by Iona Whishaw
“I can’t go waltzing into a church wearing white like an ingénue,” she had said when Angela had first seen it and exclaimed over its shimmering loveliness and complete inappropriateness as a wedding dress. “I’d feel like a complete fraud. Anyway, I can use this again.”
“Yes, indeed,” Angela had said. “For all those cocktail parties we throw here at King’s Cove.”
Ames pulled up in front of Darling’s house. He set the brakes for the steep hill and went to the door. He was about to knock when the door was opened by a young man to whom Ames had been introduced the day before. Darling’s brother, Bob.
“Good morning, Constable Ames. We are all ready, though Father could not be persuaded into a suit. Fred, your constable is here!” he called into the house behind him. “This is Isabel,” he added, “my fiancée.”
Ames shook hands with a lovely, delicate strawberry blond woman dressed in crème satin, with a matching hat, whom he was prepared to like immediately, until he detected a determination in the set of her jaw that reminded him too much of his recent girl, Violet, with whom he had parted ways.
“Miss,” he said with courteous caution.
Darling appeared, pulling his shirt cuff even with the suit sleeve. He stopped short and looked at Ames. “What’s that?”
Ames held it up. “It’s a boutonnière, sir, to wear in your bouton. As you see, I have one.”
“It doesn’t mean you’re going to get me into one.”
Darling’s brother took the offending item. “Come along, Fred. Don’t be obstreperous. Do as you’re told.”
Ames held the door as the party left the house, Darling last, and he leaned in to whisper, “You look very handsome, sir. She’s a lucky woman. And before you ask, I have the rings.” He patted his pocket. “Got your speech?”
“For the last time, Ames, I am not making a speech. I thought the whole point of getting a best man was to have him do the speeches.”
“Just kidding, sir!”
“Please don’t. It’s extraordinarily unhelpful.”
Smiling inwardly at seeing his boss in a state of nerves, Ames set off for King’s Cove. The overnight rain had made the usual dust on the roads lie down. They should get there looking as fresh as daisies.
Gwen was up the hill putting the finishing touches on the layout for the wedding party, and wondering if it really mattered that the three of them would be wearing the same best dresses they wore for every event. Well, it was Lane’s day. What mattered was that they would be able to get their crystal and best china out for an airing. She noted, with approval, that the sun had decided to cooperate and the rain had not knocked the garden around too much.
“We haven’t had a wedding here for a donkey’s age,” Mabel said, coming in with a pile of exquisite Royal Albert Imari side plates. “Whatever prompted Mother to buy fifteen place settings? Where did she think we were moving to in the nineties?”
“We’ve never had a wedding here,” corrected her sister. “I suppose you and John would have tied the knot here, though. I expect that’s why Mother bought all that china. She thought her daughters would have big weddings.”
John had been killed in the Great War, which had put an end to all of Gwen’s hopes, and bad fortune had left Mabel a spinster as well, though neither dwelled on it after all this time.
“What do you think she’ll wear?” Gwen asked. “Angela hasn’t breathed a word.”
“She did say it was a rather surprising choice, though. Do you think it’s possible she won’t wear a proper wedding dress?”
“Anything is possible with our Miss Winslow,” Mabel said.
“What do you think, Mother?” Kenny asked, surveying his cart, now bedecked in ivy.
“Very nice. You will bump her to death on the way to her wedding. I’ll be walking, if no one minds.”
“Look at the sun and that long rim of blue sky! Could it be more auspicious? Will we like having him as a neighbour, I wonder?”
“Certainly. It is always comforting to have a gentleman living next door. He has exquisite manners. We’ll be as safe as houses, having a policeman in King’s Cove. There, now. What do you think of this?”
Eleanor held up a bouquet of fall flowers. Dahlias and late roses provided layers of orange and gold, and some sprigs of late lavender and greenery made a perfect balance.
“Lovely. Should I put a crown of ivy on Alexandra?”
“Only if you want to irritate her. I’m going to run this over to Lane now.”
When Kenny pulled his wagon next to the path to Lane’s house, the sun had fully emerged. Lane had been listening anxiously to the sound of cars pulling up the hill toward the church. She had had a battle to keep Angela from fussing too much with her hair and had wanted to have as little makeup as possible, on the grounds that she would like the groom to be able to recognize her.
There was a brisk knock on the door, and Kenny, in a very snug but becoming grey wool jacket, bowed. “Your carriage awaits, madam.” And then he followed this up with “Whew! Don’t you look a sight!”
Lane had topped the wedding ensemble with a neat blue hat with a veil that came to just above her chin. Eleanor had lent her a mink stole, covering the required “something borrowed.”
“Will I do?”
“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: he’s a lucky man!”
“Well I hope someone on the other end is telling him I’m a lucky woman because I am.”
Angela came up behind Lane carrying the bouquet. “Oh, how perfect! These deep oranges with that gorgeous blue of your dress! Such complementary colours!” She held the bouquet next to Lane’s dress. “I hope poor David has managed to wrangle the boys into their clothes. I have a feeling there was a real donnybrook about the bow ties! What if they forget what they’re supposed to do?”
