Wedding Tiers (34 page)

I stayed at Blessings for a celebratory drink and I certainly needed it, because I felt like a wrung-out dishcloth after all that emotion.

Then I made an excuse and went home and Noah, uninvited, came with me, though he didn’t say anything until we got back to the cottage. I kicked off my sandals and sank onto the sofa with a long sigh. ‘I think I need another drink!’

‘For once, I think you’re probably right. And
I
need one too. I feel as if I’ve been taking part in a badly written soap episode. Melodrama wasn’t in it.’

He fetched a bottle of wine from under the stairs and, sitting down next to me, poured us each a good slug. This was getting to be a habit. I sank mine in one—apple wine, the good year—and refilled my glass.

‘Tell me, would you ever have told them if Libby hadn’t got pregnant?’ he asked, leaning back and turning his dark head to regard me curiously.

‘I—well, I don’t know. Probably not,’ I confessed. ‘They love
each other. What would
you
have done if it had been true, and you’d known about it?’

‘I expect I’d have taken the coward’s way out too, and hoped they didn’t procreate!’ he said frankly.

‘I’m not a coward! I just wouldn’t want to hurt my best friend, that’s all.’

‘You’re such a sentimental idiot underneath that cool, calm exterior,’ he said meditatively. ‘I think perhaps that’s why I’ve grown to love you so much!’

I stopped with the glass suspended halfway to my lips. ‘Don’t be silly!’

‘Oh, I’m not silly,’ he said quite calmly. ‘I
do
love you.’

‘As a friend, perhaps?’

‘A bit more than that…a
lot
more than that. And I’m hoping that you’ve got over Ben now, and are used to having me around, instead?’

‘Well yes, but—’ I stammered uncertainly. ‘I mean, how can I believe you when I know you’ve still been seeing Anji until recently and—’

His grey eyes flashed. ‘I have not! God, you’re so cynical!’

‘And you’re not? You told me yourself you only went in for casual affairs, so how am I supposed to believe you now?’

‘I went in for casual affairs simply
because
I’m a romantic. I knew true love existed, I just didn’t expect to feel that way ever again. Then I fell for a disillusioned, dippy, embittered wedding cake maker, of all people!’ he added bitterly.

Removing the glass from my hand he pulled me into his arms. ‘So, little Miss Cynic, how do you feel when I do this?’ he demanded, kissing me, and of course my Inner Slut made a mighty bound for freedom at the touch of his lips.

‘Dizzy,’ I said truthfully at last, when I could speak, looking up into his darkly handsome face and intent grey eyes. ‘I’m dizzy. And confused, because you know you aren’t in love with me really. You can’t be, because you kept backing off every time I
showed any interest! And anyway, you told me that your wife was the love of your life and you never expected to feel that way again!’

‘Yes, but I was wrong,’ he admitted. ‘I just said so. I did love her, and I’ll never forget her, but that doesn’t mean I can never fall in love again—and I have, with you. After all, you loved Ben for years and you’ve got over him. Now I’m hoping you’re feeling a different kind of love for me.’

‘You’re certainly
different
all right, Noah,’ I said, because he was quite right: my feelings
had
slowly changed, I just hadn’t wanted to admit it to myself. ‘And that’s why it wouldn’t work—really it wouldn’t!’

‘So am I flattering myself by thinking you might have fallen for me just a little bit? Do you think I could become more to you than just some kind of cathartic agent or a dose of emotional medicine?’

‘Perhaps that wasn’t the most tactful thing I could have said to you at the time,’ I admitted. ‘In fact, I suspected later that you were only flirting with me to try and get me to fall for you because you felt piqued!’

‘It certainly got my attention. And perhaps I did think I’d see if I could get you to fall in love with me at first, but that all changed as soon as I started getting to know you. In fact, to know you is to love you.’

‘That’s the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me,’ I sighed, and he kissed me again. It seemed to be becoming a habit—the sort I could live with. The sort I might not be able to live without…

‘Well, maybe now you’ll believe me when I tell you I’m a romantic,’ he said then, releasing me, got down on one knee. While I stared at him in wide-eyed astonishment, he took a ring from his pocket and pushed it onto my unresisting finger, while asking, very seriously, ‘Will you marry me, Josie?’

I was too stunned to do anything except nod dumbly, with a
diamond as big as the Ritz casting rainbows on my hand and tears glittering in my eyes.

Then I threw my arms around his neck and gasped, ‘Oh, it’s beautiful!’ It was a moment I had often secretly dreamed of, but never expected to experience.

‘Well, don’t cry about it!’ he said, then got up and refilled our glasses for a toast. ‘Here’s to us—unless you’re going to refuse me, of course? You haven’t actually
said
yes.’

