Читать книгу The Wedding Planner - Eve Devon - Страница 15

Gloria

Gloria made her way slowly along the country lane towards Knightley Hall.

It was the perfect evening for walking, although admittedly that was mostly because who in their right mind wasted fuel driving to their own humiliation ceremony?

She frowned.

Any time she wanted to ditch the sulky attitude and come to terms with the fact that accepting defeat gracefully was the only appropriate response, was fine by her.

So what if her new moniker was about to be Whispers Wood’s Briefest Bridesmaid?

And so what if maybe the real reason she was upset was that deep, deep, deepest down inside herself she’d opened the door to being the type of person who could witness a friend getting married and think only good things about it all.

She was just going to have to deal because it was absolutely redonkulous to be this upset when she only had herself to blame.

Out of nowhere a tatty old punctured football landed at her feet with a soft thud.

Her gaze went from the football to the cow now standing in front of her.

Oh, for Friesian’s sake.

‘Gertrude, I don’t have time for this,’ she muttered.

Gertrude’s hoof kicked playfully at the ball again, missing it because, you know, cow, and Gloria responded by swiftly kicking the ball solidly into the hedgerow. ‘Not Messi,’ she said shaking her head and pointing at Gertrude. ‘Cow,’ she explained. ‘Your job is to stand in a field, eat grass and produce milk. What part of that don’t you get?’

Bypassing the bovine she carried on determinedly to the Hall, her feet crunching purposefully along the gravel driveway.

Wanting more than anything now to get her fate over and done with, she nearly jumped out of her skin when a voice behind her asked, ‘Why is Gertrude standing in the lane looking like a kicked puppy?’

She whirled around. ‘Seth? What are you doing here?’

He grinned and she was reminded he was the cause of her not being able to sleep last night on account of endlessly asking herself what the hell had been the deal with the apple and the oral play yesterday? Honestly, it had been one step away from tying the apple stalk into a knot with his tongue and her heart did a juvenile skipping-a-beat thing every time she thought about it.

He’d completely messed with her circadian rhythm, getting all x-rated eating habits with her like that. Was it any wonder she’d kicked a cow when she was down?

‘I live here, remember?’ he offered.

‘Right.’ Why hadn’t she thought about that and why, she now thought suspiciously, hadn’t he mentioned he’d be here when she’d told him she’d been summoned to dinner? The very last thing she needed was for him to see her being given the, ‘It’s not me, it’s definitely you,’ speech.

She made a shooing motion with her hand. ‘Well, skedaddle. Go find Beth or someone. This is not an episode of “You’re Fired”. I’m not going to give you an interview afterwards.’

‘Don’t worry. If it comes to it, I’ll put in a good word for you,’ he said amiably.

She gave him a little side-eye. Him being here like he wanted to provide her with some friendly support – like he knew she was maybe struggling with what was about to go down – had her heart pitter-pattering at a level she was worried might actually require medical assistance. ‘No thank you.’ She did a passable example of a sweet smile and carried on up to the main door. ‘I’m quite capable of fighting my own battles and if I needed help the very last person I would pick would be you.’

‘What’s wrong with me?’

‘Apart from the fact that you can’t be serious for longer than five minutes?’

‘I can do serious. I can do very serious, when I put my mind to it,’ he added, his voice deepening so that it did very serious things to her heart rhythm again.

Putting the sexual twist on his gravelly voice down to some weird side-effect of her man-ban made it so much easier to ignore. Not.

And of course she knew he could do serious. It was the fact that others couldn’t that made her so mad sometimes.

‘Loving the subliminal messaging by the way,’ he told her.

She stopped a couple of steps from the heavy double arched doors. Was that a reference to the apple stuff yesterday? Did he think her body was somehow transmitting ‘Eat me’ signals?

Holy hell.

Her heart was now thudding in a way that gave every impression it had been borrowed from a hard-living, hard-drinking, sex, drugs and rock and roll body tasked with completing a Joe Wicks style workout on the village green.

Every instinct had her wanting to bring her hand up to her chest to try and ease the crazy pounding inside but there was no way she’d give Seth the chance to know he’d affected her so she breathed in sharply, held it while she started counting and then tried to ease it back out surreptitiously.

What came out sounded more like a hiss.

She felt like she was going to full-on die.

Outstanding.

First she was going to die and then she was going to be fired from bridesmaid duties.

Persephone was going to be so mad at her.

Seth gave her a weird look and then with a nod to her chest, clarified, ‘What I mean is, I’m glad to see you’re rocking the humility look this evening.’

Gloria stared down at her chest, fully expecting to see a cartoon heart moving her shirt in and out. Instead she looked down and saw what he’d actually been referring to.

Crap.

Even reading upside down the Relax! Don’t Do It 80s slogan white silk t-shirt, which she’d teamed with navy cigarette trousers and tan leather brogues, the phrase screamed the very opposite of humility.

She wanted to pout and tell him that she didn’t get out much, so what did she know about what to wear up to the Big House.

His grin getting wider he added, ‘You had me a little worried yesterday but I’m pleased you’re not approaching this lying down.’