“No one will notice. They’ll all be looking at our miss, here. Hop in, Angela. Best get moving. Don’t want to frighten the groom by being late,” Kenny said.
The decorum of the bride’s arrival was slightly marred by Angela’s boys, who had been waiting outside the church, galloping inside, and shouting all at once, “They’re here!”
Lane stood with Kenny at the door of the church, her arm through his, bouquet in hand. The organ, played by Gwen, sounded the first stuttering chords of the wedding march and Kenny gave her hand a little pat.
“Now then, we’re on,” he whispered.
Darling and Ames were at the end of the aisle, looking toward her. The wooden pews creaked as everyone else turned and there was a gentle gasp and murmuring. Lane heard a scarcely contained “Che bellezza!” from Lorenzo, and she smiled. Ames was beaming, and had clearly bought a new suit for the occasion, as had Darling, who was dressed in a deep charcoal grey, a match for his eyes, which were turned toward her. She wasn’t sure what she wanted or ought to see in the eyes of the man she was about to marry, but the look of almost devastated longing would do. And then she was there, and Darling reached for her hand.
“It’s over pretty fast,” remarked Alice. “No time to think it through and wriggle out while you can. Very good eats, these. Did you make these sausage rolls, Mabel?”
The afternoon had become warm enough that people were standing in the garden with plates of canapés and glasses of champagne. The boys were chasing each other around the islands of flowerbeds, causing Gladys, who was standing with Gwen near the kitchen door, to wince.
Mabel nodded at Alice and continued a theme she’d developed in her mind during the ceremony. “I don’t know that it’s entirely appropriate in this day and age to have women passed from man to man like some sort of parcel, do you? At least they dropped the dreaded ‘obey.’” The vicar, Darling, and Lane were helping themselves to sausage rolls and something made with mushrooms that Mabel had brought around.
“It was only Kenny,”
Alice pointed out. She was set to say something else, but the sausage rolls demanded to be eaten.
“I’ll tell you something: I was extremely glad of an arm to lean on. I was much more nervous than I thought I’d be,” Lane said.
“I’m not surprised, with me at the end of the road. What do you think, Vicar?” Darling said.
“Well, of course, it is a very long tradition, with no doubt disreputable origins from when women were chattels. I think it’s probably good to bring new eyes to bear on this sort of thing. You’ve certainly flown in the face of tradition by electing to continue to be called Lane Winslow despite the name on your marriage certificate. I imagine it could create awkwardness from time to time. I’m not sure the world is ready for that sort of thing.” He looked as though he might be worried about the brave new world and what might be set to replace the flawed old one.
Lane smiled. “I think we just thought that with his name being Darling, and us calling each other darling all the time, it would be too much of a good thing if I too went about calling myself Darling.” She glanced at her husband. It had been their final resolve. Lane had loved Darling the more, for his only slight resistance to the idea. “But I don’t promise it will entirely eliminate my desire to protect you,” he’d warned.
Gladys surveyed the success of her party from the steps. She and Gwen had plates of tiny squares of sandwich, egg, sardine, ham, which they were about to disperse into the crowd. “We’ve already got the one Russian foreigner, but who’s that other little foreigner?” Gladys asked Gwen suddenly, nodding in the direction of Lorenzo, who was talking to David Bertolli.
“Mother, please, I told you, they made the cake.”
“Yes, but why has the baker been invited to the wedding? That’s not usual, is it?”
“They are very good friends of the inspector and Lane.”
“Peculiar sort of friends if you ask me,” her mother remarked, “but the cake looks decent, I’ll say that.”
“Really mother, peculiar? Have you looked at this lot lately?” Gwen waved her hand to encompass the Mathers, Robin Harris, the Bertollis, the Armstrongs. “The guests from Vancouver are the only normal people here!”
“And who the devil is that?”
Gwen swivelled to where her mother was pointing. Ames was talking to a blonde who wore an extraordinary hat with a pair of partridge feathers on it that swooped around toward her chin, framing her face in a most becoming manner. Her suit was bright yellow, and pulled in charmingly at the waist, and seemed to complement, rather than compete with, her curly, very blond hair.
“That is a lady mechanic. Constable Ames brought her. She’s very lively. He’ll have to watch himself! The Van Eyck girl, do you remember? We used to see her at the church picnics in the early thirties when she was a girl?”
“Rather odd headgear, but she has a lovely smile,” Gladys conceded.
“I have an old colleague from my early policing days who lives in Arizona,” Darling said. They were sitting, alone at last, in the armchairs in front of the Franklin in Lane’s house, the fire throwing flickers of light along the walls of the darkened room. “We’ll need a honeymoon. It might be nice to be there when the weather gets dicey here.”
“I’ll go anywhere, as long as I’m with you. Is that too clichéd for words?”
“Only when other people say it. It was very nice of Ames to drive my father and brother and his fiancée back to town. I hope his lady mechanic didn’t mind. I thought it was a rather good do altogether.”