When he looked at me like that, I found it hard to refuse him anything…though I soon discovered that he seemed to have the oddest idea that we should postpone any bedroom activity until after the wedding…

But as I pointed out a little later, if the horse had already bolted, it was too late to close the stable door.

‘I knew I shouldn’t have let you open that peapod wine,’ he said, propping himself up in bed and smiling ruefully at me.

‘It wasn’t, only apple. You can’t blame it on the peapod this time, Noah Sephton!’

‘Maybe not…So,’ he added suavely, ‘how was that for you? An emotional enema? Bit of a catharsis?’

I blushed. ‘You’re never going to let me forget that, are you? Oh, this is all so mad, I can’t believe it’s happening!’

‘Believe it!’ he said, looking down at me very seriously. ‘Just remember, Josie, that I’m not Ben, and when I commit, I commit totally. I’ll never leave you for anyone else…and in any case, I think you can safely say I’ve already sown
my
wild oats!’

‘So have I, now—with you! But I still don’t know how this will work out, Noah, because you’ll still be spending a lot of time in London and I’ll be up here…’

‘But you’ll love my house in Chelsea! It belonged to a Victorian artist, so it’s got a long garden at the back, a bit like yours, with a studio at the end of it. I’ll want you there with me sometimes, Josie, so I think you may have to cut back on the cake orders a bit.’

‘I don’t mind that, but what about my garden and the hens?’

‘I’m sure Tim and Dorrie could look after things for a couple of days whenever we’re away, and you can catch up with it all when you’re at home. It will keep you occupied when you
can’t
come with me, and I have to leave you alone. And meanwhile, I’ll be cramming all my appointments into as short a time as possible, so I can rush back to you. It’ll work, you’ll see.’

‘Yes—we’ll
make
it work,’ I agreed, and then a sudden thought struck me. ‘What’s Ben going to do when he finds out? Not that I’ve noticed him lurking about for ages, and he hasn’t rung me up, but I keep expecting him to reappear…unless he’s finally given up on me?’ I added hopefully.

‘Don’t worry about that. You can leave it all to me, now,’ Noah assured me. ‘And I’m going to put a notice of our engagement in
The Times
so everyone will soon know about it. In fact, let’s go and see the vicar tomorrow about having the banns read.’

I sighed happily: ‘The Graces are going to
love
this!’

Noah and I saw the vicar first thing next morning, before Noah set out for London.

Oddly enough, I’d missed a call from Ben while Noah was with me, which was hardly surprising because I never even checked until he’d left for London and even then I hardly wondered what he wanted. My mind was taken up with other, happier, things.

Telling Harry the good news was a bit of a damp squib. I said carefully, ‘This might be a bit of a shock, Harry, but I’m engaged to Noah.’

‘I know,’ he said. ‘Congratulations!’

‘You
know?
How can you know? I only just know myself!’

He twinkled at me. ‘He asked my permission to marry you weeks ago! He said I was as close to a father as you’d got, and
he wanted to do everything by the book. That Rob had him worried for a bit, though, until I put him right.’

I’m not sure which book Noah was going by, but it seemed to be of Victorian vintage.

‘Your granny would be that proud of you!’ he added, making me go a bit tearful. ‘And she’d like Noah, I’m sure she would.’

‘Yes, I think so too. We’ve already been to see the vicar about putting up the banns, because we want to get married as soon as we can.’

He ran his fingers around the inner band of his hat, obviously troubled by something. ‘The only thing is, Josie, once I told our Sadie I’d made up my mind to move over there, and how easy it would be to sell up now Noah’s taking over the cottage, she went and booked my ticket—and Mac’s. So I might not be here for your wedding.’

‘Well, I’d have liked you to be there, Harry, but it doesn’t matter. I know you’ll be thinking about us on the day. And if you’re not here to give me away, I’ll take a leaf out of Libby’s book and do it myself!’

In fact, the news of my engagement didn’t seem to come as a surprise to any of my Neatslake friends, though Libby nobly refrained from saying, ‘I told you so’ when I told her, which I did right after telling Harry. She also offered me a free reception at the Old Barn and the use of her apartment in Pisa as a honeymoon venue.

‘But you’ll have to have the reception on a midweek day, if it’s August,’ she said, ‘otherwise we can’t fit it in.’

‘I’d already thought of that and it’s a Wednesday—just a small wedding, with only our local friends. I want to walk across to the church with Noah, so I hope it doesn’t rain on the day!’

‘What about a wedding dress?’

‘I’m going to look in the attic this afternoon to see if I can find the trunk with Granny’s in. I think it should fit me—we
were about the same height—and I remember it was a lovely, heavy embossed satin. And would you like to be my bridesmaid—with Pia too, if she will?’

