Disclaimer: this fanfiction is not written for profit and no infringement of copyright is intended. Not beta read, so all mistakes are mine.

A MOST BECOMING GROOM

They repaired to his estate after the wedding.

In fact, they raced to it, Sherlock apparently determined to get her to Marsden Hall before sundown.

When she queried this, he actually had the sweetness to blush.

"I know my haste may seem… ungentlemanly," he said quietly as the carriage bounced over the road, "but, well… I have wanted to be married to you for an awfully long time Molly.

Delaying the beginning of our life together therefore seems rather unnecessary."

He looked at her suddenly. "Unless, of course, you fear my interest in you is unseemly?" Before she could answer- this was Sherlock, after all- he took her by her shoulders and turned her to look at him. He leaned his head into hers, speaking very softly. "If you're not ready to share a bed, if you want time-"

"Oh heavens, no!" Now it was Molly's turn to redden. She hadn't meant to say such a thing, and not nearly as loudly as that. Even if it was definitely true. "I just, um…" She could feel her blush getting worse but she seemed powerless to stop it. "I just didn't expect you to be in such a hurry to be alone with me, is all," she said eventually, knowing that the words made her sound like a ninny.

"Why wouldn't I want that?"

When she stole a look at him his brows were hitched together in a frown. It was an expression she had seen many times, one which told her he had encountered something social which he didn't understand.

Molly tried to gentle her voice. "Such haste," she said carefully, "implies a desire for, for, well, congress…" When he didn't speak she clarified. "Marital congress."

"Of course I desire marital congress with you," he retorted, sounding much surprised. His cheeks reddened further but he kept speaking. "You're a beautiful woman, Molly," he said, "and I've just managed to marry you when I thought all was lost. Under those circumstances, haste is by all means to be expected, when… marital congress is the possible outcome."

And he nodded firmly to himself, as if that decided everything, before pressing a kiss to her hand. Despite herself Molly smiled in the darkness of the carriage, her cheeks now so red she suspected they were glowing. At least in this one thing they matched. "So you… You want to, to... With me…"

"Of course I do!" Sherlock's certainty made her smile widen. A flash of worry crossed his face. "But do you, want to, to, you know… With me?"

Molly nodded vigorously. "Oh I do."

She couldn't help a mischievous little laugh.

"Oh. That's…. That's splendid." He looked much pleased by this bit of news. "Then that's settled. Once we get home I'll have something to eat sent up and we'll see about getting you out of that damnable wedding dress and into something more suitable."

She cocked an eyebrow. "Like my birthday suit?"

His grin was suddenly rakish. "Like your birthday suit."

Molly had to stifle a snort of laughter. "What precisely have you got against wedding dresses, hmm?"

"Everything!" Sherlock shook his head, his expression dripping distaste. "Especially that one. Ashington managed to take one of the loveliest women in England and make it look like she'd been waylaid by a dandy's handkerchief," he sniffed. Before she could become offended on her dress's behalf he pulled her into his lap. "Clearly, Ashington should never have been entrusted with dressing so beautiful a woman as you," he said. Again he took her hand, brought it to his lips. With his eyes on hers, Molly felt her heart skip a beat. "I would never try to guild a lily in such a way, darling," he continued, and Molly felt her stomach begin tying itself into knots. Warm, wet, arousing knots.

"That's, that's…" Lord, she wished she could remember where her fan was. "That's good to know, husband."

Again he shot her that rakish grin. "I'll take your word for it, wife."

And then, slowly, carefully, he tipped her chin up and, for the first time since the wedding service, he pressed his lips to hers. She tasted brandy, and tobacco. Caught that constant, never-absent tang of iodine and leather that was just his. With a sigh Molly deepened the kiss, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him close. Holding him to her. Pressing their bodies together in all sorts of intimate and interesting and frankly novel ways...

By the time they reached their destination they were both breathless from kissing.

The servants grinned knowingly as Sherlock led her up to his room after only the most perfunctory of congratulations, and then they were alone.

Sherlock might not have wanted to show it, but he was nervous.

After all, bar a couple of fumbling attempts when he was a green boy, he had never before attempted congress- let alone marital congress- with anyone. And certainly not with anyone he cared for as he cared for Miss Molly Hooper- Now Mrs. Molly Holmes.

The thought brought a welcome warmth to his chest.

He smiled at it, setting Molly down as they crossed the threshold on his bedroom. With that same impish laugh from earlier Molly pressed a kiss to his cheek and then darted inside. Took off her riding cloak and hat, moving towards the fire and stooping to warm her hands at it. She hummed softly as she went. Sherlock moved quietly to stand behind her, to share the warmth, but as he did she stood up and looked at him over her shoulder.