“As did I. Some of the locals were a little surprised to be served that divine flakey and creamy sort of Italian wedding cake. I’m sure they all expected a rock hard square of fruitcake with marzipan and white icing in the British tradition.”
“Miss Winslow, the fire is dying down. Should we be spending the evening talking about cake?” Darling asked. He reached for her hand and entwined his fingers through hers.
Lane, her shoes off, leaned toward Darling with a rustling of taffeta, and kissed him. “Not if you don’t want to,” she said, her lips grazing his again, so that his heart leapt.
On Monday morning, Ames pushed into the cafe next to the station, whistling despite another wave of inclement weather. It was the fall after all. The wedding had gone off beautifully, and Darling would be away until Thursday, though everyone had encouraged him to take at least a week off. Darling had explained that they were going to honeymoon in November, and crime wasn’t going to stop just because he’d gotten married.
April looked up, and smiled a greeting, making Ames wish he could have worn his new suit. He looked exceedingly smart in it. At least, so Tina had said.
“You’re in a good mood. How did the wedding go?”
“Like clockwork.”
“You didn’t forget the rings then?”
“Very funny. I think I’ll have the full breakfast today. Being a best man is hungry work.”
April smiled and poured Ames a coffee. “Do you think this will improve his mood? That Miss Winslow is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
Ames toyed with “not as lovely as you,” but worried it would reignite the discomfort of their brief courtship and unfortunate break up. And there was Tina Van Eyck to consider. It was just the sort of thing that probably got him into trouble in the first place.
“I hope so,” he said. “But maybe if I ever get my sergeant’s letter, that might do it. I’d like a ‘first class.’ Probably too much to hope for.” He spooned sugar into his coffee.
“Probably. You know he already thinks you’re first class, don’t you? I bet dollars to doughnuts he still stiffs you with the breakfast bills, though!”
Ames was feeling slightly annoyed on his way down the hill to the station on the Thursday Darling was due back. He was already anticipating that he would still not have received notification about his exam results, but when he walked into the office, imagining having to make an angry phone call to Vancouver, O’Brien handed him a letter.
“Get in trouble with the police while you were there?” O’Brien asked.
“Oh, jeepers. This will be my results!” Ames bounded up the stairs and closed his office door. And in the next instant opened it again and bounded into Darling’s office.
“I did it, sir! I mean, good morning.” Ames sat down, feeling a little faint, and leaned back in his chair. He looked down again at his letter, then passed it to Darling.
“Well done. Won’t you sit down? No, you can’t put your feet up on my desk. This will never entitle you to that,” Darling said.
Ames leaned over and pointed at a line on the letter. “First class, sir. What do you think of that?”
“Very creditable. I suppose you’ll be swanning around wanting to be addressed as Sergeant from now on.” Darling looked past Ames and gave a slight nod to someone outside the door.
Ames turned and saw no one and resumed the happy perusal of his letter.
“I wouldn’t describe me as ‘swanning,’ sir, would you?”
“Every time you get a new pair of shoes, Ames.”
They were interrupted by the sound of light hammering. Darling waited till it stopped.
“Run along and quit cluttering up my office. I have to finish the paperwork on this Brodie business.” He watched Ames leap out of the chair and start toward the door. “Oh, and Ames, about figuring out that Oxley had planted evidence . . . not bad, all things considered. There might be hope for you yet.”
Ames tried unsuccessfully to keep himself from beaming. “Thank you, sir. And about the wedding, I want to thank you again—”
“Later, Ames. Beat it.” Darling waited until Ames had left and then smiled. He had a great deal to smile about, he thought.
Ames made it as far as his office door and then stopped. There, above the door, was a new wooden plaque with gold lettering. It
read:
SERGEANT D. AMES.
Acknowledgments
The other day I was going through my bookshelves and found a notebook in which I must have been practicing some ’80s-era visioning. In 1987, after years of scribbling, and with no publication to my name (and little hope of any), I drew a stick-figure cartoon of myself sitting at a table with a pile of books and a great crowd of people lined up to have me sign their copies of my “best-selling” novel. It’s taken almost thirty years and at least three careers, but now I can say I have lived that scene many times since I took up with Lane Winslow.
This hasn’t happened because I’m clever or prescient. It’s happened because of the people who believed in me from the start of this series, taking these books from a someday dream to a lovely, tangible reality. These people include the talented and absolutely delightful people at TouchWood Editions: Taryn Boyd, a publisher who envisions what could be; Renée Layberry, the sharp-eyed and infinitely patient in-house editor; Tori Elliott, the industrious publicist who seems as delighted with the writers’ success as the writers themselves. I must also thank the other brilliant editors who have prodded me, challenged me, and been kind enough to enjoy what I have written: Cailey Cavallin, Warren Layberry, and Claire Philipson. They have helped make A Deceptive Devotion as good as it can be.
Thanks as well to designer Colin Parks and any number of others at TouchWood Editions who squirrel away making beautiful books a reality. The cover illustrations, which elicit exclamations of delight from anyone who has seen them in my travels across Canada and in the US, are done by Margaret Hanson.
