by Liz Fielding
Today he’d caught her unawares, casually dressed in soft dusky-pink layers that all but disguised her condition, her hair caught back with a matching chiffon scarf. Not a button in sight.
She’d been less obviously flirtatious and yet the look had still been there, he thought, his gaze drifting down over hips that were curvier than he remembered, wide-legged trousers that flapped a little as she strode briskly in the direction of the morning room, drawing attention to her comfortable flat shoes.
But he didn’t need the short skirt and high heels to feel the same tug of heat that had caught him on the raw a year ago, when he’d walked into her office behind Candy.
When his marriage plans had fallen apart he’d responded by giving her a bad time. Not that she hadn’t deserved it.
Then, stupidly, he’d just responded.
He’d done his best to kill the flame, but six months on, his body, driven, denied for months, was on fire again.
The only difference was that this time she was the one getting married.
Concentrate…
Forget Tom McFarlane. Forget that she’d jumped every time the phone rang for weeks after she’d had to race away to save her client from wrecking her own party.
After she’d gone back to find his flat empty. That, after the passion, he’d still gone on his honeymoon for one…
Cold. He was cold…
Beneath the fire there was only ice, she reminded herself.
The raw sexual attraction that had been so unexpected, so new to her, had, for him, been no more than an instinctive male response to a situation charged with tension. An atavistic need to prove his masculinity in the face of rejection.
It hadn’t been personal.
If she hadn’t believed it then, had clung to that hope despite reality, he’d certainly gone out of his way to make sure she understood his feelings this morning.
I’ve had my fill of your kind…
Her kind being women like Candy Harcourt. Two of a kind. Not.
The truth of the matter was that he didn’t know a thing about her. Didn’t want to know. Wasn’t interested.
Sylvie dragged her gaze away from the familiar distant view of the old village, nestled in the valley bottom alongside the river. The square Norman tower of the church. Forced herself, instead, to look at the photographs provided by the designer who was going to pull out all the stops to provide her with her dream dress.
There was just one problem.
No dream.
Not one with a possibility of coming true, anyway.
She was going to have to be content with the one she had. The one she’d already fulfilled when she’d taken control of her own destiny, refusing ever again to allow her fate to be dictated by circumstances over which she had no control. Or thought she had. She laid a hand against her belly as her baby moved as if to remind her that fate had a way of mocking those who thought they’d beaten her, turning the pages of the album with the other, hoping for something, anything.
A gut response that said ‘this one’.
It shouldn’t matter, but stupidly it did. If she was going to lay out her fantasy for the world to judge, it had to be real. Perfect.
There’s no such thing as perfect…
The ‘gut response’ wasn’t working. It was fully occupied coping with her unexpected confrontation with Tom McFarlane. He looked thinner. Tanned, but thinner. Harder, if that was possible. His features chiselled back to the bone…
She shut her eyes in an attempt to block out the image. Concentrate on the dress. Style…She should stick with style because the wedding dress, as she always reminded her brides, should be an extension of your natural look.
Your wedding day was not a moment to experiment with a fashion statement.
Especially if the result was going to be splashed, in full colour, across the pages of Celebrity.
Geena Wagner, the designer showing at the Fayre, was incredibly talented and her gowns were all, without exception, beautiful.
Something like the flowing, beaded and embroidered silk chiffon kaftan-style dress might well have been her choice if she’d been thinking of a beach wedding.
She paused to make a note on her PDA for Josie. She had a bride who was considering that option.
Unfortunately, while the idea of a runaway wedding for two on some deserted beach might be deeply appealing, her task-and she’d had little choice but to accept it-was to include as many exhibitors as possible, which meant it would have to be a traditional wedding.
The whole village church, bells and choir job, with bridesmaids, ushers, fancy transport, a marquee fit for a maharajah and more flowers than Kew Gardens.
