The Honeymoon Hotel

by Hester Browne

  ‘In June?’ The busiest wedding month of the year? I started to say, ‘You’ll be lucky,’ but then I realized I did. I had a plum date free. The date in June, in fact.

  My heart beat loudly.

  ‘They were booked in for June the twentieth’ he went on, sounding even more hopeful. ‘Save-the-dates have gone out, the dress and flowers are arranged, most things are in motion, so if there is any way on earth you happen to have that date free …’

  ‘June the twelfth?’

  ‘I think they’d be prepared to, um, make it worth your while if there was some magic you could perform. They’re not exactly skimping on the budget.’

  ‘Well, as it happens, I might be able to squeeze them in.’ I highlighted 20 June on my laptop calendar and prepared to fill in some details.

  ‘What, really?’ He sounded amazed.

  ‘For you, Nevin. Not for any old snapper.’

  ‘Now, hang on. Are you bumping some other poor couple?’ He was a photographer, but he did have some scruples.

  ‘Ask no questions, Nevin, and I’ll tell you no lies.’

  ‘Marvellous. Too kind.’ I could hear the astonishment in his voice. ‘Well, I can tell you now,’ he went on cheerfully. ‘The groom’s an actor, Benedict Quayle?’

  I blinked. ‘Benedict Quayle? From the Dark Moon series?’ I’d only seen the first in the trilogy myself, but Gemma was a massive fan. The day she’d stood behind Lorenzo della Chiamo in Harrods food hall was a day none of us would ever forget. Mainly because Gemma liked to remind us of it once a month, or whenever she had a pasta salad (‘Lorenzo’ had had gluten-free fusilli, which apparently made him and Gemma soul mates).

  ‘Yes! Him. And his fiancée’s an actress too but she’s not very famous yet, she’s called Emily Sharpe. What’s a bit sticky is that they’re both currently working in America. He’s filming … whatever the new Dark Moon film is.’

  ‘Return to the Light.’

  ‘Probably. And Emily’s in that, and some play or other, I believe. Or a film. I’m not really up on these things.’

  ‘So is that why they’re getting the photographer to reorganize their wedding? Didn’t they have a wedding planner?’

  ‘No, they were using the wedding planner at the hotel. The best man and chief bridesmaid are apparently on hand to sort things out on the ground in London, but Emily asked me if I could recommend a venue. She’s very stressed, as you might imagine, but I knew you’d be able to calm things down. If anyone can make sure she has an even better day than the one she’s just lost, you can, Rosie.’

  ‘Well, it’s lovely that you thought of me. I’ll do everything I can,’ I reassured him.

  I was so excited I could have done laps of my office with glee. Not just a wedding to fill the June twelfth slot, but a celebrity one! Featuring one and a half celebrities who outranked Flora in the first place!

  A small voice at the back of my mind wondered what had happened to get someone that famous double-booked at a hotel in the first place, but I shoved it to one side.

  ‘I always knew you were a miracle worker, but this is fantastic,’ said Nevin. ‘So may I give them your number? Probably don’t need to say this, but you’ll have to keep it under your hat. Can’t have word getting out that Transylvania’s most eligible vampire’s getting married and all that.’

  ‘He’s a shapeshifter. From Venice,’ I said automatically, thinking of all the security I’d had to block-book months in advance for Flora. Brilliant. I wouldn’t have to cancel that. I hated cancelling security.

  Anyway, I thought, putting the phone down with a silent yes! I’d need at least two people to keep Gemma away from Benedict. Another good reason to keep this completely to myself.

  *

  Calls were made, emails were sent, and the first meeting with Benedict Quayle and Emily Sharpe’s marital representatives in London was set up for later that week.

  As I’d promised Nevin, I hadn’t told anyone about the meeting. I had no idea what Gemma might do if she thought someone who knew Benedict Quayle’s actual pasta salad preferences was in the building, but also if the booking didn’t materialize, I’d never hear the end of it from Laurence. He was still on a series of herbal remedies to get over the loss of Flora’s room bookings.

