Bad Brides (57 page)

‘Edmund, this is
crazy
,’ she said, her voice rising nervously. ‘You were just about to marry my daughter!’

‘I know – can you believe it?’ Edmund shook his head in disbelief. ‘She’s the loveliest girl in the world, but she’s not
you
. Honestly, Tamra, now I
think about it, I realize that without you around, things would never have got this far. I suppose I saw Brianna Jade as being a younger version of you. As if I was hoping she’d grow into
you, become the woman that you are. That was what convinced me to marry her, you know. I’ve known that for quite a while, actually.’

If Tamra could have flushed any more with pride, she would have. Edmund secured her other hand in his.

‘It was that night between us that kept me going, frankly,’ he said. ‘It was just . . . phenomenal. I kept thinking:
She does have that passion for me, it’ll come out
again, somehow, some way . . .
I was waiting and waiting, trusting that it would come back – but I’m such an idiot, I should have realized that the passionate woman I was craving,
the one who wanted me as much as I wanted her, was right under my nose. As soon as Brianna Jade told me just now, all the pieces fell into place. To think I once thought I wanted a restful
life!’

He smiled down at her with immense fondness.

‘Tamra, don’t tell me I’ve actually managed to strike you dumb,’ he said teasingly.

‘All these months,’ she said slowly, ‘I’ve been thinking I’d have to keep the secret for ever. The relief that I don’t have to any more is just amazing!
I’ve been feeling so guilty and miserable about wanting you, but if I’d said anything, Brianna Jade would have lost everything I had worked for . . .’

Edmund’s grip tightened, and he drew her closer, bending down to kiss her. It was just as mind-blowingly good as the last time; they had to pry themselves away from each other at last,
Tamra’s hands clasping the lapels of Edmund’s morning suit, Edmund resting his forehead against hers, his breath coming fast.

‘I’m having to think of really awful things,’ he said to her. ‘I mean truly terrible, disgusting, revolting things, like that fish Dom left in my bed – for which,
by the way, I owe that bastard the most enormous debt – because any moment now someone’s going to come in here and see that I’ve got an erection that’s bursting through my
trousers.’

‘
Edmund
,’ she said, trying to sound reproving.

‘God, I wish you could do something about it right now,’ he said, his grey eyes gleaming.

‘
Edmund!
’ She dragged her hands away from him and took a step back. ‘Shit, I’d
love
to – no, don’t you dare touch me again, don’t you
dare – we’re in the damn
chapel
, for fuck’s sake, you sick, twisted pervert!’

‘For some reason,’ the Earl of Respers said, ‘I get even harder when you swear like a trooper. Why do you imagine that is?’

Tamra looked at him, her eyes shining dark and full of mischief.

‘How the fuck would I know?’ she said deliberately.

Edmund promptly grabbed her again. By the time the vicar, aware that twenty minutes had passed and feeling that, since the bride hadn’t come back, she really ought to check on the groom
and the bride’s mother, pushed one of the chapel doors open again, making as much noise as she could to give them due warning, most of Tamra’s hair had fallen down, the flower on her
dress was bent askew, and a considerable amount of her fuchsia lipstick was smeared, clownlike, over Edmund’s mouth.

‘Ahem!’ the vicar said, clearing her throat and trying to avert her gaze from the dishevelled state of the two lovebirds. ‘Lady Margaret and I were thinking . . .’

‘We sent all the guests to start tucking in,’ Lady Margaret said briskly, following the vicar in and showing not a whit of the latter’s middle-class embarrassment at Edmund and
Tamra’s considerable state of disarray. ‘Thought it was for the best. God knows where Brianna Jade’s gone off to, but it doesn’t look as if she’s coming back any time
soon.’

‘I have a notion where she went and who she’s with,’ Edmund said, as Tamra, realizing how much of her lipstick had transferred to him, exclaimed in horror and reached for the
handkerchief in his breast pocket to wipe it off. ‘And you’re not going to like it much if I’m right, Tamra.’

‘As long as she’s happy,’ Tamra said, licking the handkerchief to get more of the lipstick off.

‘Don’t
do
that,’ he muttered at the sight of her tongue. ‘I’ll hold you to those words,’ he said, louder, tucking her arm through his and turning to
face the nave of the chapel. ‘Vicar, Lady Margaret, I think it’s pretty clear that Tamra and I will be getting married as soon as we can get the banns read. All very unexpected and
unorthodox, but it is what it is, and to others it’ll be a nine-days wonder, I’m sure. It’s not as if everyone at the Hall isn’t dying to have Tamra as its official mistress
already.’

