Wickham Hall, Part 1

by Cathy Bramley

  I hurried across to the side gate where I’d been talking to Nikki earlier. The short cut would save me a much-needed few minutes. I went through the gate and found myself in the far corner of the churchyard on a moss-covered path amid the gravestones.

  I ran as quickly as I could, heart racing with the excitement of it all, going over the plan that was unfolding as I travelled: find Lady F, alert her to a short delay, go back to the hall and bandage Zara’s ankle while Esme makes some modifications to her dress and then deliver the bride to the groom before he gives up all hope. Simple.

  Besides, being a bit on the late side is a bride’s prerogative, isn’t it? Pleased with my own quick thinking, I allowed myself a little smile as I came to the edge of the graveyard. The sound of organ music, overlaid with the chatter of the assembled guests, increased as I rounded the church and approached the main doors and I took a deep breath, preparing myself to go in.

  Suddenly a movement caught my eye: the top of someone’s dark curly head was just visible behind the stone cherubs on top of an elaborate headstone and I could hear grunting and muttering.

  What on earth . . .?

  I stopped and stared, my pulse thumping in my ears as a white T-shirt was tossed aside, landing on the stone-carved Bible of the grave next door.

  I crept closer to take a look. And there, hopping on one leg as he tried to kick his way out of a dirty pair of jeans, was a man wearing nothing but a pair of boxer shorts. What looked suspiciously like a morning suit and top hat were nestled amongst the long grass between the headstones.

  With a flash of panic, I realized instantly what was going on. I couldn’t see his camera but he was obviously paparazzi trying to disguise himself as one of the wedding party. And in a graveyard! Security was geared towards preventing unwanted visitors to the hall. It hadn’t occurred to me that some unscrupulous lowlife would try this sort of stunt. How . . . how . . . rude!

  ‘Excuse me!’ I piped up, fumbling to unclip the two-way radio from my waistband. Security needed to be alerted immediately. Unfortunately, the ribbon of my dress seemed to have got all tangled round the clip and I couldn’t free it. ‘Do you mind?’

  The would-be wedding crasher whirled round, one ankle still trapped in his jeans. Dark brown eyes flashed beneath a head of messy curls.

  ‘Yes, I do mind, actually.’ He grinned. ‘Can’t a man get changed in private?’

  ‘Private?’ I retorted, cross with myself because even though this scruffy intruder was clearly in the wrong his body was quite pleasing to the eye. Was that a tiny tattoo about two inches above his right nipple . . .? Oh God. Now I’d gone bright red. ‘Hardly private!’ I said, waving my arm around at the gravestones.

  ‘Well, the residents haven’t complained so far.’ He winked, showing absolutely no remorse whatsoever. He took a pair of trousers off a hanger and stepped into them. ‘You, on the other hand, are staring.’

  The absolute cheek! Annoyingly I couldn’t stop staring at the dark line of hair running down his tanned torso and—

  I shook myself briskly.

  ‘For your information, Mr . . .?’

  He bent down to ease his feet into smart shoes and I saw him chuckling to himself.

  ‘I’m doing my job, as I’m sure you are, Mr— oh, damn it.’ The ribbon around my waist would not yield the radio so I yanked at it and it came loose from my dress, still attached to the radio clip. I whipped my arm about, trying to get rid of the ribbon but all I succeeded in doing was make the ribbon twirl prettily in the air.

  ‘Grrr!’ I muttered through gritted teeth, getting angrier and redder by the second. ‘Who are you anyway and where are you from? Not that that means you’re welcome, because you’re not.’

  ‘From?’ he teased. I cast a sideways glance at him. He was openly laughing now, head thrown back, his full mouth exposing a set of perfect white teeth.

  ‘Yes. Which of the local rags . . .?’ I tailed off, remembering belatedly that Lady F had explicitly said I was to give everyone a Wickham Hall welcome, no matter how unwelcome the person was.

  With some relief, I finally freed my navy ribbon from the radio and let it slip to the ground.

  ‘I’m Ben.’ He pulled a brand-new shirt out of a packet, shook it out and began to wriggle his arms into it. ‘And I work for, er, a new upmarket glossy called Heirs and Graces,’ that’s “heirs” with an “h”, not air that we breathe, in case you wanted to make notes.’

  I scowled at him; he was definitely teasing me now, he could see I didn’t have anything to write with.