  Part of me wanted to tell Joe, to prove his shooting-star guff had worked, but since Flora’s cancellation he’d reverted to his old ‘weddings are for snobby people who want to show off to their mates’ attitude, and had turned his back on events to focus on making the Bonneville’s laundry more eco-friendly, to Jean’s despair. Besides, as he took great delight in reminding us while Gemma was reading Heat magazine’s engagement special aloud to us, he had no idea who these people were anyway.

  Besides, I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone. I’d had to sign a confidentiality agreement emailed over by Benedict Quayle’s agent. It went on for pages. Missy Hernandez wasn’t going to be present at my planning meetings in person, but she’d managed to make herself very, very present in my email inbox.

  On this particular Thursday morning, Missy’s extensive list of security requirements was in the joint possession of Ben and Emily’s wedding proxies: chief bridesmaid Chloë, and best man Magnus. They were not together.

  ‘We’re not together, him and me,’ Chloë informed me, gesturing with a finger between her and Magnus, before I’d got past ‘Hello, and welcome to the Bonneville Hotel.’

  ‘You should be so lucky, love,’ said Magnus, before I’d had time to react to Chloë’s statement.

  ‘No, I think I’m lucky already.’ Chloë was American, but she’d certainly got the hang of British sarcasm. ‘And please don’t call me love. I’m not your mom’s cleaner.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Magnus, then paused. Glimmer of a smile. I knew what was coming next.

  So did Chloë. ‘And don’t say babe,’ she shot back without dropping her smile to me.

  ‘Forgive me. Darling?’

  ‘Does it look like it’s working, Magnus?’

  The first grippy sensation of a stress headache began to press against my temples. I hadn’t expected this. Not from a wedding whose flower budget suggested an extreme interest in peace and love.

  ‘Would you like to come through to the Palm Court?’ I asked.

  Before I met them, I’d been quite glad Chloë and Magnus were coming as a pair, because, to all intents and purposes, anyone passing the Palm Court would assume they were the couple planning their wedding with me. The obvious tension between them made it even more authentic. It wasn’t the sort of tension normally resolved by a bout of urgent snogging behind a convenient door. It was the tension of two people unable to decide where to kick off the argument proper, and what might get broken in the process. In other words, the sort of fury often engendered by weeks of discussing whose mother got to wear pistachio and whose mother got the bigger hat.

  Still, I managed to get things back onto a cheerful front as I welcomed them to the Bonneville and commiserated about Emily and Benedict’s ‘disappointment’ with their first booking.

  ‘It’s a blessing in disguise.’ Chloë crossed her legs and looked scandalized. ‘Oh, my God, can you imagine how badly things could have gone wrong on the day, if she’s this disorganized now? I feel sorry for the clients who got the date. The woman is a liability. I can’t imagine how it could have happened.’

  I could. An assistant who hadn’t saved a document. A lost booking from the previous year. Computers crashing. A really bad hangover and too much paperwork … My blood ran cold just thinking how easily it could have happened.

  Magnus stirred two sugars into his tea and clattered the spoon round the china cup, causing Chloë to wince theatrically. ‘Or someone more famous bunged them more cash. I can find out. I’ve got contacts in that game.’

  She didn’t even turn her head. ‘Stay classy, Magnus. But it’s critical that we regroup and focus. Especially as Emily can’t be here to check things out herself, I think it’s even more important to
have absolute confidence in every detail going forward.’

  Chloë, I soon discovered, was a solicitor, a junior partner in a firm specializing in family law. She was very friendly, but as I was pouring the coffee, she put her phone on the table with the clock app open, as if she would be billing me if we overran, and I decided not to make a joke about Emily and Benedict arranging their prenup with her.

  Magnus, on the other hand, did something in property. He was good-looking in a raffish, public-school sort of way, but he wore yellow socks and reminded me a little bit of Dominic, specifically the way his eyes glittered at his own jokes and how he talked over Chloë and me. I was surprised by how wearing I found him. Maybe my tolerance had worn off in the weeks I hadn’t been living with Dom.

  ‘So, have you two known each other long?’ I asked, to push away the Dominic thought.

  ‘I’ve known Emily since boarding school,’ said Chloë, answering the question she wanted to answer. ‘My dad’s English and I went to school here. Em and I shared a flat together in London. We’re very close.’

