MARK was waiting on the steps of the Town Hall, the white rosebud in his buttonhole drawing indulgent glances from people passing in and out of the building. Shuli, wearing her new dress, a ribbon-tied posy clutched in her chubby hand, was fidgeting at his side. He was looking at his watch.
‘I told you we shouldn’t be late,’ Jane said, as the taxi came to halt.
‘Nonsense,’ Laine declared. ‘You have to give a man time to look into the void. Consider what life would be like if you didn’t turn up. You’re Miss Cool. You know that.’
She knew nothing. She’d spent the night looking into her own dark void, considering what life would be like if she’d got it wrong. Then this morning the florist had arrived with a spray of rosebuds and white freesias arranged in a silver Victorian flower holder, with a card from Mark that simply said ‘Thank you.’ And her cool façade had been washed away on a hot tide of tears.
It had taken a ton of concealer to cover the black rings and blotchy skin before Laine had arrived to put the finishing touches, help her with her hair. Help her dress in the fine cashmere shalwar kameez that had cost a month’s salary.
Laine had whisked her to the boutique and wouldn’t let her leave until she’d bought it. ‘It’s a wonderful compromise. Really special, but you’ll be able to wear it anywhere…’
Now, after adjusting the long chiffon silk scarf Jane had wound once around her neck, leaving the long tails to trail behind her in the merest suggestion of a bridal veil, Laine handed her the spray of flowers and said, ‘Well, what are you waiting for? He’ll take one look and won’t believe just how clever he’s been.’
Was ‘clever’ going to be enough? Stepping out of the taxi, Jane couldn’t quite meet Mark’s eyes, afraid of what she might see there. Or rather not see there. Instead she swooped to gather the little girl into her arms. ‘Darling, don’t you look just good enough to eat!’
‘You’re supposed to say that to the groom, Jane.’ Laine offered her hand to Mark, introduced herself. ‘I’m Jane’s best woman. We’ve been friends since nursery school.’ She turned to the man behind her. ‘And this is Greg,’ she said, linking her arm with his. ‘He’s my best man and I’m hoping he’ll be sufficiently inspired by today’s simple and painless ceremony to follow your great example to pusillanimous men everywhere.’
‘Sorry, Laine, but I don’t think I can help you there. My heart is as faint as the next man’s.’
Jane, already a bundle of nerves, thought she was the one who’d faint. He’d got cold feet. Decided this was all a huge mistake. She’d have to leave the town. The county. Possibly the country.
‘It seems to be taking all my time to remember to breathe,’ he said. ‘Inspiration is quite beyond me. It’s all Jane’s fault.’ Putting Shuli down before she dropped her, Jane looked up sharply. ‘I’ve spent the last five minutes convinced that you’d changed your mind.’
‘I wouldn’t leave you standing here, Mark,’ she said, hurt that he’d believe her capable of such cruelty.
Laine, behind him, lifted one expressive brow, then said, ‘The traffic was terrible.’
This was a nightmare. So stiff, so formal. ‘Thank you for the flowers…’ Jane’s voice failed her, dying away to leave an awkward silence.
‘Look, I don’t want to rush you two,’ Greg said, coming to the rescue, ‘but I think that’s the next wedding party arriving.’
Jane turned and saw two young people surrounded by friends, all of them laughing, happy.
‘Are you ready?’ Mark asked. And she nodded, her throat too stuffed with what felt like hot rocks to speak. Would she be able to say her vows? Would nodding count?
‘She’s ready,’ Laine said, taking Shuli’s hand and leading the way, turning back to add flippantly, ‘I just hope you haven’t forgotten the rings.’
Jane flinched and, looking anywhere but at the man she was about to marry, she blinked back a tear. Laine was right. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
If anyone had asked him to describe Jane Carmichael, Mark knew he would have been pressed to say much more than that she was a plain little thing. That the black suits she habitually wore never quite seemed right and she fought a constant battle to control a mass of hair that was neither black nor properly brown. That she had kind eyes. Smiled easily. Was comfortable to be with.
Her arrival outside the Town Hall had shattered that image of her.
‘…I, Mark Edward Hilliard, take you, Jane Louise Carmichael…’ Jane listened to his low, steady voice as he made the solemn vow. Then it was her turn to repeat the words after the registrar.
‘…I, Jane Louise Carmichael…’ Her voice had never seemed so faint, but she made it through without a mistake.
The registrar smiled at Mark. ‘Do you have the rings?’
He produced the ring she’d chosen from his pocket and placed it on her finger, again repeating the solemn words. But when she would have turned back to the registrar he opened his hand. Lying in his palm was another ring, bright and new as the one he’d just placed on her own finger. A matching pair.