‘I’ll be matron of honour,’ Libby agreed. ‘You’ll have to ask Pia yourself, but I’m sure she will, because she won’t be sulking about your wedding.’

‘I think Pia would fit into my bridesmaid’s dress and then we would only have to get you something in pink, but I don’t think it matters if they match or not.’

‘You’d better leave that to me,’ she said. Then she grinned. ‘Oh, Josie, who would have thought this time last year that you would be about to marry Noah Sephton and I would be expecting a little Rowland-Knowles!’

I intended to drop in at Poona Place and tell the Graces next, but I ran into Violet as I came out of the lane—or rather, she almost ran into me. She said Tinkerbell’s brakes needed adjusting.

‘I was never a bridesmaid,’ she said wistfully, once all the exclamations and congratulations were over. ‘Of course, had dear Lily’s fiancé not have been killed, both Pansy and I would have been. He was a naval officer, you know, on the Russian convoys—went down with his ship.’

‘No, I didn’t even know Lily had been engaged,’ I said, surprised and touched. ‘She’s never mentioned it.’

‘She doesn’t very often, though she still has his picture on her bedside table. It does make a bond between her and Dorrie though, both having loved and lost their young men in the war.’

‘Yes, I should think it does.’ Then on impulse I asked, ‘Would
you
like to be one of my bridesmaids, Violet? Only I’d like my dearest friends to support me on the day and I’ve got Libby and possibly Pia, so it would be lovely to have you as well.’

Her small face lit up. ‘How wonderful! And how much I would like that!’

‘Do you think your sisters would also…?’ I let the question
hang in the air, thinking that at this rate, there would be more bridesmaids than guests.

‘No, I don’t think they have ever felt the longing to do so that I have, and I am sure they would be happy that I should represent them—if you really mean it?’

‘Yes, of course I do! Now, you’ll need a dress. I thought Pia would fit the pink one I wore at Libby’s wedding, and Libby’s going to look for a dress that will tone in with that colour, even if it isn’t exactly the same shade.’

‘There is no need,’ Violet said. ‘If she can find a suitable pattern and some material, Lily will make up both our dresses.’

So now my three bridesmaids will be pretty in pink, and neatly represent the Three Ages of Woman.

Noah, when he rang me from London—not for any particular purpose, just to say he loved me—laughed and approved the arrangements. He will ask Tim to be best man and perhaps Jasper will do the usher’s role again, though there are not going to be many guests to organise.

‘I’ll be back tomorrow, but it sounds like you’ve been too busy to miss me,’ he commented.

‘I have been busy and I’m about to start making the base for our wedding cake, but I’ve still missed you.’

‘What kind of cake?’

‘Wait and see. Claire and the film crew will be able to take some pictures of it when they come next week for a last day’s
Sticklepond Spring
filming. It starts to run on the TV soon, which will be very odd.’

‘I think it’ll be a cult success, like your magazine column,’ he said. ‘Is Claire still trying to get me to agree to feature in the next
Sticklepond
series?’

‘Yes, I’m afraid I told her we were getting married, and she said she’d like to include a bit of filming on the day for the next one,
Sticklepond Summer
!’

* * *

Ben called again and, in a voice like someone who had just discovered that the Mafia had put a horse’s head into his bed, announced tersely: ‘
I know about the prawns’

Then he put the phone down.

I’m only surprised it took him so long to suss out, really.

When Noah got back, he confessed that he’d tracked Ben down to his studio in Camden.

‘Really, Noah, there was no need to do that,’ I said. ‘In fact, he rang me after you’d left and I got the feeling he’d…got over me. Completely,’ I added with finality.

Noah grinned. ‘Yes, when I told him we were getting married, he said his eyes had been opened to your true nature and I was welcome to you, which wasn’t quite the reaction I’d expected, to be honest.’

‘Did he tell you why?’

‘Yes. He’d just discovered that you’d spiked all the artworks you’d sent down from Neatslake with prawn heads, which had stunk the place out for weeks. Very inventive revenge, Josie! I’ll have to take care not to annoy you.’

‘I can’t think what got into me!’ I said guiltily. ‘I know I did a bad thing, but I hoped the stink would have vanished by now.’

‘That sort of smell does linger, but now he’s removed the offending items and sprayed fabric freshener about inside, he’s hoping that will clear the last lingering redolence, so he can finally sell them.’

‘I
love
the way you say “redolence”,’ I sighed dreamily. ‘Say it again!’

He looked at me severely. ‘I’ll have you know that Ben said he’d never thought you’d touch his precious artworks and I should watch my back. He also said what you’d done had killed any vestige of love he had for you and he’s moved on.’