‘Shows what you know. Inside I’m completely supine and approaching this evening like a friend who’s done something stupid and is prepared to accept the consequences.’

‘Wardrobe didn’t get the memo, then?’

Gloria sighed. She had deliberately asked Persephone if she’d looked all right before she’d dropped her off at Bob’s for the night and her daughter had done her usual full Queer Eye assessment and declared her fit to go. Admittedly Gloria hadn’t asked ‘Does this outfit scream, “Don’t fire me” when she’d presented herself at her daughter’s bedroom door because Perse was too excited her mum was going out for the evening like a ‘regular person’.

Turning around she made to walk away.

‘Hey, where are you going?’ Seth asked.

‘I’m going home to change,’ she muttered.

‘No way. Go with your first instinct, brazen it out with the t-shirt, man-up and fight for not being fired as a bridesmaid.’

‘I’m not begging for a seat at the table, Seth.’ But she chewed on her bottom lip, not wanting to acknowledge her first instinct and what it might mean, because aside from the humiliation of being fired, it at least meant she’d no longer have to be bridesmaid, right?

He coughed out a word that sounded suspiciously like ‘Coward’ and that was all it took for her to reach forward and press the doorbell.

As the chimes echoed behind the oak carved doors, Seth whispered in her ear, ‘What are you doing?’

She rolled her eyes. ‘I’m using the traditionally accepted method of letting the house-owner know of my arrival.’

‘Or,’ he said, pushing open the door, ‘you could simply come on in.’

‘Wait.’ She reached out to forestall him. ‘I’m not ready.’ Inhaling deep, she shook back her hair, shrugged her shoulders up and down a couple of times and then, swift as you like, punched him lightly on the arm. ‘That was for calling me a coward. Okay,’ she grinned when his mouth dropped open. ‘Now, I’m ready.’

They stepped across the threshold together and out of the side of his mouth he whispered, ‘Anyone ever mention you can be brutal?’

Her grin widened, and she batted her eyelashes. ‘You say that like it’s a bad thing.’

‘You’re here,’ Emma came out of a room and crossed the hallway, looking nervous. ‘Jake?’ she called out. ‘Gloria and Seth are here.’

Gloria wanted to remind Emma that Seth lived here and so there was absolutely no need to imply they’d arrived together, but Emma was turning and indicating they follow her so she kept her mouth shut and looked around curiously.

It was the first time she’d been invited into Knightley Hall.

When she’d been younger she’d often fantasised about living in a place like this, or, if you want to get technical, she’d fantasized specifically about living in this place. The Tudor mansion, with its regimented yew hedges presiding protectively over it every winter and then transforming into cosy romance in summer when the heavily-scented bowers of wisteria covering the black beams burst into bloom.

Whatever the season, it had one huge temptation to her growing up.

Space.

Not the final frontier.

More the square footage.

There’d not been even half a square foot to be on her own in the two-up two-down rundown farmer’s cottage she’d lived in growing up. Small on the inside, small on the outside, it had nevertheless felt like a giant advert for her family’s struggles and she’d been convinced a beautiful sprawling house like the one she was now standing in couldn’t hold any ugliness inside its walls. It commanded status both in the village and the surrounding area and hadn’t that been what she’d craved back then, along with the kind of longevity and stability it also represented.

Gloria wondered if it had been hard for Emma, transitioning from a small shared apartment in Hollywood, to Juliet’s tiny Wren Cottage, to this place all in the space of a year. Emma was usually good at hiding her nerves but Gloria couldn’t help noticing the way she tucked her hands into the folds of her full skirt. The question was, was she nervous about entertaining in such a grand and formal space, or about the fact that at some point in the evening she was going to withdraw her bridesmaid request?

With her eyes adjusting from the low evening sunshine outside to the darkness inside from the heavy oak panelling Gloria tried to see the place more for what it was. Perhaps it was because she didn’t have status-stars in her eyes any more but Knightley Hall looked every inch like it was going to take serious money to breathe new life back into it.

She slid her own nervous hands into her trouser pockets. When you grew up poor it wasn’t that you didn’t believe money could bring you happiness. To be honest you weren’t interested in happiness, you were only interested in not being poor. She would never have believed that spending the kind of money Bob brought in could have been as stressful as not having any, but it had been.

These days she and Persephone had enough to get by comfortably. Nothing more, nothing less stopped her feeling the frustration when her parents refused to accept any money she and Bob had tried to give them and it stopped her worrying that if she had more she’d start spending it like she had before Persephone had come along. Back then, trying to feed the emptiness that had snuck up on her, she’d filled their home with things she neither liked much, nor needed.

Wondering when he’d notice.

Wondering what was wrong.

Unable to put her finger on it and quite unable to demand he tell her.

So much for being The Fierce and Fearsome Gloria Pavey.

Ironically she’d never been those things with Bob.

Just like she wasn’t going to be those things now when Emma delivered her news, she told herself as she moved past Seth into the dining room.

The room was large and even on a summer’s evening, with the leaded windows at the far end of the room thrown open to let in air and light, it was dark.