Only then did she realise that his left hand was bare, with just a lighter band of skin to show where another ring had once been.
The registrar, noticing nothing odd, prompted her promise. But her fingers were shaking as she took the ring and placed it on his finger. Her voice was shaking, too, as she made her promise. Had he thought of the meaning as he’d said his vows?
‘You may kiss the bride.’
The momentary hesitation before he brushed his lips lightly against her own answered that particular question.
‘Daddy!’ He looked down at Shuli. ‘Can I have a baby brother now?’
‘Shh! Not now, sweetie,’ Jane said, scooping her up to distract her while Mark signed the register. Then she did the same, her signature shakier than usual.
‘Would you like to join us for lunch?’ Mark asked Laine and Greg as they all left the registrar’s office. ‘I’ve got a table at the Waterside.’
Jane turned, astonished, to look up at him. ‘The Waterside? When did you organise that?’
‘I didn’t. It was Patsy’s idea. She was practising using her initiative.’
‘Really? I didn’t think she was that good,’ she joked. Joked! Inside, she was shrivelling up at the make-believe of a romantic lunch together, and she turned to Laine. ‘Of course you must come.’
Her friend, apparently reading the panic signal loud and clear, said, ‘Try and stop us.’
‘She arranged a car, too.’ Mark offered a half-smile. ‘Maybe she thought I’d be too nervous to drive myself.’
‘Maybe she thought you’d be swimming in champagne,’ Greg suggested.
‘If that’s the case I imagine it’s already on ice.’
‘Well, I sincerely hope so,’ Laine said. ‘This is Jane’s big day.’
‘I wonder if you’d go and see if the driver is there?’ he asked, without comment. ‘I said to come back at twelve. And could you take Shuli with you? We’ll be along in a minute.’
‘It’ll be back to normal tomorrow,’ Jane said quickly as he turned to her.
‘I do hope not. “Normal” has been a nightmare.’
‘Not any more.’
‘No.’
She waited.
‘I just wanted to tell you how lovely you look. I’ve never seen your hair loose before.’
She didn’t wear it loose very often. It took an entire bottle of conditioner to tame it. But for today she’d made the effort, catching it at her nape with an ebony clasp and leaving it to hang down her back. ‘It would be a nuisance in the office.’
‘That won’t be a problem any more.’ He lifted her hand, looked at the ring he’d so recently placed on her finger. ‘It looks a bit lonely all by itself, don’t you think?’ But he clearly didn’t expect an answer because he reached into his jacket pocket and, spreading her fingers, slipped another ring beside the gold band.
The diamonds flashed back at her in the sunlight. Three considerable diamonds that had been set gypsy-style, almost flush in the gold. ‘I’m sure the Sultan of Zanzibar would have given you a diamond as big as a paperweight. But, since you won’t be sitting in a harem with nothing to do but your nails, I thought this would be more…practical.’
‘They’re industrial diamonds?’ His head came up sharply and her hand flew to her mouth. ‘No—sorry. Please forget I said that. It’s nerves.’
‘Nerves?’ He looked astonished. ‘I don’t believe it. I’ve never seen anyone looking less flustered.’
‘That’s because I’m numb with terror.’ Then, realising that it probably wasn’t the most tactful thing she could have said, she rushed on. ‘I was sure I’d make a total hash of it. Get my name wrong. Get your name wrong.’ She was babbling. Big breath. Look at the ring. Say something sensible. Except how could she be cool and sensible when he’d just given her the most perfect, most exquisite ring? That was it. Thank him for the ring.
‘The ring is beautiful, Mark. Absolutely, incredibly, wonderfully…practical.’ She blinked back a tear. ‘Thank you.’
‘I’m glad you like it.’
Like it? If he’d read her mind he couldn’t have chosen anything she’d like more, but she mustn’t cry. It would embarrass him terribly.
If she concentrated really hard on the hideous mess it would make of all Laine’s careful make-up, she’d get through it.
‘I love it.’ The nearest she could come to saying I love you. Oh, hell! Think of something else. Anything else. ‘But I have a confession to make.’ He waited for her to go on. ‘I lied about the Sultan.’
‘You mean he doesn’t phone you day and night?’ Mark didn’t sound totally surprised.
‘Actually he was deposed in 1964.’
‘Well, I’m glad you told me,’ he said, then added solemnly, ‘I was afraid I’d have to let you down gently, warn you that someone was pulling your leg.’ Only the small creases at the corners of his eyes suggested that, while somewhat under-used in recent years, Mark’s GSOH was still in good working order. ‘Shall we move, before Laine and Greg think we’ve ducked out of buying them lunch?’
