rev. Goodall blinked. “It must be one o’clock.”

“Perfect time for a wedding,” Chaz said, his dopey grin visible in the light of Rev. Goodall’s lamp.

“But…but I can’t just perform a wedding in the middle of the night,” Rev. Goodall went on, unlocking the church door and ushering them all inside. He stepped to the side to light a few candles, and Ted broke away from June long enough to do the same.

“The wedding’s got to happen now,” June’s father insisted. “It’s a matter of extreme financial importance.”

“Financial importance?” Rev. Goodall gaped at him, then turned to June, then Ted, for answers.

“Please, reverend,” Ted said. “It’s a matter of life and death.”

June scowled. Was it, really? Did Ted think she was in that much danger? She glanced to Wat, who stood, arms crossed, glowering at her. A chill raced down her back. Maybe it was at that. And when it came down to it, she was too exhausted, down to the very marrow of her bones, to do anything but go forward.

“This has to happen,” her father said.

“Well…that is to say…I suppose,” Rev. Goodall mumbled, heading to the front of the church. The whole, miserable lot of them followed. “I can perform the ceremony,” he said as he reached the pulpit at the front of the church. “But it won’t really be legal and binding until the banns have been read over three Sundays.”

“Fine,” June’s father said, nodding sagely. “Then start reading those banns as of this morning.”

“If you would,” Ted added politely.

Rev. Goodall gaped at him, as if unable to believe Ted would be part of something so mad-capped.

“In the meantime,” June’s father went on. “We’ll all agree to treat the whole thing as real, legally, and financially binding.”

“Agreed,” Chaz said, followed by Wat’s grumpy nod and Billy’s snores as he fell asleep in the front pew.

“Fine,” June sighed. “Just get on with it.”

“Well, all right,” Rev. Goodall said. He shuffled a few things on his pulpit before finding a Bible and stepping down to stand in front of June and Ted. “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today in God’s sight to witness the marriage of Mr. Theodore Folley and Miss June Lakes.”

Exhaustion settled heavily over June’s shoulders as Rev. Goodall continued with the ceremony. She couldn't believe she was actually standing there, holding Ted’s hand. He’d only let go to light candles, as if she would bolt at any second. It felt so strange and different to stand next to a man who held himself upright and who looked people directly in the eye. She should have made some sort of objection when Rev. Goodall asked if anyone knew of any reason or impediment that would prevent her and Ted from being married, but she was too weary, down to her very soul, to object.

And when Rev. Goodall asked the all-important questions about loving, honoring, and cleaving only to each other, June found herself sighing and answering, “I do,” before her good sense could kick in and stop her.

“Then by the grace of God, inasmuch as it is possible without due process, I now pronounce you husband and wife.”

“Ha!” June’s father shouted. “That’s it then. We don’t owe you a penny.”

“No, you don’t,” Ted said, as victorious as her father. He slipped a gentle arm around June’s back, holding her in a way that actually made her feel protected for a change. “Now, if you’ll excuse us, I’m taking my wife home.”

“Yeah, I just bet you are,” Wat said, wiping his mouth as though a juicy morsel had been snatched out from between his jaws.

“Let’s go,” June mumbled, not liking how anxious she sounded.

Ted nodded reassuringly to her, looped her arm through his, and hurried down the aisle, through the door, and away from the church.

“Come on, boys! Let’s wish the happy couple well,” her father whooped, following them.

Ted clenched his jaw, sending a frustrated look over his shoulder. “They’ll give up and go home before too long,” he said.

June laughed and shook her head. “You don’t know them the way I do.”

In fact, they continued to follow, heckling them all the way. A moment of uncertainty struck June as Ted led her around the back of the pub and through a door into the kitchen. He didn’t stop there. He kept hold of her hand and took her up a narrow flight of stairs to the pub’s first floor. The sound of her father’s and brothers’ shouts continued to harangue them from the alley behind the pub.

“I’ve got two boarders in the spare rooms at the moment,” Ted apologized, so you’ll have to sleep in my bed.

“And where will you sleep?” June asked, half teasing, half genuinely curious about what he expected. If he thought he could assert his marital rights over her right then and there, then she would turn around and march right back downstairs and out the door.

Ted winced as he showed her into a good-sized room at the back of the building. It contained a simple, reassuringly large bed, a wardrobe, washstand, and a chair like the ones downstairs in the pub. “We’ll have to share a bed,” he said, color splashing his face. “But don’t worry. I would never dream of touching you or doing anything inappropriate. I’ll sleep in my clothes if necessary and with my head down at the foot of the bed.”

June huffed a laugh. “I’ve had enough of smelling men’s feet, thank you very much,” she said. “Sleep the right way ’round.”

Ted nodded, smiling for the first time all night. In fact, she wasn’t sure she’d seen him smile quite so easily since they’d been in school. “We don’t have to decide anything further until the banns are finished being read,” he said. “I’m glad I got you away from that….” He didn’t finish. Judging by the sudden fury in his expression, he probably didn’t think he could say the words he wanted to about her family in front of a woman.

“Right,” she sighed, flopping to sit on the bed and pull off her shoes. “You can do whatever you want, but I want to sleep. It’s been a bloody long day.”

“Do you need anything?” Ted asked, hovering beside the bed. “There’s a water-closet across the hall, clean linen. I’m sure I have an old nightshirt you can borrow, and—”

“Ted,” she stopped him, lying down. “Shut up. I just want to sleep now.”

“All right,” he said. “I’ll…I’ll just finish up a few things downstairs before coming to bed.”

June nodded, or at least thought she nodded. Sleep descended on her far faster than she expected. The last thing she remembered before the world went completely black was hearing her father and brothers in the alley outside, shouting rude suggestions and carnal encouragement.