Tamra smiled at him with such grateful sweetness that even Lady Margaret couldn’t help muttering, ‘Aww,’ to herself.

‘Edmund!’ Tamra exclaimed suddenly. ‘We can’t – Edmund, I’m forty, and you’re going to want heirs. I might not be able to get pregnant . . .’

Edmund shrugged with great nonchalance.

‘Tamra,’ he said easily, ‘like everyone else who’s ever met you, I believe that you can do absolutely anything you set your mind to. And if it doesn’t happen, who
cares?’

‘
I
do,’ Tamra said firmly. ‘I didn’t bring the Hall back from rack and ruin just to see all my work inherited by some cousin of yours.’

‘Fine.’ He grinned down at her. ‘So we’ll adopt if necessary. Really, darling, relax, will you? I’m not marrying you because you’re going to give me heirs, or
because you’ve got pots of money. I’m marrying you because, as you know perfectly well, you give me—’

Tamra clapped one hand over his mouth.

‘
Edmund!
’ she said firmly. ‘In front of the
vicar
! Will you fucking shut up!’

A few months later, the Harrods Bridal Boutique was packed to the gills with a glittering group of guests celebrating the delayed launch of the first-ever edition of
Style
Bride.
The lavish space had been decorated by a crack team of Harrods’ in-house designers and
Style
event planners, and the result was a world away from the frou-frou and
frilliness that often characterizes bridal salons: instead, from the ceiling were suspended floaty, underlit clouds, semi-transparent and glittering gently, which gave the entire room a sense of
drifting magically in space. Strategically arranged lighting glowed in silvery globes around the walls, and Jodie had made the decision to banish anything as obvious as cupcakes and flowers from
the launch.

Instead, the theme was a symphony of white. The cocktails were elderflower White Ladies, made from Cointreau, gin, lemon juice and elderflower syrup, whipped egg whites making them foamy and
opaque; the canapés were bite-sized cream-cheese blintzes and ricotta puffs, and, for those with a sweet tooth, silvered mini-meringues. Models circulated among the guests, wearing
Hervé Léger, Alexander McQueen and Marchesa wedding dresses, each dress more exquisite than the last.

Jodie stepped up onto the central podium. It was the kind on which a bride-to-be would usually stand while trying on a series of dresses, curved panels of mirrors behind her that reflected her
from every angle. She looked down at the super-fashionable, skinny-thin, wonderfully dressed crowd and couldn’t help wishing for a moment that her bottom wasn’t being reflected to all
of them, even held in as it was by Spanx and a very flattering Nina Ricci sheath dress: then she took a deep breath, told herself firmly – as she had to do at least once a day in her job
– that size twelve wasn’t fat, and tapped the microphone to get everyone’s attention.

The DJ muted the background music, the people in front of the podium hushed and looked up at the
Style
editor, and Jodie, knowing that at these events you could never expect the people
at the back to stop talking, smiled for the cameras and said: ‘Ladies, gentlemen, thank you so much for coming out this evening!
Style
is so excited to be hosting this event together
with the wonderful people at Harrods and their beautiful Bridal Boutique.’

She paused briefly for applause.

‘Honestly, this is so overdue, isn’t it?’ she went on. ‘We should have launched
Style Bride
years ago! If there’s ever an opportunity for the
style-conscious woman to put together an event which really speaks about how she sees herself, her partner, and their particular aesthetic, it’s a wedding and everything that surrounds it.
And for this first issue we’ve loved being part of that process for the brides whose weddings we’ve covered. I don’t think it’s any secret to all of you here that some of
those weddings were a lot more . . .’ she took a beat for effect, knowing there would be some anticipatory laughs – ‘well, let’s say it,
dramatic
than we
anticipated! This is why we’re launching later than originally planned, of course.’

Which is a shame, as we pretty much missed bridal season – but ironically, Milly and Tarquin’s fiasco, plus Brianna Jade’s runaway bride moment, actually got us even more
publicity
, she thought happily. And publicity translated into more advertisers, which raised
Style Bride
’s page rates. Everyone wanted to run an ad in the magazine that had the
exclusive to both sets of photographs.