  He tucked the bottom of the shirt into his trousers and I did my utmost not to watch his hands delving into his waistband. He looked up and caught me staring. ‘Don’t get any ideas,’ he said, raising an eyebrow. ‘I’ve got a wedding to go to.’

  What! My jaw opened and closed as words – specifically witty ones – completely deserted me. Did he think . . .?

  ‘Ideas?’ I huffed, finding my tongue at last. ‘Here’s an idea to get used to. I’m calling security.’

  I arranged my face into my best grim expression and without tearing my eyes from him, pressed the button on my radio. ‘Security? Holly Swift to security?’

  Now if this had been a film, there’d be some gravelly voiced action hero on the other end who’d come to my aid within seconds, shinning over obstacles and throwing himself across the bonnet of fast-moving vehicles, but here, in a sunny churchyard with a hot and stroppy events organizer faced with an unrepentant intruder, all I got from my SOS message was a loud crackly noise that made me jump.

  It was all a bit of an anti-climax, actually, especially when Ben perched on the nearest headstone and started whistling nonchalantly. So I picked up my ribbon and retied it, pointedly refusing to meet his eye, as though a delayed response was exactly what I’d been expecting.

  All right, so I did sneak a peek at him when I thought he wasn’t looking. Wow, he certainly scrubbed up well; the suit emphasized his broad shoulders, the crisp white shirt set off his tan and as much as I didn’t want it to, his cheeky smile only added to the attraction.

  He looked up and grinned. ‘No bodyguard yet, then? And you work here, do you?’

  I nodded, red-faced at being caught staring.

  ‘Great. Can you get these laundered for me while I’m here?’

  He scooped up his clothes and chucked them at me. A pile of dirty and, now that I looked more closely, paint-spattered clothes.

  ‘I’m going back to London on Monday, so ready by then, please.’

  ‘Do your own dirty laundry!’ I fumed, returning his clothes to him with a swift volley. They landed on the stone cherubs between us and for a moment or two we glared at each other. Correction – I glared, his shoulders started to shake.

  Our staring competition came to an abrupt halt when the scraping of high heels alerted us to the fact we had company. I turned to see Lady Fortescue running as fast as her tight dress would allow.

  ‘Holly! What’s happened to Z— Benedict! Darling . . .’ She ran towards him, holding out her arms.

  Benedict. Not Ben. Benedict: heir to Wickham Hall and recipient of my furious outpourings. Someone please rewind that bit where I lobbed his dirty clothes back at him. Every drop of blood drained down to my feet and for one blurry second I thought I was going to faint. I leaned heavily on the nearest gravestone instead and wished it would open up and swallow me whole.

  Lady Fortescue kissed her son, rubbed the lipstick mark off his cheek and then looked down at the pile of clothes draped on the headstone. ‘Oh, please.’ Her shoulders sagged. ‘Don’t tell me you got changed out here?’

  ‘It was to save time,’ he protested, eyes twinkling. ‘And I thought I’d be alone.’

  I’ll just examine the toes of my shoes, I thought, until my face reverts to its normal pale pink.

  ‘Oh, Benedict.’ She sighed. ‘And I see you’ve met Holly Swift, Pippa’s new assistant? She’s the one I told you about, who came up with the hidden treasures c
ampaign.’

  ‘Did she?’ Benedict Fortescue shot me a knowing smile. ‘Pleased to meet you, Holly.’

  His hand swept down across his groin area so subtly that his mother wouldn’t have noticed it. But I did. ‘Well, you’ve certainly seen the crown jewels today.’

  ‘Oh, excuse me,’ I said, manufacturing a coughing fit as a cover for my scarlet face. Benedict snorted with unsympathetic laughter as I banged my chest. ‘Lady Fortescue, Zara’s had an accident. I came to bring you back to the hall.’

  When you’re the daughter of a lord, it seemed, there was no problem delaying the wedding by a short while. Lady Fortescue had taken her daughter upstairs to undress, Esme arrived with all her sewing equipment and various pieces of ribbon and lace, and Sheila and I organized for the bar staff to wheel drinks trolleys over to the church so that Philippe and the wedding guests could relax in the sunshine with a cold drink.

  An hour later, Zara was wearing her newly customized dress and standing barefoot at the bottom of the stairs. Esme was kneeling in front of her, tugging the hem.

  ‘I’m done!’ She sat back on her heels. ‘How does that feel?’