Her expression was equal parts vixen and innocent.

Sherlock was really rather shocked at the things it did to him.

"Unlace me, would you?" She said quietly. Another impish smile. "Since you hate this dress so much."

And she turned her gaze back to the fire.

Sherlock blinked- "Are you sure?" only to swallow as Molly nodded. She cocked an eyebrow at him, looked over her shoulder at him again.

"Don't you want to see me without it?"

Swallowing again he started easing open the laces at her back. With each loosened string more of her pale, creamy skin was bared for his gaze. Lord, he swallowed, but she was lovely… As he worked Molly reached into her hair, pulling off her veil and thence her hair pins. Letting her hair snake, loose and medusa-like, down her shoulders. In the mirror over the fire, he saw her make a face.

"It must look like rat's tails," she muttered, trying to run her fingers through it.

Sherlock stopped what he was doing. Caught her fingers. Bringing one hand to his mouth to kiss he breathed softly in her ear. "It looks ravishing," he said.

Now it was Molly's turn to blink- "It does?" - and he nodded. Took one tress and brought it, too, to his lips to kiss.

"I've always wanted to see it down," he said softly. He turned his attention back to her laces, knowing it would make the rest easier to say. "When we were young it tortured me when you stopped being allowed to wear it loose.

I loved watching it so- I used to dream of brushing it…"

"I didn't know that." Molly stared into the mirror and he met her gaze before glancing away. Truly, Sherlock mused, he was fortunate in how today had turned out. He wasn't sure how he'd have dealt with imagining Ashington doing this, had he turned up to the wedding.

He wasn't sure how he'd have lived with seeing Molly with so unworthy a man.

And as if to dismiss this unworthy man from his thoughts, he finally got her laces open. With a grateful sigh Molly reached up and pulled the straps of her dress down. Taking Sherlock's hand she stepped out of the massive, fortress-like wall of skirts and onto the floor. Still wearing her shoes. Still wearing her chemise, her under-things and corset. Still wearing the plain, ill-fitting wedding ring Sherlock had given her, the only one he could find at such short notice- Oh, but he would take delight in finding her a new one-

She turned to him, a blush flowing down from her cheeks to cover her chest, her eyes starry and lip bitten.

"You are lovely," he said, and he couldn't help the awe in his voice as he said it. Molly smiled. Stepped forward. She looked like she rather wanted to use her hands to cover herself but was fighting the urge. Sherlock saved her from it by taking her in his arms. Pulling her tightly to him and pressing a kiss to her hair. Her cheeks. Her eyelids. "Are you alright?" He murmured, and she nodded.

"Just… Just a little nervous is all." Her voice was slightly breathless. "I mean, I knew that this would be my wedding night… I made sure to ask any married ladies of my acquaintance for advice so I wouldn't be nervous…"

"Heaven forfend." And Sherlock began pressing kisses to her hair. Her shoulders. The sweet flesh of her throat. She did likewise, as eager and as unschooled as he. Her hands making short work of his clothes until he was naked, there in her arms. He could hear the pleasure she took at his actions in her hitched breath, her soft sighs, and it was making him hard, making his stomach squirm into knots and his heart thump like a hammer...

"Would you like to know something scandalous?" She whispered, pressing him back towards the bed, and he nodded.

God, he wanted her.

"Mary told me I should imagine it was you on my wedding night," Molly said. "She told me it would be easier if it was someone I already wanted and I- I agreed with her…" She sighed again. Laid him down before joining him on the bed. She looked both mortified and delighted at what she was telling him. "It was all I could think about," she murmured, "how it would feel if it were you… What I would do, were I to lie down beside you…"

"You wanted me?" He asked and she nodded. "Always."

She made it sound so matter-of-fact. So obvious.

Something, something composed of equal parts lust and tenderness squeezed his heart in his chest at hearing those words. They made the fire in his belly burn brighter. Reaching out, he took her hand and pressed it to his heart. He kissed her again and she let out a joyous, delighted whoop of laughter as he did before pressing herself atop him and setting about kissing him to her heart's content. So deliriously happy was he that for a moment he didn't register anything but her and their being in bed together. For a moment it seemed as if there were nothing in the world but them.

That changed, however, when the first rock sailed through their window and landed in the middle of their bed.

Another followed it, then another.

And another, and another.