It should have been a piece of cake. She’d done it before. Sitting in this room, making lists, her mother offering suggestions. She wasn’t that girl any more…
At least she’d made a start with the flowers, she thought, reaching out for the tiny posy of violets that Lucy-taking her task very seriously-had gone out into the park to pick for her. Sweet-scented purple velvet flowers, heart-shaped leaves, tied with narrow purple ribbon. She lifted it to breathe in the scent and for a moment smiled.
Her bridal flowers would be a simple posy of violets. Maybe she could set a new trend for simplicity, she thought, returning to the photographs. A minimalist wedding. Very classy.
The strapless cleavage-enhancing dresses were almost too minimalist, but while perfect for a civil ceremony in some glamorous setting, wouldn’t work in the village church. Or maybe it just wouldn’t work for her.
And yet the look would have to be show-stopping.
She needed a theme, something that would tie everything together, or the feature risked being no more than a series of photographs of things…
She sighed, poked amongst the collection of goodies Lucy had found for her. Held a long amethyst earring against her neck. A scrap of smoky mauve chiffon. Ribbons, dried flower petals, invitation cards with envelopes lined with lilac tissue.
All utterly gorgeous, but she’d done all that love’s young dream, happy ever after, fairy tale thing ten years ago. Had seen it crumble to dust the minute there was trouble.
Maybe that was why she’d been hit so hard by the Candida Harcourt/Tom McFarlane debacle. It had been too close to home. Had brought back too many painful memories. Despite Tom McFarlane’s move on her, it was obvious that he hadn’t been over it, he’d just been hurting.
Her response had been to shift the hands-on wedding stuff to Josie, using her pregnancy as an excuse. Not that the clients were getting second-best. Josie was brilliant at making things run on oiled wheels behind the scenes. In fact, if she wasn’t very careful, her rivals would be headhunting her, offering her all kinds of incentives to come and work for them.
She made a note on her PDA to do something about that. Which was just another way of putting off the task in hand.
‘Come on, Sylvie,’ she muttered, taking a couple of long, slow, calming breaths. ‘You can do this.’
And then, avoiding the dresses, she picked up one of a pair of embroidered and beaded purple silk shoes.
‘Anything catch your eye?’ Geena said from the doorway.
‘These shoes?’ she offered.
‘You’re finding it difficult?’
She indicated her shape. ‘Just a bit. But I’ve definitely ruled out the vestal virgin look,’ she said, indicating the photograph in front of her. ‘Not that it isn’t lovely,’ she added quickly. ‘They’re all lovely but, to be honest, I’m finding it hard and it’s not the bump. It’s just not real, you know?’ She tried to think of some way to explain. ‘I find most of my brides are thinking about their groom when they choose their dress.’ Most of them. ‘When they find the dress of their dreams they always say something like, “He’ll just melt when he sees me in this…”’
Candy, on the other hand, had said, ‘Everyone I know will die of envy when they see me in this…’ But then that had been the standard by which she’d judged everything about h
er wedding. Not what Tom would think but how envious everyone else would be.
Maybe that was the difference between marrying for money and marrying for love. Candy hadn’t needed any of the trappings when she’d married Quentin. Just the two of them had been enough.
She’d read all about it in their ‘true love’ story in Celebrity.
‘You know it’s going to be perfect when they say that, don’t you?’ Geena agreed, breaking into her thoughts. But then, dressing brides was her business so clearly she understood better than most.
‘It does help,’ Sylvie said. Then shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Maybe I’ve planned too many “perfect” weddings that didn’t last.’
‘Think about the ones that have,’ she said, taking the shoe, looking at it. ‘This is totally gorgeous.’ She tried it on but it was too small and she handed it to Sylvie. ‘Go on, your feet are smaller than mine. Try it.’
Anything was better than looking at wedding dresses and the shoe was fabulous. She slipped it on and extended her foot. The colour glowed. A few small beads set amongst the rich embroidery caught the light and sparkled.
They both sighed.
‘I think we have a bit of a Cinderella moment here,’ Geena said with a grin. ‘Try the other one. Walk about…’ Then, after a moment, ‘Are you getting anything?’
‘A total reluctance to take them off, give them back,’ she admitted, laughing, ‘but honestly, purple shoes!’