The heavy wood panelling ended at waist height and above it was plain cream wallpaper, relieved only by some dull lights the type usually seen over large pictures. And then Gloria realised that at some point there’d probably been large paintings filling the wall space, but presumably now were owned by auction-attending, country-manor decorating types.

‘You didn’t have to go to all this trouble,’ she said politely walking over to the type of long formal dining table you’d usually see in National Trust houses to study the lovely table setting of damask linen tablecloth, gold charger plates, blue and white patterned china and ornate silver cutlery.

‘Nonsense,’ Emma replied. ‘Besides, I needed the practise so that by the time Mother visits I’m not in the kitchen drinking all the brandy.’

‘You realise you just referred to your mum as “mother”?’ Seth said. ‘Bit of a Mommy Dearest character, is she?’

Gloria watched Jake enter the room and immediately shoot his brother a ‘stop talking now, hazard up ahead’ look.

Emma’s smile was rueful. ‘Did I? She’s not quite that bad but I suppose calling her mother is a learned form of distancing.’

Gloria thought how, with her mum, it was nigh on impossible to distance yourself. If she’d been faced with dinner in a room like this, her nervous energy would reach out to fill every corner, charging the atmosphere and putting everyone immediately on alert.

Intrigued she nodded to the elegant setting. ‘Your mum really goes for pulling out all the stops, does she?’

‘Oh, like you wouldn’t believe,’ Emma revealed without one note of embarrassment. ‘With her, “high-end” isn’t so much a look as an attitude. I think she thinks that if you act like you have everything, you just might get everything. Anyway, enough about Mother or I’ll get indigestion before I get to the lamb. Did I mention its shoulder of lamb for the main? Only you said you could eat anything.’

‘To be honest I was expecting some weird, tasteless bridezilla-wedding-dress-diet offering.’

Emma immediately looked at her reflection in the only wall hanging in the room, a small Art Deco fan shaped mirror.

Shit.

‘Not that you need to diet,’ Gloria hastily insisted. ‘In. Any. Way.’ Great start, Glor. Really terrific. ‘Sorry. Cue nervous laughter.’ Closing her eyes she prayed for some sort of social-skill upload as the room remained starkly bereft of any kind of laughter. ‘Lamb sounds yummy,’ she murmured determinedly.

‘Good.’ Emma smiled and nodded to the centrepiece in the table. ‘I got the flowers from the garden. What do you think?’

I think at least I’ll have something pretty to look at when you tell me I’m no longer your bridesmaid. Out loud she said, ‘Gorgeous,’ and stared at the crystal rose-bowl stuffed full of plush velvet-petalled deep pink roses and waxy white magnolia grandiflora blossoms.

‘Please,’ Emma said, ‘sit anywhere. I’ll go and grab the starters.’

‘So formal,’ Seth muttered, frowning hard at his brother while he took a seat opposite Gloria and proceeded to count his cutlery. ‘Three courses? This is a celebration.’

‘I’m probably being fattened for the slaughter,’ Gloria whispered as Jake got up to get the wine.

She folded her hands in her lap and waited as Emma fussed with bringing in the food. It was so quiet she found herself thinking about the whole if-a-tree-falls-in-a-forest-but-you’re-not-there-does-it-make-a-sound thing, which led to philosophising why getting sacked in Knightley Hall but no one from the village being here to witness it, wouldn’t be the same at all. Somehow the news would be heard before she reached home.

She tried to curb the disappointment taking up space in her belly because it wasn’t as if she hadn’t been the talk of the village before and survived.

A surreptitious look at Seth showed him relaxed and comfortable while she sat at the table vowing not to stoop to talking about the weather but damn if she could think of a single conversational thing to say. Did she tell them about how Persephone had become obsessed with ballet again? Definitely not, she decided. People without kids hated having to hear about people who did. Or was that a myth?

Perhaps she was over-thinking and it was only her finding the silence uncomfortable as hell. This is what happened when you went out for the first time in … Mother Hubbard! No wonder Perse had been so happy to hear she was off out for the evening because if you discounted popping over to Old Man Isaac’s for afternoon tea it had been months since she’d been invited somewhere.

Well if that realisation didn’t just add to her sense of social ineptitude.

The trouble was, part of her being less crap at pissing people off was to keep practising and the only way she got to practise was if she got out and saw people.

It was like that phenomenon where if you studied something for x number of hours you automatically became an expert.

Her shoulders slumped. She had the feeling x = four-thousand hours.

Oh, who needed a social life anyway? They were completely overrated. Just ask young adults who preferred to stay in and interact online instead.

And that thought wasn’t at all depressing.

Perhaps she should declare her man-ban over and go out on a few dates.

Except the dates had made her worse at interacting; not better.

Because when it had come to sex … she’d …

Book Club!

She brought her hand up to slap against her forehead as the thought registered.

Book Club was a social thing she went to.

God, she was going to have to keep going to Book Club.

And then she went as red as the beetroot salad with homemade walnut bread that Emma was passing her, as she realised everyone was staring nervously at the socially awkward woman who had just slapped herself at the dinner table.