And distant.
Their eyes met, and in hers remained a query he could not ignore.
‘That wasn’t in my general scheme of things,’ he told her brutally, in answer to the unasked question.
‘You mean that kiss?’ she demanded, her voice incredulous. Why was he making her feel like some nightclub stripper over a simple kiss? ‘Is that all?’
‘All? Kisses like that generally lead on to something else, but I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that.’ His eyes were wintry. ‘But maybe that’s why you invited me up here? To “christen” the new flat in the way you like best?’
‘You flatter yourself,’ she observed furiously.
He shook his head. ‘I don’t think so.’ A muscle began to work in his cheek as she frantically pulled at the hemline of her dress. ‘Or are you denying that we’ve had the hots for each other since the moment we first met?’
So she hadn’t been imagining it! ‘No, I’m not denying it!’ she told him, as she sat up straight and looked at him, her voice softening as she said, ‘It isn’t a crime’
‘No, it’s just sex,’ he told her. ‘And that’s all it is, Holly’
‘Sex?’ she demanded. ‘Sex? What an insulting thing to say!’
He made an impatient movement with his hands. ‘Call it chemistry, then—or mutual attraction. Whatever words you want to use if the truth offends you.’ His voice dropped to a throaty whisper. ‘And it’s powerful, this feeling—I don’t deny that. Potent as hell itself—but nebulous. Insubstantial. It peaks and then it wanes and leaves all kinds of havoc and destruction in its wake.’
Anger laced her voice with sarcasm ‘Aren’t you overstating your case a little?’
He shook his tawny head. ‘Am I? I don’t think so, Holly. All I know is that I’ve had a fortnight of torture, of watching you move with that unconscious grace you have. Of imagining you undressing in the room down the hall from me. I’ve had to contend with the sight of you drifting around in one of my robes, knowing that you’re buck-naked underneath, and I’ve had to stay sane and control my baser impulses. And it’s been hard.’
Or, rather, I’ve been hard, he thought ruefully. Bad choice of word, Luke. ‘But now that you’re safely settled in your new home, our paths need hardly cross. And I think that’s for the best.’
Best for whom? she almost yelled, but suspected she already knew the answer to that one. There was just one question she needed to ask him. ‘Why, Luke?’ And then she plucked up courage to add, ‘When we both want to.’
But he shook his head, steeling himself against that plaintive little appeal. ‘Why spend time going over it—when the outcome will remain the same? My reasons are both simple and complex and you don’t need to know them.’
‘Well, that’s bloody insulting to me!’ she stormed.
He raised his eyebrows. It was the only time he had ever heard her swear, and the zeal with which she did it only reinforced all his prejudices. The shutters came crashing down and he clicked out of emotion and into formality. Old habits died hard...
‘Thank you for inviting me to your opening,’ he. finished politely. ‘And I wish you every good fortune in your new endeavour. Goodnight, Holly.’
Still sitting collapsed on the sofa, her long legs sprawled in front of her, made Holly feel at a definite disadvantage, but she was damned if she was going to stumble to her feet to show him out. She would be bound to fall flat on her face, or something equally humiliating.
She gave him an unfriendly smile, his kindness to her forgotten in the face of sexual frustration and the accompanying rejection and bewilderment. ‘Thanks for everything, Luke,’ she told him insincerely. ‘But you’ll forgive me if I don’t show you out.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
IT WAS just very fortunate that starting a new business meant that there were always a hundred and one things to think about, and to do—and for that Holly was extremely grateful. At least it meant that she didn’t allow her mind to get stuck on that frustrating loop which wanted to know just why Luke Goodwin had:
a. Kissed her (and more)
b. Then acted as though she had some kind of infectious disease; and
c. Had disappeared conclusively from her life in the days following the opening of her shop.
She supposed that she could have picked up the telephone, or even gone round to his house, to ask the great man in person—but she had her pride. Luke wasn’t a man she could imagine being railroaded into anything, and she certainly wasn’t going to march round to beg him to make love to her!