‘Well, about time too! Even Anji’s managed to get over you and shack up with Rob Rafferty.’

‘That was the good news. The bad is that Ben’s moving back to live at Mark and Stella’s permanently and they’re setting up some kind of residential painting holiday centre.’

‘That doesn’t sound like Ben at all,’ I said, astonished. ‘He’s always hated the idea of teaching!’

‘I don’t think he’s got much choice. His work isn’t selling terribly well at the moment. But he hopes, once he’s back near Sticklepond, that he’ll find a new direction. And I must say, having seen his creations, that I hope he’s right! Nasty, aren’t they?’

I agreed. ‘But what about Olivia and the baby?’

‘I didn’t ask him about them, but I didn’t have to. He said marriage might be all right for me, but his had been a serious error of judgement and Olivia and London between them were stunting his artistic soul.’

‘Oh?’ I said, then lost interest in Ben—or indeed, in anything else—for quite a long time…

Later, when I told Noah what arrangements I’d made for the wedding and asked him if he wanted to honeymoon in Pisa, he said yes, but we could also have a second honeymoon next year, in New Zealand, to see how Harry was getting on!

It seemed impossible, but life got even busier after that. Between arranging for our wedding, bouts of cake-making, gardening and helping Libby, I was also assisting Harry to pack up his belongings, including his filed-down medal and the MOD correspondence, and dispatch the things he would want in New Zealand.

He was leaving a lot of the heavier furnishings in the house as a wedding present, and Noah was paying him the full market price for the cottage and has already had an architect look at ways of turning the two properties into one.

Then the sad day came when we went to the airport to see Harry and Mac off. As the poor dog vanished to be swallowed up in the bowels of the aircraft in his special travelling crate, I
wished I could have explained to him what was happening, and what a lovely time he would have when he arrived in New Zealand.

Harry looked small and sprightly as he set out on his last adventure, his hat brim at a jaunty angle and his hand luggage full of Yorkshire Tea, in case you couldn’t get it out there.

‘You daft lump!’ he said fondly, as I wept over him.

‘You will ring me as soon as you get there, won’t you?’ I begged. ‘Just quickly, to let me know you’re all right?’

‘Yes, or I’ll get Sadie to do it if I’m tired,’ he said. And then he hugged me, shook Noah’s hand and went resolutely off through the barrier, only turning for one last wave.

‘Cheer up,’ Noah said, putting a consoling arm around me. ‘I think he’s made the right decision and you’ll be able to see for yourself next year.’

Ben moved into Ranter’s End with Mark and Stella, and I saw his tall, sad, surprisingly run-to-seed figure shambling about in the distance sometimes, but he didn’t come anywhere near me.

I expect he was out searching for his mojo.

By then, I’d found another co-op group to join, in Sticklepond.

I’d put the finishing touches to our own wedding cake while Claire and the film crew were here, but now I led Noah into the kitchen for his first sight of it.

‘Ta-dah!’ I said, taking my hands from over his eyes.

‘Good grief!’

He took in the two-tier vegetable garden, with ivy growing up the sturdy, twisted columns, the henhouse on top, decked with a fat and happy Aggie, and the lettering right around the sides…

‘“Clucky in Love”?’ he queried mildly. ‘And “I Should Be so Clucky”?’

‘It’s what it said in the Valentine’s Day card you sent me,’ I explained.

Noah whipped me down to London in the Jaguar, to see his house in Chelsea. After the noisy bustle outside, it surprised me by being a haven of quiet calm—and also by being a taller, more elegant version of mine, right down to the studio at the end of the garden, though his is brick-built and sturdy. I had great plans for that garden and I was sure it would spark off lots of ideas about green and economical living in cities, that I could pass on through my ‘Cakes and Ale’ column. Claire Flowers, of course, was desperate to persuade us to let her film us doing it, but we will see…

Maybe we should just keep the Chelsea house as our own private escape…

Pia had also escaped. She’d taken over the gatehouse as her own domain, since Noah was now living in Harry’s cottage—or nominally living there. When the two became one, I would have to get used to my living space doubling in size…

Lily was making good progress with the two bridesmaids’ dresses and she’d also altered Granny’s lovely wedding dress to fit me, so I felt that in a way Granny would be with me on my big day.

And our wedding presents had started to arrive, including the promise of a ruby cavalier King Charles puppy from Freddie! We were to receive it when we got back from honeymoon, but I’d already seen it and it was the sweetest little thing.

And we’d got a rooster so now Aggie was nurturing a brood of little speckled chicks, which temporarily curtailed her escapology.

Everything seemed to fall so beautifully into place, it was as if the pattern was preordained.

Perhaps it was.