‘Colour is making a big impact in wedding gowns these days,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘It might work. Embroidery? Appliqué? I have a woman who is brilliant at that.’ Then, getting no encouragement, ‘What we really need to get you in the mood is a man.’
‘I’m sorry, I can’t help you there,’ she said, concentrating on the shoes.
‘No? Really? But what about-’
‘Believe it,’ Sylvie swiftly cut in. ‘The infant is the result of a…a…sperm donation.’
‘At a clinic?’ She did not sound convinced.
‘Not quite, but the man wasn’t included in the deal.’
‘Oh, well, not to worry. He doesn’t have to be “the one”,’ she said, making little quotation marks. ‘Just someone hot enough to get you in that dreamy, this-will-make-him-melt mood.’ Then, when she shook her head, ‘A this-will-make-him-want-to-tear-it-off-and-take-you-to-bed mood would do,’ she assured her.
Which fired up all those visions of Tom McFarlane that she’d been doing her best to smother.
‘Not possible, I’m afraid.’
‘No? Shame. But there are some seriously hunky blokes putting up a marquee out there. I’ll go and drag one of them in, shall I?’
She turned as someone cleared his throat behind her.
‘Oh, hi, Mark. What are you doing here?’ Then, before he could answer, she glanced at Sylvie, a wicked little gleam in her eye. ‘Sylvie, have you met Mark Hilliard, very hot architect of this parish? Mark, Sylvie Smith.’
‘You’ve been misinformed, Sylvie. I live in Upper Haughton with my wife and our three children, so whatever Geena has in mind I regret that the answer is no.’
‘My sentiments exactly,’ Sylvie said quickly.
But he wasn’t finished. ‘For this parish you need Tom McFarlane, Geena. The new owner of Longbourne Court.’
And, as the man himself appeared in the doorway, he left them to it while he took his notebook on a tour of the morning room.
‘Tom?’ Geena said, offering her hand. ‘Geena Wagner.’ Then, she stood back to admire the view. ‘Oh, yes. You’re perfect.’
‘I am?’ he asked, confused but smiling. A natural smile, the kind any man would bestow on an attractive woman at their first meeting. The kind he’d never given her.
He hadn’t caught sight of her-yet.
Sylvie struggled to protest, but only managed a groan-enough to attract his attention. The confusion remained, but the smile disappeared as fast as a snowball tossed into hell.
‘Absolutely perfect!’ Geena exclaimed in reply to his question, although he didn’t appear to have heard. ‘You’re not married, are you?’ Geena pressed, apparently oblivious to the sudden tension, unaware of the looming disaster.
‘Why don’t you ask Miss Smith?’ he replied while she was still trying to untangle her vocal cords. Stop Geena from making things a hundred times worse.
The mildness of his tone belied the hard glitter in his eyes as he looked over Geena’s head and straight at her. As if the fact that he wasn’t was somehow her fault.
Along with global warming, the national debt and the price of fuel, no doubt.
‘You know each other! Excellent. The thing is, Tom, Sylvie needs a stand-in fantasy man. Are you game?’
‘Nnnnnn…’ was all she could manage, since not only were her vocal cords in a knot, but her tongue had apparently turned into a lump of wood.
‘That rather depends on the nature of the fantasy,’ he replied, ignoring her frantically shaking head. His expression suggested that he harboured any number of fantasies in which she was the main participant…
‘Well, all I need is for you to stand there looking hot and fanciable.’ She smiled encouragingly. Then, before he could move, ‘That’s it. Perfect.’
‘I didn’t do anything,’ he protested.
‘You don’t have to,’ she said, grinning hugely at her own cleverness. ‘Right, Sylvie. Get your imagination into gear.’
‘Geena, I think…’
‘Thinking is the last thing I want from you. This is all about feelings. The senses,’ she said bossily, stepping from between them and, taking her by the shoulders, lined her up so that she was facing him.
The sun was streaming into the morning room and she’d shrugged off the loose knee-length cardigan-style wrap that had become a permanent cover-up since her pregnancy had begun to show and her condition was unmistakable.