From outside he heard raucous laughter, saw torchlight, and it belatedly occurred to him that the game might still be afoot this night- especially if that voice belonged to who he suspected...

"Oh dear," Molly said, which told him she agreed.

"Oh dear," Molly said.

She recognised the sound of the voice shouting outside their window.

Sherlock looked at her. "It's Ashington?" He said and she nodded. "He chose now to come and register his disappointment about our wedding?" He shook his head. "Un-bloody-believable."

Molly shot him a look. "Of course he did," she muttered darkly. "He probably waited until he could be sure that you were taking me to bed." She scowled, for the first time truly angry at the man she had been betrothed to marry. "It's not like I could be allowed to enjoy my wedding night, oh no…"

And she sat up, the mood in the bedroom broken. Outside she could hear more yelling, more shouts. It sounded like more than just her former fiancé out there. Another rock came through the window, this one narrowly missing her and at this Sherlock jumped to his feet, naked as he was, and marched over to the window. Tore back to curtains and glared out into the darkness.

The obviously erect state of his member left little doubt about what activity he had been engaged in mere moments before, and may have added to his overall thunderous aspect.

"Oi!" He yelled into the darkness. "Ashington! Bugger off before I have you arrested!"

As conversational openers went, Molly felt that this was not the best he could have managed but, oh well. It wasn't like both Sherlock and she weren't feeling frazzled, considering just how well things had been progressing before this.

From outside she heard Thomas' voice, clearly drunk and more than a little angry. "You bastard, Holmes!" He was snarling. "You absolute bastard!

I knew you had a pash for that pathetic little bluestocking, but I never thought you'd behave so vilely as this! I mean, what sort of cad steals another man's leavings?"

For the rest of her life Molly would swear that, had Ashington merely kept insulting Sherlock then what happened next would never have happened.

However, since the foolish man insisted on referring to her as a "pathetic little bluestocking," then she felt he had brought his fate rather on himself- And every person to whom she told this story in later years would more or less agree with her.

For, at hearing his new bride- and old friend- thus maligned, Sherlock, with a rebel bellow, charged bollock naked right out the window and onto the window ledge. They were only one storey from the ground and he therefore climbed down to the ground in much the same way he had since he was a child, all the time swearing as he went. (It was no accident that his childhood nickname had been "monkey.")

At seeing him thus, naked and enraged, Ashington and the group of drunken friends with him set to jeering the younger man but Sherlock was having none of it. Not a jot.

Without a shred of worry or shame he came to stand before them, glowering like the devil himself at each man and, Molly mused, probably scaring the horses, too.

He looked absolutely magnificent.

"Hudson!" He yelled and at these words the door to the Manor House opened, a prim-looking older woman coming out of it.

She moved in an utterly unfazed manner.

Taking one look at the scene before her and without saying a word she darted inside the front door only to return momentarily with one of her employer's largest guns. She also brought a rolling pin and two of the burliest of Sherlock's footmen.

The gun she handed to Sherlock. The rolling pin she kept about her person.

Neither she nor the footmen seemed at all shocked by their Master's behaviour.

"If you-" Sherlock snapped, pointing the gun at Ashington- "ever set foot on my property again, or attempt to waylay my Molly in any way, then I will shoot you and have done, do you understand that, Ashington?"

The idiotic group laughed but Sherlock said nothing. Merely cocked the rifle at the ground and let off a shot neatly into the ground where Ashington stood, nearly clipping his feet.

"Do you understand?" He repeated and at this Ashington stopped laughing. Looked at him.

"Is she really worth a vendetta against me, Holmes?" He asked in what he clearly assumed was a threatening manner.

Sherlock held the pistol straight out. Placed it flush against the other man's heart.

"Do you really think that Molly is your business any longer?" He retorted, his tone conversational. "Are you that stupid?"

And with that, in a supreme act of dismissal, he turned his back on the men. Sauntered back into the house. "Try to make it a vendetta if you wish," he tossed over his shoulder at Ashington. "Just think about what you're willing to do for Molly, and what I'm willing to do for her, and act accordingly."

By the time he re-entered the bedroom Ashington and his friends had scattered, and both he and Molly were more than ready to resume the night's festivities.

It was, to be quite honest, delightful.

Considering his passionate nature, "monkey," turned out to be an apt nickname indeed...

While the circumstances of her wedding might have succeeded in making Mrs. Molly Holmes infamous, nevertheless Lord Thomas Ashington never bothered her again.

Her husband Sherlock Holmes, on the other hand, often did so and, much to her delight, the view of him striding towards her naked and ready really never got old…