  ‘I think I love it even more. Mum, look!’ Zara twirled round, somewhat clumsily on her swollen ankle.

  Zara had insisted that she didn’t want the new thigh-length split simply sewn up and so Esme had made a softly gathered lace overskirt that joined the original dress under the bust line. She had sewn up most of the split and made another small slit on the other side seam to match.

  ‘Although I was quite enjoying the extra leg room.’

  ‘Oh no,’ Esme argued, shaking her curls. ‘Coco Chanel said that a girl should be two things—’

  ‘Classy and fabulous,’ Lady Fortescue finished, wrapping an arm around her daughter’s waist. ‘And you, my darling, are both.’

  She turned to Esme, who was packing things back into her sewing box.

  ‘And who do we have to thank for this emergency repair?’ she asked, extending a gloved hand to Esme. ‘With all the panic, we didn’t get introduced.’

  Esme got to her feet and shook Lady Fortescue’s hand. ‘I’m Esme Wilde, from Joop,’ she replied, looking unusually demure for my effervescent chum.

  ‘And also my best friend,’ I explained.

  ‘Once again, Holly, your quick thinking got us out of a hole. Thank you both very much,’ Lady Fortescue said with a smile.

  ‘The lace is handmade in France,’ said Esme proudly. ‘So your new husband will approve, Zara.’

  ‘I’ll leave some Joop business cards on the terrace,’ I added, pulling the handful I’d picked up earlier out of my bag. ‘Their summer collection is amazing.’

  The church bells pealed out again and Lady Fortescue jumped. ‘Goodness! What are we all doing standing about? Quickly, everyone, before poor Philippe thinks he’s been jilted.’

  She kissed Zara’s cheek and sped off out of the door and across the gravelled drive in her high heels. Zara looked down at her feet and then back at me. I knew what she was thinking: she’d never get her wedding shoes on over that swollen ankle.

  ‘Here,’ I said, slipping off my own white ballet flats, ‘try these.’

  ‘Ooh, bliss.’ Zara sighed, closing her eyes. ‘We must be the same size; can you wear my heels?’

  ‘Of course.’ I nodded and stepped into her vertiginous white satin shoes.

  The bride reached out and took one of my hands and one of Esme’s. ‘Thank you. For everything. You two are lifesavers.’

  ‘Zara, darling, we really must go,’ murmured Lord Fortescue as he tucked her arm through his. ‘Those French wedding guests will be revolting.’

  Esme’s shoulders started to shake and I elbowed her in the ribs.

  ‘Daddy!’ giggled Zara. ‘You can’t say that.’

  Lord Fortescue rolled his eyes. ‘Not that sort of revolting, you silly goose!’

  Zara took one step forward and faltered, crying out in pain. ‘Ouch! I don’t think I can walk at all, let alone all the way down to the church.’

  I glanced at Esme, wondering if Coco Chanel had anything useful to say about twisted ankles when Jim turned up, out of breath. He lifted his security cap and patted his forehead with a large white handkerchief. He looked very smart today, if a little warm, in a dark grey uniform.

  ‘Did you want me, Holly?’ he asked with gusto, his eyes glinting optimistically. ‘Have we had a press invasion?’

  Lord Fortescue stiffened and drew a protective arm around Zara.

  ‘Well—’ I began.

  ‘Oh, miss,’ Jim exclaimed, when he noticed Zara, ‘congratulations on your wedding day. I remember you when you was a little girl and now look at you.’ He swallowed. ‘All grown up and—’

  Lord Fortescue cleared his throat. ‘Press, did you say?’

  ‘No, no,’ I said hurriedly, hoping no one noticed the flush to my cheeks. ‘False alarm. Ages ago.’

  Just as well, under the circumstances, I thought as I fanned my face. If Benedict had been a bona fide intruder instead of Lord Fortescue’s son and heir, I wasn’t sure how I’d have been able to detain him by myself for an hour. Sit on him, perhaps? Not an unpleasant idea . . .

  For goodness’ sake, Holly. Get a grip!

  ‘False alarm? Oh.’ Jim’s face fell. ‘I’m glad to hear that.’

  He looked over his shoulder and addressed two of his colleagues on the drive. ‘Stand down, chaps, crisis averted. By the way,’ he queried, raising his eyebrows at Esme, ‘is that your car illegally parked, Miss, only—’

  Esme had driven right to the front entrance as instructed to get here as fast as possible. Hardly the Rolls Royce of a girl’s dreams, I conceded, as an idea struck me, but better than nothing.