Because, naturally, Jodie had run photographs from both weddings. Milly and Tarquin’s publicists had tried to prevent the magazine from using theirs, but the contract they had signed was
locked down tight;
Style
had the best lawyers going, and there was no clause to say that if the wedding vows weren’t completed, the photos couldn’t be used. It had been done
tastefully, of course, mainly shots of the church set-up, the chandeliers, the spectacular antipasti, Ludo’s wonderful table settings, the swing, the gazebo. There had been a few photographs
of the bride and groom, though none of the actual ceremony; and plenty, from the British wedding, of Brianna Jade’s dramatic sprint across the lawns of Stanclere Hall. When living in New
York, Jodie had loved the American saying ‘if life gives you lemons, make lemonade’, and she’d billed the first edition of
Style Bride
as ‘High Drama, High
Romance’.

‘I’d like to thank my amazing team, as well,’ Jodie added. ‘For obvious reasons, we had a real scramble to pull this issue together, and we’re hugely proud of it.
In fact, we’re so proud of it that our supreme leader, as I like to call her, would like to say a few words about it, live from New York!’

Oohs and aahs came from the audience, hardened London partygoers, journalists and socialites as they were: access to Victoria Glossop carried such cachet that they were perfectly aware of what
an honour this was. Unprecedented, in fact. But the sheer level of publicity and advertising money that this issue had pulled in was exceptional, and Victoria was always driven by the bottom
line.

Jodie gestured to a side wall, and the oohs and aahs increased in volume as the guests realized that, while Jodie had been talking, a screen had been discreetly lowered. On it was the very
familiar image of Victoria: it was a reveal worthy of a stage play, and Jodie smiled happily at how well it had worked.

Sensibly, Victoria had chosen not to be filmed in her white office, knowing that its background, plus the white clothes in which she almost always dressed, wouldn’t work in this context.
She was standing against a dark wall, and her white tailored trousersuit made her look like a 1940s film star. Her hair was in its classic blonde chignon, her lipstick freshly applied and redder
than usual so it would pop out on screen, a huge necklace visible beneath the lapels of the suit jacket.

Murmurs of admiration rose as she said in her crisp transatlantic accent: ‘Hello, everyone, and welcome to what I’m sure is a wonderful party! Harrods always throws a superb event,
doesn’t it?’

That’s Victoria,
Jodie thought.
Always on the ball, thanking the sponsors straight away. I learnt that from her.

More applause for Harrods; cocktails were raised and the girls from the press office smiled happily.

‘It’s certainly been a winding road as we got this issue to press, as I know you’re all aware,’ Victoria continued. ‘But at
Style
we love a challenge, and
I truly think the first ever issue of
Style Bride
is better because of it. Not only do we have the most stunning cover, but we’re telling a really compelling love story with it.
Weddings aren’t just about the day, the dress, the flowers, the table settings, wonderful fun though all of those are. They’re about the couple in question and the fit they make
together, their love story, which is why we’re so happy with the choice we finally made for our cover. Talk about an original love story! I know you’re all dying to see it –
’ Victoria reached down to a side table beside her and picked up a copy of the long-awaited magazine – ‘so here it is! The first, but
definitely
not the last,
Style
Bride
!’

In another carefully choreographed piece of staging, other, smaller screens had been lowered around the room during her speech without the audience noticing. Victoria always compelled the gaze.
The clouds overhead opened, and a delicate shower of silver glitter rained down on the guests as, in perfect synchronicity, every screen lit up at once.

It’s like the reveal of the winner on the finals of
America’s Next Top Model, Jodie thought, looking at the picture of Tamra on the cover of
Style Bride
, her head
thrown back in a laugh, her hair and skin glowing golden. She was wearing the same deep pink dress she had worn for Brianna Jade’s wedding, though Massimo had made her a new version: Edmund
had manhandled the first dress so much getting it off that it couldn’t be worn again.

It was the perfect dress. Both Tamra and Edmund had agreed that it was the only possible choice. It was the dress that she had been wearing on the most fateful day of their lives, the day when,
as Edmund put it, the miracle had happened. And Tamra certainly wasn’t going to wear white. The fuchsia colour had been a gift to the
Style Bride
art designers, as it lent itself
perfectly to the white and silver background that a bridal magazine demanded, and the silk flower was appropriately dramatic. Choosing Tamra for the cover had been hugely strategic: not only did
she incarnate beauty for the precise demographic of women who bought the expensive goods advertised in the magazine, the story of her and Edmund’s whirlwind romance was as shocking as a plot
twist in a soap opera, and Jodie had insisted on an exclusive interview with the couple.