The Wedding Night is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Copyright © 2021 by Harriet Walker Book club guide copyright © 2021 by Penguin Random House LLC All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York. Ballantine and the House colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC. Random House Book Club and colophon are trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Walker, Harriet, author. Title: The wedding night: a novel / Harriet Walker. Description: New York: Ballantine Books, [2021] Identifiers: LCCN 2020046005 (print) | LCCN 2020046006 (ebook) | ISBN 9781984820020 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9781984820013 (ebook) Subjects: GSAFD: Suspense fiction. Classification: LCC PR6123.A426 W43 2021 (print) | LCC PR6123.A426 (ebook) | DDC 823/.92—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020046005 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020046006 Ebook ISBN 9781984820013 randomhousebooks.com Book design by Caroline Cunningham, adapted for ebook Cover design: Julianna Lee Cover photograph: Getty Images/dancurko ep_prh_5.7.0_c0_r0 Contents Cover Title Page Copyright Epigraph Cast of Characters The Week Before Chapter 1: Effie Chapter 2: Anna A Week Later Chapter 3: Effie Chapter 4: Anna Chapter 5: Effie Chapter 6: Lizzie Chapter 7: Anna Chapter 8: Effie Chapter 9: Anna Chapter 10: Lizzie The Morning After Chapter 11: Effie Chapter 12: Anna Chapter 13: Effie Chapter 14: Anna Chapter 15: Effie Chapter 16: Eighteen Months Earlier: Lizzie Chapter 17: Effie Chapter 18: Anna Chapter 19: Effie Chapter 20: Anna Chapter 21: Eighteen Months Ago: Lizzie Chapter 22: Effie Two Days After Chapter 23: Anna Chapter 24: Effie Chapter 25: Anna Chapter 26: Six Months Earlier: Lizzie Chapter 27: Effie Chapter 28: Anna Three Days After Chapter 29: Effie Chapter 30: Lizzie Chapter 31: Anna Chapter 32: The Wedding Night: Lizzie Chapter 33: Effie Chapter 34: Anna Chapter 35: Effie Chapter 36: Lizzie Four Days After Chapter 37: Effie Chapter 38: The Wedding Night: Anna Chapter 39: Six Months Earlier: Lizzie Chapter 40: Effie Chapter 41: Lizzie Chapter 42: Effie Chapter 43: Lizzie Chapter 44: Effie Chapter 45: Anna Chapter 46: Lizzie Chapter 47: Effie Chapter 48: Lizzie Chapter 49: Anna Chapter 50: Effie Chapter 51: Lizzie Chapter 52: Anna Chapter 53: Lizzie Chapter 54: Effie Chapter 55: Anna Chapter 56: Effie Chapter 57: Effie Chapter 58: Anna Chapter 59: Effie Chapter 60: Anna Chapter 61: Effie Dedication Acknowledgments A Book Club Guide By Harriet Walker About the Author At the still point of the turning world…there the dance is, …Where past and future are gathered. —T. S. Eliot, “Burnt Norton” Cast of Characters The Bride, Lizzie The Groom, Dan Ben, Dan’s Best Man The Bridal Party: Effie and Anna, Lizzie’s Best Women Steve Charlie Iso Bertie The Week Before From: Lizzie & Dan <[email protected]> To: Effie Talbot, Anna & Steve Watson, Ben Holyoake, Charlie Bishop, <[email protected]> Subject: Some news Hi guys, There’s no easy way to say this, but the two of us have come to a decision that we think is best for us both. We won’t be getting married next week. Or ever, in fact. We’re so sorry, we know you all have your flights booked, but hopefully you can appreciate we haven’t taken this step lightly. We’ll be in touch with you all soon. For now, we need a bit of space. Love, Lizzie and Dan 1. Effie Effie read the email again and looked down at her fingertips on the computer keyboard in front of her. They were pale and chewed, nails as red-rimmed as her eyes. Un-fucking-believable. She had been looking forward to that holiday for months. When Lizzie—happy, carefree, in-love-with-love Lizzie, lit from within by the sort of glow that comes only from the joy of somebody having weighed you in the balance and decided that, yes, they would like to spend the rest of their existence by your side—had first mentioned her plan to get married abroad, Effie had made all the right impressed, positive noises. In fact, she had never seen the point of marrying in another country neither of you were from when your own had more than enough venues and your guests all lived in it. Lizzie even came from the sort of commuter belt family for whom home is a village with a Norman church tucked away for the precise purpose of rendering its prodigal City-worker daughters Elizabeth Bennet for a day. Supposing the couple didn’t fancy that option, there were plenty of municipal buildings near where they lived in London to choose from. Proud borough town halls built in civic red brick that would appear nice enough in the background of the photos as long as you positioned someone in front of the fire escape signs. Deliberately derelict warehouses and deconsecrated chapels gone just enough to rack and ruin to look good on Instagram but not to pose any real health and safety risks, beyond an enduring chill that storage heaters would never quite take the edge off. Wood-paneled rooms upstairs in pubs, where the groomsmen could nip down to catch the football highlights between the speeches. Or conference suites in five-star hotels that rich tourists paid to stay in and Londoners only ever went to on somebody else’s money, full of regimented chairs with covers that slipped over them to guard against the worst of the stains. Were the covers, Effie wondered, lined with something waterproof? Otherwise, what was the point in providing two different layers of fabric for the inevitable nuptial spillages of red wine, gravy, and stomach acid to soak into? Effie noted that nobody who got married abroad ever seemed to do it in a climate colder than their own. It was always in a château, a trullo, or a vineyard located in some hot-blooded country, in the hope that the terroir would imbue the pallid Celts who booked them with the same body and top notes—zest, even!—it did the grapes it nurtured. No, when the time came, Effie had always presumed she would do what most people seemed to: book a registry office, where tidy men and women in bank manager suits presided over efficient, non-Latinate words exchanged between couples who filed in and out on the hour like cuckoos from a clock. Of course, for this to be any sort of viable option, Effie needed somebody who was interested
