“Take your time, Mr. Colt. Give it some thought. If you decide you’d like to chat, you know where I am.”
The phone goes dead. Rafael sits back, scrapes his fingers through his hair, down his face, drags them over his cheeks in long, desperate strokes. More headlines, more press intrusion. He dreads the fight. It hurt him so much when they went after Janey—not just the legal battles or the cost of the injunctions, but the sheer vindictiveness, their desire to tear her apart, one human to another—to see her in only one dimension, as another screwed-up rich kid. All because they believe it’s “in the public interest.” For what? Because the family has money, which they give to those who need it? It’s not in the public interest, he thinks, to strip a young woman—an addict, no less—of her dignity. She never chose the life or the mess she was born into. Nor did he for that matter. Just let him do what he’s intended to do. Let him be a good man, out of the shadow of his father and his grandfather before him.
Let him be good.
“This might cheer you up,” says Mimi, handing him a folder.
After two years at Rafael’s side, she knows to be thorough, which is why her list of potential holiday destinations spans every corner of the globe, every kind of getaway, and every kind of activity. She does, however, omit to mention that she has instructed the travel agent to come up with ideas for singletons who need to mingle, willingly or otherwise. Rafael sifts through the brochures.
“Safari in Zambia?” suggests Mimi.
“Too dusty.”
“Trekking in Nepal?”
“Too cold.”
“Kayaking in the Yucatan?”
Rafael eyes her suspiciously. “That sounds like a group activity.”
“It is a group activity.”
“No group activities.”
“Atlas Mountains hideaway?”
He feels his eyes roll back in their sockets.
“The Maldives?”
“Crammed with honeymooning couples? No thank you.”
When Rafael isn’t looking, Mimi swears at him under her breath. Rafael, meanwhile, takes his attention to the window, where he spots a young woman outside, pacing from one side of the building to the other, as though she is considering but not quite finding the courage to enter. He squints, looks closer, feels his spirits bud. Those flame-red waves are unmistakable—as is that marble white skin, never been near a sunray in its life. He surges forward, presses his forehead to the glass and smiles.
“Francesca,” he whispers, willing her to enter the building.
It is a full fifteen minutes until reception calls to say he has a visitor. Either his staff is busy or lazy, or she has taken as much time to approach the receptionist as she has to approach the entrance. Mimi dives for the phone, but Rafael grabs it from her and agrees to accept the guest.
“If you no longer want me to filter the time wasters,” Mimi snarls, “I’ll go back to my studies. Do you know you have a meeting with HR in two minutes? You don’t have time for unscheduled visitors.”
“HR can wait,” says Rafael. “I pay them. Go plan your honeymoon or something.”
A minute later, Francesca Delaney is brought to his door, wearing a ’40s shirtwaist dress with cap sleeves and a matching belt, perfectly flattering her delicate frame. He looks at her from his desk, holds his poise, gives nothing away, not even a hint of surprise or curiosity that she has turned up here.
“Nice desk,” she says, nervously filling the silence. She hates offices, their visionless sterility, their primary colors and rough seat covers.
Rafael leans back in his chair, keeps her waiting.
“My turn to apologize,” she says hurriedly, “for running away. And I, um, wondered if maybe…you fancied…lunch? If you have time.”
Rafael looks at his watch, then back at her, lingering over his response, holding her in tiny torture. He knows the answer, of course, but doesn’t want to give it up too easily—just in case. He fiddles with a pen cup, flicks the corner of a stack of Post-it Notes, then finally addresses her.
“That sounds like an excellent idea,” he says. “Let’s do it.”
Fran exhales. Torture over.
With Mimi glaring after them, the pair head for the elevator, easing their way with a gentle discussion about where to go, which leads to an agreement that sunny weather requires al fresco, making a picnic the only appropriate option.
* * *
The sun in their eyes and the breeze in their hair, they walk alongside Regent’s Canal until they come to a row of small shops in a side street—a bakery, a delicatessen, and a tiny café with bistro tables on the cobbled roadside.
“For all our picnic needs,” says Rafael.
He greets the deli owner like she’s an old friend and selects a menagerie of cheeses, olives, cherries, nectarines, rye bread, and wine.
A thrill tingles through Fran’s limbs. Mick was right. The risk is worth taking. Suddenly she is rediscovering how lovely it feels to be around someone who attracts her. Even simple tasks, like buying picnic food, become an exotic adventure.
Picnic in hand, they make their way to Rafael’s silver Jaguar, which is parked on the next road.
“Now for the important question,” he says, opening Fran’s door for her. “Where to?”
“Green space,” Fran suggests, since it seems quite apparent that Rafael has no intention of returning to his office, that the proposed lunch hour will become a lunch afternoon, possibly an evening, possibly beyond.
“My thoughts exactly,” says Rafael.
With an unfamiliar pep in his soul, he ignites the engine and makes a line for the green lung of Epping Forest, where the air is fresh and the sky, bright blue. All those nights alone in bed, heart pounding, palms sweating, terrified that he has lost himself in a world that is meaningless, they are waning. She is here.
* * *
“So how exactly does one discover vintage wedding dresses are their thing?”
