Читать книгу The Runaway Bridesmaid - Daisy James - Страница 10

Chapter Three

Jack and Rosie descended the impressive sweeping staircase to be met by a frantic Lauren, hopping from one foot to the other like a toddler in need of a visit to the bathroom.

‘No sign of her! It seems Little Miss Superior has melted into thin air, the selfish…’ Lauren flicked her eyes from Rosie to Jack and relented on her character assassination of the errant bride-to-be.

‘Don’t worry, Lauren. Will you escort Dad to the garden for me? Try and placate Jacob and the rest of the guests.’ Rosie checked her mother’s silver Tiffany watch – her most adored possession. ‘Technically the ceremony is not due to start for another thirty minutes so there’s nothing to panic about yet. I’m sure she’s just taking a quiet moment to prepare herself for the most important day of her life.’

Rosie heard the expulsion of air from Lauren’s lips and saw the smirk around her mouth. She swapped a grin with her friend. Freya adored being the centre of attention, had been milking every opportunity to loiter in the limelight. It was inconceivable that she would hide away for even a second. Rosie had been genuinely concerned that, despite her promises, her sister would be unable to resist a quick visit to Jacob’s suite in her bridal gown. Indeed, she suspected that was where she was now.

She shooshed Lauren and her father out of the French doors. Her eyes swept the congregation assembled on the lush, manicured lawn of Stonington Meadows Country Park Hotel, the venue Freya had dreamed of during her childhood forays into planning her perfect wedding celebrations. It had been an incredible surprise to Rosie when Freya had shunned Jacob’s offer to pay for their wedding to be held at the Plaza, but then, as Freya explained, everyone had their wedding there. To her right, in neat white picket chairs, every seat was occupied by Jacob’s extended family, friends and business connections. Their elegant attire, like the car park, oozed dollars. To her left sprawled a more eclectic gathering of those connected to the bride. Rosie spotted Arnie and Dot, her parents’ closest and dearest friends, along with a smattering of Stonington Beach friends invited to share his daughter’s special day.

She turned on her heels – a pair of five inch, ivory silk Louboutins that had cost almost a month’s salary but which she planned to mount in a glass case to appreciate as a true work of sculptural art after the wedding – and headed up the stairs to the bridal suite.

She knocked and when there was no reply, she pushed open the door. Gosh, her sister could bring chaos to an empty room! Her belongings were strewn on every available surface, she had even opened the drawers of the elegant, kidney-shaped dressing table to drape her discarded hosiery over. A quick sweep of her eyes told Rosie that Freya was not there.

Yet her wedding dress still hung in its plastic carrier on the front of the gaping wardrobe door. Where on earth was she? Wherever she was she must still be in the cream silk kimono Jacob had presented her with the previous evening, her hair in the huge Velcro rollers their hairdresser, Carl, had fussed over that morning.

Rosie dashed over to the window and peered down into the garden. Everyone was there now, and had taken up their positions ready for the imminent arrival of the bride. Even the minister, a local ginger-haired man with a comical comb-over who had christened both Rosie and Freya, was surreptitiously checking his fob watch.

‘Oh God! Trust Freya!’ muttered Rosie, her heart drumming at her ribcage and her breath quickening as panic began to swirl through her veins, depriving her lungs of essential oxygen. ‘The only thing she had to do was put on her bloody dress and turn up on time!’

Was that too much to ask? Yes, she guessed it was.

She sprinted out of the room and into the corridor, cursing as she wrenched her ankle running in her unfamiliar shoes. As she reached down to rub the pain away, a tinkle of laughter emanated from a door at the end of the corridor which Rosie had assumed was a linen closet next to the glass cube masquerading as an elevator.

She paused, straining her ears, and her heart softened. A smile tugged at the corners of her lips. Freya was most likely snatching a few moments before the craziness of the wedding with the guy who had swept her off her feet. They must have got carried away and forgotten the time. Freya always had operated on a different time zone to everyone else. She replaced her smarting foot on the floor and tiptoed towards the door. As she drew nearer, her hand hovering over the ornate brass door knob, a deep-throated groan floated to her ears.

Rosie froze. Why had level-headed, reliable Jacob agreed to bunk off from his duties of herding his relatives for a snatched sojourn of delight with his fiancée, thirty minutes before the ceremony? Oh God! And here she was about to blunder in without even knocking!

Her face glowed with embarrassment as she cracked open the door and pulled it towards her. She stood immobilised in the doorway, mesmerised by the glistening bronzed back and the hint of incongruously white orb buttocks. She opened her mouth to announce her presence but words refused to form in her scrambled mind or on her lips which were parting like a gobsmacked goldfish. She began to retrace her steps until her shoulder bumped into the door jamb forcing out a gasp of pain, not from the collision but from the dawning recognition of the owner of the muscled torso.

‘God, Sis, don’t you ever knock?’

The man coiling his arms around her sister’s body twisted his head towards the interruption and mirrored Rosie’s horrified expression.

‘Giles!’