  ‘It’s the wedding car,’ I blurted quickly. ‘Why don’t you drive to the church, Lord Fortescue?’

  ‘Well, I . . .’ Lord Fortescue stroked his chin.

  ‘Allow me to chauffeur you, Your Lordship,’ suggested Jim. He puffed out his chest and pressed his cap on firmly.

  ‘In my old knackered— Ooh, that hurt,’ Esme yelped as I pinched her.

  ‘Great idea, Holly. Again.’ Lord Fortescue beamed and began to lead Zara towards the door. ‘Now take it steady, my dear.’

  ‘Wait a second. Come with me, Es!’ I cried, scooping up some remnants of her ivory lace. We ran outside – well, I hobbled in Zara’s heels – and tied big bows around the wing mirrors of Esme’s battered old MG Midget.

  Lord Fortescue helped Zara into the tiny back seat and then lowered himself in to the front and Esme handed Jim the keys.

  ‘Made my day, this has,’ whispered Jim in my ear, pressing his handkerchief to his eyes. ‘Everybody in?’

  ‘That was surreal.’ Esme stared at me. ‘And you . . . you were in your element, organizing and delegating and decision-making.’

  ‘I know,’ I said with a contented sigh. ‘I honestly think I’ve got the best job in the world.’

  Chapter 10

  Thankfully the dress disaster was the only mishap of the day and from the moment that Zara entered the church on Lord Fortescue’s arm, the wedding proceeded smoothly.

  Esme and I had set off to find a glass of champagne but just as I was about to fill her in on my graveyard gaff with the brother of the bride, Jim had arrived back with Esme’s car. As soon as he’d handed over the keys, declaring that they didn’t make British cars like them any more, Esme had dashed back to Joop and I’d tottered over to the little church of St John’s in Zara’s heels.

  Three completely harmless photographers had turned up and the four of us watched at a respectable distance as the happy couple emerged through the lych-gate thirty minutes later surrounded by friends and family.

  The crowd threw handfuls of pastel-coloured confetti and Zara squealed as Philippe swept her off her feet and into his arms. She looked so happy and radiant and I was thrilled that I had played a small part in making her day successful. She caught my eye and waved. I waved
back wildly and then set off back to the hall to find out what Sheila had wanted me for.

  There was no sign of Sheila; she had had to leave early for her own family event, apparently, so after checking with Jim that there was nothing pressing for me to do, I spent a contented hour catching up with some filing in my office.

  By mid-afternoon, all the guests were seated in the Great Hall for the wedding breakfast, which was my cue to go home. I cast a satisfied eye round the tidy room, wondering what Pippa would make of the changes I’d made when she came back to work on Monday.

  I trotted down the stairs, headed along the corridor to take one final peek in the Great Hall now it was full of wedding guests and jumped when my mobile phone rang.

  ‘Pippa,’ I said quietly, edging forward to look through the gap in the door, ‘I was just thinking about you!’

  At the far end of the room a shorter ‘top table’ had been set up at the end of the long dining table. Zara and Philippe were at the centre of it, heads touching, smiling into each other’s eyes. The room hummed with laughter, tinkling silver cutlery and the chink of champagne flutes, and the fragrance from Nikki’s exquisite floral displays hung in the air.

  ‘Hello, Holly.’ Pippa sounded quiet and subdued.

  ‘The wedding is heavenly; you should see the happy couple. They only have eyes for each other.’ I sat down on a dark oak settle under the mullioned windows in the corridor while I chatted. ‘Still, I can show you the pictures next week; I can’t wait to have you back.’

  Pippa groaned. ‘I won’t be coming back, I’m afraid. Hasn’t Sheila told you?’

  ‘What? No, she hasn’t.’ I frowned. The penny dropped: that must have been what she wanted to talk to me about earlier.

  ‘My husband and I are divorcing, he’s keeping the house and I’m going to move in with my parents for a while, so . . .’ her voice trembled. ‘Sorry, pathetic, aren’t I?’

  ‘Oh, Pippa, not at all! I’m the one who should be sorry,’ I soothed. I felt terrible now; blathering on about the happy couple . . . ‘It sounds like you’re being incredibly generous and brave to me.’