  ‘Although you haven’t seen her for a while, have you?’ Magnus toyed with the biscuits, touching all of them deliberately, and then settling on a Bourbon cream. Delphine made them herself, dementedly pricking individual marks into them to make them look like the mass-produced version.

  ‘I’ve been busy with work, going back and forth,’ Chloë explained to me. ‘Obviously Emily’s been out in the States for the past year or so. With Benedict.’

  ‘Are we calling him Benedict now he’s famous?’ Magnus enquired. ‘Even though he’s been Benny for the twenty-five years I’ve known him?’

  Chloë finally turned her head and gave him a withering look. ‘I wouldn’t know. I’ve only known him for the seven years he’s been dating my best friend.’

  ‘On and off,’ said Magnus. ‘Seven years, on and off.’

  ‘Have you had a stopwatch running?’

  I let out an inner groan and poured myself a cup of tea to disguise it. Seven years of these two squabbling like this? God almighty. No wonder Emily and Benedict had decided to give things a go in America. If they were in America. If it were me, I’d have moved to Glasgow and set my alarm to email at appropriately time-delayed times of the night if it meant getting away from this over dinner.

  Come on, Rosie, I told myself. Channel your inner Joe. Find the joy in these two. Enjoy their spark. Imagine them fighting their rising feelings over a big argument about what colour cravats the ushers should wear …

  ‘So anyway,’ I said, hauling the meeting back on track. ‘I can show you two around today and give you a sense of how our weddings work here, where we hold them, what sorts of party spaces are available. We can try to replicate what Emily and … um, Benedict? had planned originally, or we can create something completely fresh.’

  ‘I think they should have something bespoke,’ said Chloë, decisively.

  ‘Bespoke? It’s a wedding. Not a three-piece suit,’ said Magnus. ‘Now, thank God Benny got his suit ordered early. More to the point,’ he added to me with a wink, ‘the stag’s still going ahead as it was. Track day, then paintballing, then we’ll draw a discreet veil over the rest.’

  ‘For the moment,’ said Chloë darkly. ‘I don’t think you’ve seen Missy’s official risk assessment of your track day, have you? Let alone the veiled stuff. Good luck getting that past Benedict’s insurance.’

  I looked at Chloë, then Magnus, and foresaw weeks of frozen smiles ahead of me. For the first time ever in my career, I was actually grateful I only had twelve weeks to plan a wedding.

  ‘Do you know if Emily or Benedict has ever visited the Bonneville?’ I asked. ‘I’m thrilled that we’ve got the opportunity to host their wedding, but it would be nice if we could reference some personal memory they have?’

  Chloë shook her head. ‘I don’t believe so. But Emily is happy to do FaceTime when she’s available, and you can walk her around so she can get a feel for the place? I’m recording all our conversations too, obviously.’

  I glanced at the phone. ‘Really?’

  ‘Well, edited highlights.’

  ‘Good! Lovely!’ I found myself leaning forwards towards the phone. ‘Lovely!’

  Oops. No. Awkward. I sat back and found myself wishing that Joe would walk past so I could lean on his charms to smooth these two down.

  Then I remembered no one else could know about it. Bollocks.

  ‘Em’s hoping to be back next month.’ Chloë’s face lit up, and she looked excited for the first time. ‘She’s been reshooting a tiny part she had Benedict’s film, so her schedule’s up in the air, but fingers crossed she’ll make it back. It’d be a shame for her to miss out on the fun bits like the cake tasting.’ She held up her crossed fingers.

  I held mine up too, and smiled.

  Maybe the shooting helicopters only delivered half a wish. The rest you had to work on yourself.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  To everyone’s surprise, but mainly mine, Helen and Wynn’s wedding ceremony at the end of May wasn’t going to take place in the hotel, even though Laurence offered to give them free venue hire, use of the honeymoon suite, and also the services of a top wedding planner (me) as his gift.

  Instead Helen accepted the generous offer of the top wedding planner, but told me that they’d decided to get married in a hidden-away Welsh chapel in the City, ‘where there will be decent singing,’ according to Wynn, and beautiful backdrops for the photographs, according to Nevin, who was giving them a mates’ rates package.