So she forced herself to be sensible, filed all these unanswered questions away under ‘Waste of Time’, and resolutely refused to dwell on them further. Even though she missed him. Missed him like mad.
She had a few long, sleepless nights asking herself what had gone wrong, and why. Then she came to the conclusion that, since she wasn’t going to get any answers, then there wasn’t much point asking the questions. It was a useful safety mechanism.
Then she happened to bump into Luke’s cleaning lady, Margaret, in the general store.
Margaret smiled encouragingly at her, and Holly plucked up courage to ask, very casually, ‘How’s Luke?’
‘I wouldn’t know, dear,’ Margaret replied, with the repressed excitement of someone who knew that the person who had asked the question was hanging onto every word. ‘He’s gone away!’
Holly nearly dropped her organic wholemeal loaf on the floor. ‘Gone?’ she echoed in horror. ‘Gone where?’
‘He didn’t say, dear. Just upped and left the day after your shop opened, I think it was.’
‘And is he coming back?’ asked Holly, her heart feeling like a leaden weight in her chest.
Margaret shrugged. ‘I expect so. He hasn’t taken much—apart from his passport.’
‘His passport?’ repeated Holly, like a parrot.
‘That’s right.’
‘But you don’t know where he’s gone?’
“Fraid I don’t dear.’ A mischievous gleam entered Margaret’s rheumy eyes. ‘Shall I say you was asking?’
‘Er, no,’ said Holly quickly. She flashed her most beseeching smile. ‘I’d rather you didn’t, Margaret.’
The article about Lovelace Brides had appeared in the Winchester Echo and captured the public’s imagination. The people of Hampshire loved the story of Holly winning a wedding dress competition and opening a bridal shop—and then offering the same wedding dress as the prize in another competition!
It had proved so popular that it had been picked up by the national press, including one of the broadsheets as well as three tabloids. In a week where news was scant, journalists and photographers were dispatched to Woodhampton, where Holly posed standing next to the dress, trying like mad to pin a happy-go-lucky smile to her lips.
It was fabulous publicity for her, and she knew that she should feel overjoyed—it was just very annoying to feel so deflated. Especially over a man she had foolishly imagined had shared her feelings.
Which only went to prove that her imagination was best left to dreaming up wedding dresses, and not romantic scenarios with would-be suitors.
Lured by the competition, brides-to-be flocked into the shop in what became an unusually busy December. It was traditionally a slack month—too many parties and too much preparation for Christmas leaving brides with little enthusiasm for buying their wedding dresses. With the added inches from too much merry-making, they tended to leave that until the New Year.
As the steady stream of customers filed into the shop, Holly soon realised that she was going to have to recruit more outworkers than she had originally anticipated. She needed workers who were good enough to sew her intricate designs and close enough for her to be able to keep an eye on them. She scribbled out an advertisement and put it in the Echo.
On a dull Monday morning, a couple of weeks before Christmas, Holly was rearranging her window display when she saw a woman standing waiting on the pavement outside, trying to catch h
er attention.
‘Are you open?’ mouthed the woman, pointing exaggeratedly at her watch.
‘Not until ten!’ Holly mouthed back, then wondered why she was sounding so inflexible. It was her business, and she could open when she liked! With a final twist of fern, which Michelle had concocted into a huge, old-fashioned bouquet with white silk roses, Holly jumped down out of the window and went to unlock the door.
‘Come in,’ she smiled
‘You’re not supposed to be open until ten, are you?’ murmured the woman, but she stepped into the shop anyway and looked around. She was wearing dark corduroy trousers, a green padded jacket and wellington boots. She wore the traditional country clothes well—they suited her clear skin and her neat, butter-coloured hair. She was trim, with tiny wrists and tiny ankles—the sign, or so Holly had been told by her mother, of a true lady.
‘You’re only ten minutes off, and the shop is still very new,’ said Holly with a smile. ‘I need to build up a reputation, and it wouldn’t do mine much good if I forced you to stand outside in the cold, instead of bringing you in here and letting you browse around. I’m presuming that you are a bride-to-be?’