Patsy had let her romantic nature run away with her and rented a limousine for the day, so there was plenty of room for the five of them. As Mark was distracted by Shuli’s insistence on climbing onto his lap, Laine raised a querying eyebrow.
Jane just wiggled her fingers in reply and waited for Laine’s jaw to drop. Her friend obliged and clearly couldn’t wait to get her alone in the powder room at the Waterside in order to demand a full account of what had just happened.
She had to wait. They walked into the intimate little reception bar of the restaurant to be greeted by a loud cheer. Mark’s partners and all their staff were there before them, presents piled high, champagne standing by, eager to wish them every happiness.
‘I should have guessed,’ Jane murmured to Laine as all the girls surged round her to look at the ring, all the men to kiss the bride. ‘I knew Patsy couldn’t have done all this without someone authorising it.’
‘Mark?’
‘No, one of his partners…’ For a moment she’d thought it might have been him…hoped it might have been. But when she’d turned to look up at him, it had been obvious he was as surprised as she was. ‘This is Charlie Young’s idea, I imagine.’
By way of confirmation the man himself called for order. ‘Jane, Mark—I know you both thought you were going to have a quiet romantic lunch together and are probably horrified to discover you’re going to be sharing your special day with this unruly bunch. But we couldn’t let the moment pass without letting you know how happy we are for you both.’ There was a hum of approval. ‘And maybe pick up a few hints on how to keep an office romance that quiet.’ Amidst the laughter, he raised his glass. ‘To Jane and Mark.’
‘To Jane and Mark.’
Then someone called out, ‘Well, go on, Mark, give her a kiss.’
Beside her Jane felt him tense, and instinctively she reached for his hand. One thing to kiss her at the register office, witnessed by strangers. Quite another in front of people who knew them both. Who’d known Caroline.
For a moment he gripped her fingers, then he turned to her and, with his eyes fixed upon hers, lifted her hand to his lips. And the only sound in the room was a soft sigh from the women.
The party broke up just after four, when an exhausted Shuli dropped asleep on Mark’s shoulder.
He leaned back against the soft leather upholstery of the limousine and said, ‘That was surprisingly good fun.’
‘Yes, it was kind of them. I’ll write thank-you notes to Charlie and everyone for the presents tomorrow.’
‘Totally efficient as always?’
She turned sharply, but he was teasing. ‘Not totally efficient. That would suggest I’d discovered some way of telling my mother about today and surviving.’
He looked perplexed. ‘You didn’t tell your mother that you were getting married?’
‘Did you tell yours?’
‘Well, no. But she’s at an environmental conference in New York. And Portia’s deeply involved in some legal wrangle at the European Parliament.’
And it wasn’t as if he was marrying a glittering society beauty this time round. Just good old platonic Jane. Nothing to get excited about.
‘It’s a pity they don’t make cards,’ Jane said.
He frowned. ‘Cards?’
‘Greetings cards. “Just to let you know that blank and blank were married on the blank.”’
‘Maybe they do.’ Then, when she gave him an old-fashioned look, ‘No, I don’t suppose there’s much call for that sort of thing. Do you want me to ring her? Explain—?’
‘No!’ Explanations were the last thing she wanted.
‘Explain why we didn’t wait and do the whole banns and church bit,’ he finished gently. ‘Because of Shuli.’
And have her mother speculate on whether she’d married for Mark’s convenience rather than her own? Besides, that wasn’t why they’d opted for the fast-track wedding and he knew it. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Really. I can handle it. But not until tomorrow.’
The evening, which she’d been so certain would be full of awkward moments, passed in a whirl of Shuli’s needs. Exhausted, it was a relief for Jane to stretch out beside the child, cuddling up to her as she read her a long fairy story. She was in no hurry to go downstairs and face reality.
Shuli had been insistent that Jane bath her, so Mark had changed into a pair of comfortable chinos and a polo shirt, opened a bottle of wine, looked at the labels on the wedding presents and eventually, when he’d been able to wait no longer, had gone to look for her.
He found her, fast asleep and curled up beside Shuli, looking like a child herself in soft grey sweats. He picked up the book she’d been reading, put it on the night table. Then he carefully picked up Jane and carried her to the guest room, removing her shoes before covering her up, the way he’d done for Shuli more times than he could remember.
She didn’t stir. Probably hadn’t slept a wink the night before. Well, neither had he. But he was used to it.
He drew the curtains, then lingered, not wanting to leave, reliving that astonishing moment when his lips had touched hers. It had been the barest touch and yet, like the touch of her hand against his in the jeweller’s, the heat lingered. And on an impulse he bent to kiss her again.