  ‘It’s sweet of Laurence,’ Helen explained over our first official wedding planning lunch in a pub round the corner from the chapel, ‘but I already feel as if I’m a bit married to the hotel as it is. I don’t want to be married in the hotel. And Wynn’s mum wants him to have a proper Welsh service. The whole family’s coming on a bus. And there’ll be a choir.’

  Wynn nodded. He’d taken the morning off to choose wedding bands and already looked as if he’d reached the outer limits of his interest in the process. But being a good-natured bloke, he was hiding it by nodding a lot and (probably) thinking about his stag do, which Helen had agreed would be a rugby international match of his choice.

  ‘And you’ll be pleased to know,’ he added to me, as our lunch arrived, ‘that Helen’s selected her retinue. No open auditions or weight testing required.’

  ‘It’s just going to be you and Joe,’ Helen confirmed, tucking into her steak pie. ‘And possibly Gemma, if she promises not to cry like she does at everyone else’s weddings. I’m thinking bridesmates. I’m trendsetting here. What?’ She looked up at me, fork poised over the shortcrust pastry.

  ‘Nothing. You’re just the first bride I’ve seen who eats more after the engagement,’ I observed.

  Helen snorted, and reached for the tomato sauce. ‘It’s been a long morning. I’m hungry. What’s the point of going on a stupid diet just when I need the energy most? We’re in March already, the wedding’s in under ten weeks. I’m hardly going to lose much between now and then. I don’t want to be like that girl you had to sew into her dress and force-feed baklava, only to have her pass out on the wedding cake.’

  Wynn looked startled.

  ‘Delphine was furious,’ I explained. ‘You can’t easily repair a cake with a whole face imprint on the top layer.’

  ‘Still, the French swearing brought her round quickly enough.’

  ‘And I want to marry the beautiful woman I met in the first place,’ said Wynn. ‘Not some too-skinny, fake-tanned version.’ He stopped smiling at Helen long enough to give me a stern look. ‘Helen’s been telling me about what happens to women when they get onto this wedding conveyor belt thing. It’s your job as chief bridesmaid to stop her changing at all, please.’

  ‘Aw, thanks, babe,’ said Helen, and grabbed his big hand.

  ‘Please stop,’ I said faintly.

  *

  Wynn left us to head back to his surgery, and Helen and I caught a
bus through the City. It was a lovely spring day, the sort of day when London feels fresh and positive, the pigeons gleam with reflected sunlight, and people smile as they barge each other off the pavement.

  ‘You’re in a good mood,’ Helen observed when we alighted at Leicester Square and walked through the crowds of tourists towards Piccadilly and the hotel.

  ‘Am I?’

  ‘Yes, you are.’ She scrutinized me. ‘And I know why.’

  ‘Why?’ I smiled benevolently at a motionless Japanese tourist and didn’t tell him that the first rule of walking in London is never ever stop walking ever, not even if it means going round in a giant circle.

  ‘It’s because you’re over Dominic.’

  The certainty in Helen’s voice surprised me. I’d been expecting her to say, ‘Because you’re doing well at work,’ or ‘Because Tiffany Noakes’s wedding was in the back of Tatler.’ But actually … she was right. It was days since I’d read one of Dominic’s columns, digging my nails into my palms whenever the word Betty appeared. I’d actually forgotten that today was one of his review days.

  Blimey.

  ‘See?’ Helen pointed at me. ‘I’m right, aren’t I?’

  ‘You might be,’ I said, and realized that I was happy about it. Or rather, I didn’t feel sad any more. It was like a scab had fallen off, to reveal perfectly smooth healed skin underneath.

  How had that happened? How had that low ache of misery suddenly worn off … almost without me noticing? ‘I thought it’d take longer than this,’ I mused aloud. ‘Huh.’

  ‘I know why, too,’ Helen went on.

  We’d reached the pedestrian crossings at Piccadilly Circus, waiting for the lights to change so that the slow ribbon of black taxis and red buses would stop to let us cross, and we could be mown down by cycle couriers instead.

  ‘And why’s that?’ I glanced across at her. ‘Actually, don’t tell me – I know. It’s work. I’ve been too frantic with meetings to think about Dominic and his stupid reviews. But that’s a good thing, for once, so don’t give me the You Work Too Hard, Get a Life lecture.’