Читать книгу The Runaway Bridesmaid - Daisy James - Страница 12

Chapter Five

Rosie drove as if her life depended on it. Living in New York meant she did not own her own car, but each time she rented one for the weekend to take a trip out to the beach or to visit her father, she relished the feel of the wind in her hair and the warm sunshine caressing her face through the windscreen. Today, however, she noticed none of these favourite things as she slung the steering wheel around the sharp bends in the road, the scene of Giles and Freya ensconced in a clinch amongst the starched and folded bed sheets and pillowcases replaying on a loop through her mind as though a broken film reel. But this was more in the horror movie genre than romantic comedy.

At last the tears had arrived, along with the rain, which hammered onto her windscreen and ran in rivulets down the driver’s side window like streamers flapping in the breeze. Somewhere in the deep recesses of her mind her inner safety guru warned her to slow down, that her emotional state and the driving conditions combined were a recipe for ending the day in a collision, or the hospital. So what? the devil on her shoulder argued.

But she knew she couldn’t visit a further tragedy on her father. She slowed her speed, pulled off the road at a break in the trees, and slumped – like a puppet clipped of its strings – over the steering wheel where she succumbed to huge, racking sobs and the darkness that enveloped her world. As though she’d pressed the replay button, the conversation she’d had with her Aunt Bernice’s English solicitor as she was about to join the Friday night exodus from Manhattan for the journey to Stonington Beach, spun through her mind.

‘I’m sorry for your loss, Miss Hamilton. Please accept my firm’s sincere condolences.’ There had been no stopping the lawyer’s relentless, careless words as they sliced down the telephone lines lacerating her heart. ‘The funeral is scheduled for next Wednesday, April twenty-fifth. Perhaps we could meet to read the will and discuss the legal and financial formalities pertaining to your aunt’s estate thereafter?’

Who used words like ‘thereafter’ nowadays? she’d thought as the image of an elderly gentleman, stooped over his desk, peering through his pince-nez floated through her mind. But he was still talking to her in that quaint formal language.

‘I can reassure you, Miss Hamilton, that Miss Marshall passed away peacefully in her sleep. She was discovered by her friend, Susan Moorfield.’

‘Thank you for letting me know. However, I’m unsure whether I or my father will be able to attend the funeral. Perhaps instead we could schedule a video conference for the reading of the will on Thursday, April twenty-sixth. Would that be convenient? Shall we say ten a.m., that would be three p.m. in the UK?’

‘Of course, Miss Hamilton, as you wish. Until then. Goodbye.’

The rain continued its onslaught, hammering down on the roof of the little red car like glass needles. Despite her aunt’s advanced age, the news had still come as a complete shock and a repeat of the spasm of pain the solicitor’s words had delivered ricocheted around her body. Lifting the tangle of golden curls from her forehead, she squeezed her eyes shut to force back the rising tears and gain some control of her swirling emotions.

She realised she had been hugging the edge of sanity these last few weeks leading up to Freya’s wedding of the decade. Every tiny detail demanded perfection and Freya assumed she had nothing else better to do than deliver it. After all, it was what she had been doing since their mother had passed away. Never mind that Rosie already slaved eighteen-hour days at the corporate coalface, frequently pulling all-nighters when business demanded, or when a deal relied on the London or Tokyo Stock Exchange time zones. What Freya wanted, Freya got.

Her immediate reaction had been to call Freya, but she hadn’t. There was never a good time to hear of a family member’s death, and she couldn’t face breaking the news to her sister the night before her wedding. So it was her father she’d called. She’d prayed he would take over the responsibility of deciding when and how to break the sad news to his younger daughter, who had probably been collecting her wedding gown before making the trip out to Connecticut. She’d pictured her sister clad in ivory silk, raised high on the pedestal she’d occupied most of her life, this one at the dress designer’s studio.

‘Hello, darling. Is everything okay?’ Her father’s voice, always so calm and comforting to her ears, had boomed down the phone line. She’d braced herself before delivering the news of his sister-in-law’s passing.

‘So we’re agreed? We won’t mention any of this distressing news to Freya? I don’t think it’s wise to burden her with such sorrow the night before her wedding. There’s no telling how she will react.’

Rosie had quashed her immediate response that the news would scarcely indent her sister’s golden-hued, elephant-hide skin. Freya was unlikely to be too upset at the news of their Aunt Bernice’s death as she had met their mother’s elder sister only once since their mother’s funeral; Freya had expected Bernice to fall under her charms with a flick of her long platinum curls and a flash of her baby-blue eyes and sweet smile. But Bernice could not be won over so cheaply and she had chosen to favour the older, more serious of her sister’s children, much to Freya’s disgust. Bernice had been the only person Rosie knew who saw through Freya’s masquerade of innocence personified and who refused to indulge her every whim.

‘Okay, Dad. We’ll tell her after the wedding,’ Rosie had sighed.

Why hadn’t she been protected from the painful news of losing her aunt – the only person who had been there for her when her relationship with Carlos had ended in tears, lots of them, last summer? She had thought he was her soul mate until he’d found love, affection and the time commitment he wanted in the arms of a sweet Italian girl introduced to him by his mother, who was keen to spend some time with her grandchildren before it was too late. The experience had sworn her off relationships until Giles.

As she wiped away her tears with the back of her hand and gulped in a lungful of calming breath, those heart-singeing words of the English lawyer looped around Rosie’s mind like a scratched record. To add to the turmoil of the day, a list of unanswered questions formed. Had Bernice died peacefully in her chair next to her ancient Aga? Had she had time to put her affairs in order? Say a final farewell to her friends? Despite not having married or had children, her aunt’s life had been peopled by a myriad of friends, neighbours and acquaintances. At least she had had the forethought to make a will.

It had stopped raining. The silence drew Rosie’s concentration back to the painful present. And she hadn’t thought it could get worse than the loss of her beloved aunt. What a fool she’d been.