Fran lowers her eyelids, thinks carefully—how to explain without having to explain?
“I’ve always loved clothes. I started small, with a stall selling homemade fascinators, then I guess I got carried away.”
“Just the one shop?”
“Oh yes. There’s no plan to expand. The secret to my success is the personal care and attention I give each dress. Perhaps the best way to educate you about what I do is to show you.” She pauses, dares herself. “Would—would you care to be my plus one? I have two more weddings coming up, of brides that I dressed.”
“Two?”
“The summer months are manic. In July, I get more wedding invites than most people get in a lifetime. My brides like to include me, out of politeness or to show their gratitude. I always feel obliged to attend and sometimes I even enjoy myself, but still…” She pauses, takes a breath.
“Sounds like hell to me,” says Rafael.
Fran sighs. “I love seeing my dresses in action. I just hate going to these occasions alone. It’s the ceremonies—they make me feel so… Well, perhaps if I had a plus one, if you were with me…”
Rafael winces. “I don’t know, Fran. As I think you’ve gathered, I’m not really a wedding kind of person. If you want my honest opinion, I think marriage is a sham, the domain of the deluded.”
“Harsh.”
“Is it? The number of people I know who are kidding themselves that they’ve found their ultimate meant-to-be soul mate, when in reality all they’ve got is someone to distract them from the acres of boredom and loneliness that is human existence… But who knows? Maybe I’ve got it all wrong.”
“Come with me and find out,” says Fran, a teasing glint in her eye.
As they pass the turn near Dryad’s Hall, her senses prickle. “Will you show me the house?” she says. “I’d really love to see it again, especially the garden.”
; “I will,” says Rafael. “As long as…” He pauses. “As long as there’s no wedding dress talk.”
Fran smiles. “I promise. At least, I’ll do my best.”
Rafael swings the car through the gates, up the willow-clad drive. They park at the front, then carry the picnic to the back of the house, over the terrace, and across the lawn, down to the lake and the beautiful ornamental gardens. The sun lays its golden brilliance upon the grass. In the distance, birdsong echoes from the treetops, while nearby, the dragonflies command the water and the bees control the scented bushes of roses and jasmine. In perfect peace, Rafael and Fran drink, eat, and talk. After a second glass of wine, they take a walk.
“This was her vision,” says Rafael, as they meander through the narrow cobble pathways, admiring clumps of bamboo, miniature pines, cherry trees, and maples. “She spent years creating it. She wanted something beautiful in her life.”
They come to a stop at a wooden bridge overlooking the lake, where fat, pink water lilies float like islands. Fran leans over the balustrade, feels the cool of the water.
“It’s lovely.”
“I come here when I can,” he says, “whenever I need solace or to feel close to her. One of the first things I said to you—”
“She loved gardening.”
“You remember?”
“Of course.”
“When I was little, I used to imagine this bridge was magical, that if I walked into the middle and whispered my worries across the water, then they’d float away.”
“Did it work?”
Rafael laughs ruefully. “It did not.”
“And what did you used to worry about?”
“What my mother would say if she could.” He looks down, throws a leaf into the water, watches it ripple and spin. “She never spoke, you see. She had… The doctors called it ‘elective mutism.’ They said she was able to speak but chose not to.” He looks up thoughtfully, exposing the sadness behind his eyes. “I never knew the sound of her voice. She had her ways of communicating though. We understood each other. I was told she was perfectly normal before she got married. Her silence began, I gather, not long after the wedding. One morning, the words were gone. My father was patient at first, had her treated at all the best clinics and hospitals, but when nothing made a difference, his tolerance caved and she became an embarrassment to him. That’s how she ended up here, in the woods, in Dryad’s Hall, tucked away from society, while he carried on with his busy life in the city and at Hammonds.”
“Hammonds?”
“Our family’s main house up in Norfolk, a huge Palladian mansion in the countryside. It was sold a decade ago, after he died.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Oh, we weren’t close. In some ways his death was a relief, certainly for my mother. He wasn’t…the kindest to her at times. We clashed a lot in his final years. We had very different opinions about what to do with the foundation. His wish was to wrap it up, preserve the remaining Colt fortune. I wanted it to expand. The whole point of money is not the money itself but the opportunities it creates, right? The proceeds from Hammonds allowed us to kick-start our school building project. Although I’m sure my father would be turning over in his grave if he knew, especially now that his beloved family seat has been turned into a health spa and conference venue.”
Rafael picks up another leaf, turns it over and over in the light, then releases it into the water, where it flips and twists and catches up with the first.
“You accused me of being cold,” he says. “I fear life has made me that way. On the surface, the Colt family had everything, but emotionally—where it mattered—we were practically beggars.”
Fran’s compassion surges. She isn’t put off by this candid disclosure, only grateful that he has found the wisdom to look within and the courage to share it. Whether he can do anything about it, maybe that’s up to her.
“If you were one of my brides—”
“I’ll never be a bride, Fran.”
“Hypothetically speaking. If you were one of mine, I’d find you a dress that teaches you to face your past and let go. The war brides were good for that. Or something scratched out of the Great Depression. A dress that proves, regardless of a person’s origins, they can learn to rise out of their circumstances and live and love well.”