‘I most certainly am!’ giggled the woman. It was an attractive, infectious laugh, but a little girlish, too. And maybe just a tad inappropriate for someone pushing thirty, Holly thought. Until she reminded herself sternly that she was here to make wedding dresses, not value judgements! Still, she would bet, with a giggle like that, that this woman would go for flounces and frills and a bouquet as big as the Blackwall Tunnel!
‘When,’ asked Holly immediately, ‘is the wedding?’ The woman pursed her lips together in a smile. ‘Well, we haven’t quite decided yet—you know what men are for making a commitment! My fiancé came over without me—to get everything ready,’ she added with a coy shrug.
‘But you’re not planning a sudden Valentine wedding, are you?’ asked Holly quickly. ‘Because if you are, we’ll have to get a move on.’
The woman shook her head. ‘Oh, no! My fiancé and I haven’t actually discussed a date—but I want to be sure that, when we do, I’ll be ready to go!’
Keen, thought Holly with a smile. But, there again, so many brides were—and it would be a little disappointing if they weren’t! ‘Then we’d better introduce ourselves,’ she said. ‘I’m Holly Lovelace—owner and designer.’
‘Caroline,’ said the blonde, holding her hand out. ‘Caroline Casey. I’m afraid that I’m a novice at all this—what do I do now?’
‘You take a look at all those sample gowns hanging over there on the rail, and decide which ones you like the look of. Then you try them on, see which suits and whether you want any modifications made, and then I can have it made to measure.’
‘And do they all have price tags?’
Holly nodded. ‘Yes, they do.’ Not all shops carried prices on their gowns, but it had been a conscious decision of hers to do so, because nothing was worse than falling madly in love with a wedding dress, only to discover that it was much more than you could afford. Holly knew that brides rarely looked too closely at a gown which was financially out of their reach. ‘But if you’re on a budget and particularly like a certain design, then we can sometimes have it made up in a less expensive fabric.’
‘Oh, no!’ Caroline laughed delicately, showing teeth which were straight and white and even—teeth which told of a lifetime’s good nutrition, of sunshine and milk and no sweets to cause cavities. ‘Money’s certainly no object.’ She paused and gave Holly a helpless little shrug. ‘My fiancé has just come into a very large inheritance!’
Blinking away a brief but distracting feeling of déjà vu, Holly managed to smile, even though she thought the woman sounded more than a little smug. ‘Good for him! And for you!’ she added robustly, supposing that it was difficult to talk about a large inheritance without sounding smug. ‘Nice to be in love,’ she said wistfully. ‘And it’s probably even nicer if he’s rich into the bargain!’
‘Oh, I’d never have agreed to marry him if he hadn’t come into money,’ said Caroline, smiling and shaking her head when she saw the look of horror on Holly’s face. ‘Oh, no! I don’t mean that I’m marrying him just for the money—although I have to agree, it helps! It’s just that money brings with it responsibilities. And, more importantly, stability. And my fiancé was pretty wild before he inherited!’ She wrinkled up her pretty nose. ‘Very wild!’
The mind boggled. ‘In what way?’ asked Holly curiously.
‘In every way.’ Caroline shrugged. ‘The original rolling stone!’
Holly smiled, feeling a sneaking sympathy for the man. She suspected that the pretty but determined Caroline Casey would keep her errant flancé on a very short rein indeed! ‘Listen—why don’t I make us some coffee and leave you to browse through the dresses at your leisure?’
‘That’s very sweet of you.’
When Holly came back with coffee, it was her turn to feel smug, since the woman had done exactly as she’d predicted and picked out the most frothy, fairy-princess dress on the rail! It had a low, flounced neck, a jewel-encrusted bodice, nipped waist and a skirt wide enough to hide a family of six beneath its voluminous silk folds.
Holly didn’t just design dresses that she was passionate about—she also designed dresses to sell. You had to if you were a businesswoman, or so her favourite tutor had told her at college. And frothy, traditional dresses did sell—no doubt about it, there was always a market for them.
Caroline experimentally held the dress up in front of her. ‘Do you like it?’
‘Your waist is going to look like Scarlett O’Hara’s in that,’ promised Holly truthfully.