And his expression left her in no doubt as to his feelings. He was angry…
‘Forget that sweater, those pants, excellent though they are,’ Geena said. ‘For this exercise he’s wearing a morning suit…’ she glanced down at the purple shoes ‘…a grey morning suit with a purple waistcoat and violets in his buttonhole.’
Tom McFarlane made a sound that suggested ‘not in this life’.
‘He’s standing at the altar and he’s-’
‘What altar?’ Tom demanded, having been finally jerked out of his own private fantasy world in which, no doubt, all wedding coordinators were fed on wedding cake-the kind with rock-hard royal icing-until their teeth fell out.
What had he done with that wedding cake…?
‘Good point, Tom. Village church, Sylvie?’ she asked, breathing into her thoughts.
Sylvie opened her mouth, determined to put an end to this nightmare, but it was apparently a rhetorical question because Geena swept on without waiting for an answer.
‘Where else? But you don’t have to worry about that, Tom.’
‘I don’t?’ he said, apparently unconvinced, but Geena was in full flow and nothing, it seemed, was going to stop her.
‘Absolutely not. We’re doing all the work here.’
Sylvie shrugged helplessly as Tom McFarlane lifted a brow in her direction, putting them, for the briefest moment, on the same side.
Not possible.
In the middle of the night she might have succumbed to the impossible dream. The happy ever after. But that was all it had ever been-a dream.
‘Okay, Sylvie. The church doorway is decorated with evergreens and flowers. Your bridesmaids are waiting. All adults?’ she asked. ‘Or will you be having children too?’
Concentrate on the wedding. Just make the most of this fantasy moment…
‘One adult,’ she said. If this were real, she’d want Josie in the rear, running things. Parting her from her boots might be difficult, but at least her hair already matched the colour scheme. ‘Assorted children. Four girls, one boy.’
Her fantasy should, after all, be as close to reality as possible and she
had four god-daughters who would never forgive her if they were excluded from the big day. And a five-year-old godson who would probably never forgive her if he was expected to appear in public in a pair of satin breeches. But he’d look sweet and his sisters could use the threat of posting the photographs on the Internet to keep him in order when he was at that difficult age-the one between five and ninety-five.
Girls needed all the edge they could get, she thought, as she stopped fighting a deep need for this and just let herself go.
‘Okay, here’s the scene,’ Geena said. ‘The organ strikes up, your father takes your arm…’
‘No!’ Last time that had been her grandfather’s role. This time there was no one. ‘I’ll be on my own,’ she said, doing what Geena had said. Not thinking. Just feeling.
Realising that both Geena and Tom were looking at her a little oddly, she said, ‘I’m an adult. I don’t need anyone to give me away.’
‘Oh, right…Well, whatever. It’s your wedding. So you’re poised to walk up the aisle.’ Geena picked up the violets, pressed them into her hand. ‘Okay, the organ strikes up, you hear the rustle as everyone in the church gets to their feet. This is it. Da da da-da…’ she sang. ‘You’re walking up the aisle. Walk, walk,’ she urged, pushing her towards Tom. ‘Everyone is looking at you. People are sighing, but you don’t see them, don’t hear them,’ she went on relentlessly. ‘Everything is concentrated on the only two people in the church who matter. You, in the dress of your dreams,’ she said. ‘And him.’
She met Tom McFarlane’s gaze.
Why was he still there? Why hadn’t he just turned around and walked out? He didn’t have to stay…
‘What does it feel like as you move, Sylvie?’ Geena murmured, very softly, as if they were truly in church. ‘Cool against your skin? Can you feel the drag of a train? Can you hear it rustle? Tell me, Sylvie. Tell me what you’re feeling. Tell me what he’s seeing…’
For a moment she was there in the cool church with the sun streaming in through the stained glass. Could feel the dress as it brushed against her legs. The antique lace of her grandmother’s veil…
Could see Tom McFarlane standing in the spangle of coloured light, looking at her as if she made his world whole as she walked down the aisle towards him, a simple posy of violets in her hand.