Rafael smiles. “Oh, Fran, they were generous with the sprinkles when they made you.”
He offers her a strawberry and wonders quite how he has come to be sitting here in the sunshine, bearing his soul to a vintage wedding dress expert.
“What will you do with the house?”
“My plan was to sell it, but”—he sighs—“letting go is harder than I thought.”
“Unfinished business.”
“Exactly. Janey and I spent a lot of time here when we were growing up. We’d spend hours in the woods, building dens, playing games and make-believe. We could be children here, with our mother. Everywhere else, we were on show.”
“You know I saw her.”
Rafael stills.
“When I came here that night, when you wouldn’t let me explain, I felt I saw her—not a ghost, just a sense of her, through the dress.”
“We said no dress talk.”
“Please,” says Fran. “Just listen a moment. Hear me out. You said it yourself, she stopped talking after her wedding day. The thing is, I saw film footage from the ceremony. She had a bandage on her hand. You can’t tell me that was a fashion accessory, not after I watched her—felt her—punch a mirror.”
Rafael looks down, avoids Fran’s gaze, uncomfortable with the conversation.
“She was in pain, Raf. Like I’ve never known. I felt it. Through the dress. Through her. She didn’t want it. She didn’t want the marriage. She was scared.”
Rafael just stares at the water, at his own face disfigured in the reflection. He grips the balustrade and inhales deeply, as though the tug of his lungs will pull the pain back inside him again.
“I come from a long line of bad men, Fran,” he says, unable to look at her. “It’s always in the back of my mind that their cruel narcissism might well be indelible. You need to be careful. I can’t promise I won’t fuck up. Wedded bliss? All I’ve ever been shown is how to poison it.”
Fran shuts her eyes. “But you’re on the bridge,” she says softly, masking her own tremulous fear. “They’re just worries. Throw them into the water.”
“If it were only that simple,” says Rafael, taking her in his arms. “But hey, this conversation is getting far too serious for such a lovely day.” He kisses her softly, strokes her cheek.
The sensation sends sparks of pleasure through her skin. She feels unreal, suspended in a bubble of elation, as though she is bouncing along in a fine, fresh sky. Does he feel it like she does, flowering inside, gradually unfolding, that willingness to put aside barriers and doubts, to be vulnerable, be real, walk to the edge? Suddenly it occurs to her how unpracticed she is at all of this. She knows the rules. She has spent enough time with brides, read enough romantic fiction, but with her own heart…she is a novice.
How did this happen? And he doesn’t even like weddings!
“Come on,” he says. “Let me show you the orchard and the wisteria and the field where we used to keep goats.”
“You kept goats?”
“And a horse. And seven rabbits. And then there were all the badgers that came at night…and the hedgehogs and the squirrels…although, technically, they were wild. Perk of living in a forest.”
“You don’t strike me as an animal person.”
“Ah, Fran, trust me, I’m full of surprises.”
“Well, that’s good, because I love surprises. Nice ones, anyhow.”
They fall in line together and wander through the summer haze, the sweet green grass at their feet, the gnats circling in the sunlight above them. They
are both oblivious to time, lost in their uneasy euphoria, the prospect of all that they have to find out about each other rippling outward like an endless sheet of silk.
* * *
Lunch turns into evening, which then turns into an untethered, billowing weekend, in which London and everything it has to offer becomes their playground. They drive through the city, walk in Green Park, row on the Serpentine, admire samurai suites and Islamic silks at the Victoria and Albert Museum, ancient animal bones at the Natural History Museum, and strange, silent canvasses at the Tate. They rent bikes and cycle east, where they buy fresh flowers, eat pastries, and drink rhubarb gin on a rooftop in Hackney. They talk about everything, from politics to pop music, but they both stay away from the topic of the Alessandra Colt wedding dress—for fear of spoiling the magic.
The decadence ends at Rafael’s Thameside apartment, where they finish the evening with glasses of rich, red merlot on the roof terrace. The apricot sky and the twinkling lights of London—a tiny theater set with cranes, power lines, and high-rises—creates a glittering canvas behind them.
“Are you happy?” says Rafael, the evening sun catching his eyes.
“Are you kidding?” says Fran. “This has been the loveliest—not to mention longest—lunch date I’ve ever had.”
Rafael sighs, pulls Fran toward him. The way she flutters around him in floral chiffon, like a rare butterfly, he wants to snatch her from the air, trap her in the cup of his hand, and hold on to her forever, because just one moment with her has the power to eradicate the burden of a lifetime. No woman—apart from Mimi and sometimes Janey—has crossed this threshold before. Normally on the weekends, he goes to the gym, cooks, reads, surfs Netflix, or falls asleep early—but here she is, smoldering on his roof terrace with her compendium of vintage regalia, her tumbling hair and constant curiosity. She is an invader, and yet, she is a salve, the antidote to everything that is wrong with his world.
Never mind the merlot. He pushes it aside, leans in, and kisses her, feels her heart pound against his ribs, feels her curving into his arms. As his hands trace the skin of her neck, she gasps with pleasure and smiles with her eyes closed.
The Second Chance Boutique Page 11