Caroline clutched the dress to her. ‘I’ve dreamed of a wedding dress like this one ever since I was a little girl!’
‘Well, that’s what tends to happen.’ Holly smiled. ‘Just so long as you aren’t marrying a man who wants you to elope in a short red dress on the back of his motorbike!’
Caroline frowned. ‘I think that’s what most men would like, if the truth were known. Men don’t like a lot of fuss, do they?’
Holly had learnt to agree with the customer—up to a point. ‘Generally speaking, no.’
‘But I’m a great believer in tradition,’ said Caroline firmly.
‘But not tradition simply for the sake of it, surely?’ the imp in Holly argued back.
Caroline fixed her with a look of mild amusement. ‘Most certainly I do. Tradition is the bedrock of society—the fabric that binds us together and links us with our past. Now...’ she ran her finger along a ruffle of lace on one of the sleeves ‘...can I go and try this on?’
‘Please do,’ said Holly. ‘The changing room is over here. What shoe size are you?’
‘Only four.’ Caroline gave a little wriggle of her shoulders as she projected a dainty foot forward like a ballet dancer. ‘I’m only little, I’m afraid.’
‘Then take these shoes with you—and call me if you need me,’ said Holly gently, and drew back the velvet curtain to the changing room. She found herself wondering why Caroline had no one with her. Brides rarely came looking for gowns alone—they generally brought their mother or a best friend. Someone close enough to be brutally honest when asked the universal question, Does my bottom look big in this?
While Caroline was in the changing room, Holly hunted around for more accessories—veil and headdress—which she thought might go well with the dress.
And when Caroline reappeared, looking a little self-conscious in all her finery, Holly experienced the familiar feeling of awe and wonder at how a wedding dress could transform a woman into a goddess. Women stood differently in a wedding dress. Walked differently.
‘That ivory silk does wonders for your complexion,’ she told her admiringly.
Caroline twirled in front of the floor-to-ceiling mirror. ‘Does it? It’s beautiful,’ she said breathlessly. ‘I feel just like a fairy princess!’
‘It’s much too big around the waist. Here
—let me take it in a bit.’ Pins on her wristband, Holly crouched down and adjusted the waist and then the hem.
While she was making her alterations, Holly chatted and listened. Women opened up to their dressmakers, and Caroline was no exception. By the end of the fitting, Holly was left with the impression that Caroline was a pleasant and competent woman, but grindingly dull and conventional!
It was getting on for lunch-time when the bride-to-be came out of the changing room, an ordinary woman once more in her cords and sweater. Holly looked up from the ivory silk and smiled at her. ‘So what made you choose my little shop in Woodhampton for your wedding dress?’
‘Nothing more inspiring than geography, I’m afraid.’ Caroline found a compact inside her handbag, and, peering into the mirror, began to pat the shine off her neat little nose. ‘I’m going to be living here, you see.’
‘Oh? Whereabouts?’
‘In Woodhampton itself.’ Caroline’s voice became injected with pride. ‘There’s a rather nice Georgian house in the village,’ she confided. ‘Apson House. I expect you know it.’
For a moment Holly’s heart missed a beat while the world stopped turning. Either that or she would wake up in a moment. She felt all the blood draining from her face, and wondered whether she had a corresponding colour loss. ‘Yes, I know it,’ she replied, in a muffled voice which seemed to come from a different pair of lungs than hers. Then forced herself to ask the question, as if she didn’t already know the answer, ‘And wh-who’s your fiancé?’
Caroline frowned, antennae alerted by the fine beads of sweat sheening Holly’s brow. ‘It’s Luke,’ she said precisely, her pale grey gaze piercing. ‘Luke Goodwin. Do you know him?’
Holly was experiencing sensations she had only ever read about. Head like cotton wool. Legs like jelly. Stomach turned to water. She was terribly afraid that she might funt. And meanwhile the unbelievable fact was hammering into her brain. Luke Goodwin was engaged to be married to the grindingly dull Caroline Casey!
Luke Goodwin was a no-good deceiving bastard!
One Bridegroom Required! Page 10