‘Yes, what were you doing, Huw?’ Coralie asked, still trying not to burst with happiness because Gethin’s arm was wrapped firmly round her waist. She was so close she could feel the rumble of protest as he started to speak.
‘Huw …’ he warned.
‘Coralie, bach,’ Huw insisted. ‘Let’s just say that one way or another, your young man was determined to win the girl in the coral dress, even though someone else won her portrait. Now get yourselves a glass each will you, so we can drink a toast. Now then,’ he continued, resting his gaze on everyone in turn, ‘here’s to love and happiness and the Girl in a Coral Dress!’
‘I’m sure that’s more than one toast, Dad,’ laughed Kitty.
‘I don’t think you can have too many celebrations, can you?’ said Gethin, turning to Coralie and smiling down at her in a way that made her glad he was holding her up. ‘So, I’d like to propose a toast too, if you’ll hear me out.’
He cleared his throat and looked almost shy as he started to speak. ‘It’s no secret that I couldn’t wait to leave Penmorfa. I thought I was escaping a place with a particular mind-set, a cold, unforgiving location.’ He looked around at them, as if to acknowledge his misapprehension. ‘It’s taken me fifteen years, since I won the art competition that showed me a different future and thousands of miles, to realise that it’s not about where you are, but the people you’re with.
‘I’d like to say thank you to you, Alys, for understanding and for always taking me as you found me, not how others said I was. To you, Huw, I’m indebted to you for persuading some builders to transform Dad’s cottage and helping me to see the place in a new light. And to you, Kitty and Adam, for so clearly demonstrating that life and love will always endure even in the smallest of villages. Together you’ve shown me the heart of Penmorfa and how a loving, caring family will always keep it beating. Here’s to you!’
He raised his glass, but Alys interjected. ‘I think you’re crediting the wrong people with changing the direction of your life, aren’t you?’ she said softly. ‘Don’t leave it too late to tell her.’
‘Ah,’ he said, ‘I was just getting to that. I think Coralie deserves my special thanks.’
‘Well, it looks as if we’re going to be doing much more toasting, this evening,’ said Huw. ‘Come on, everyone back to the farmhouse!’
Coralie would have liked some time alone with Gethin. She started to follow, but Gethin’s grip tightened on her waist as he held her back.
‘We’ve got other plans, Huw, if you don’t mind.’
‘Right you are, boy!’ Huw said cheerfully, over his shoulder. Then he spotted an unopened bottle of sparkling wine and hurried back with it. ‘Take this the pair of you; you’ll get a terrible thirst on you with all that catching up.’
What was once Gethin’s father’s run-down cottage now felt cosy and welcoming with some simple furnishings and subtle lighting, but Coralie suspected Gethin hadn’t taken her there just to admire the transformation. The planes of his face looked sharper; he’d lost a little weight, too.
‘Forgive me, will you?’ he said, drawing a ragged breath.
‘Hush,’ she said, pressing her fingers to his lips. ‘There’s nothing to forgive.’
‘I was afraid of getting involved, of turning into someone like my father, but every time I tried to walk away from you I became more like him.’
Coralie put her arms round him and held him closer.
‘I couldn’t stop thinking about you,’ he said, stroking her hair. ‘You brightening up my life class the moment you walked in the room. You in Battery Park adding all the colour to the day. You 102 floors up in the sky. Your face at the opera. I don’t know where we go from here, Coralie. All I know is that I don’t want to let you go.’
‘There’s an awful lot we don’t know about each other,’ she said, pulling away again.
‘I’d know the scent of your skin blindfolded,’ he said. ‘That’s good enough for me.’
‘That’s just sex,’ she teased, looking into his dark eyes. Her hair had started to come undone and she felt him gently release the clip that was holding it in position and let it tumble round her face.
‘There are worse starting points.’ He placed his fingers under her chin, coaxing her to look at him. ‘Look at that portrait and tell me that I don’t know you.’
‘Ah, that’s just paint.’ She smiled.
‘Paint’s all I’ve got to show you how I feel,’ he murmured.
‘Paint them and forget them, Ruby said.’
‘Yeah, she also told me never to let you out of my sight again, when she said goodbye to me at JFK. She wants to see us both there next time. If there is a next time …’
‘I don’t care where we go,’ she said quietly. ‘So long as we’re together. We’ll work something out.’
‘What is there to work out?’ he asked, sending her heart soaring. ‘I know the tilt of your head when you look at the sea, I know that dewy-eyed look when you see some dumb animal, I know how lovely you look first thing in the morning.’ He dropped his gaze to her lips. ‘And I know how to make you cry out my name.’
A small sob escaped her throat and he pulled her to him and kissed her, his firm mouth on hers, his body hard against her.
‘Coralie.’ He laughed, touching his forehead to hers. ‘Just come upstairs to my bed will you?’
He sat her on the big iron-framed bed and told her to keep her eyes closed for a minute. She could hear him fumbling with matches, cursing every so often, and wanted to laugh. But when she was allowed to look, he’d lit a circle of tea lights all round them. A little world, outside the real world. He stretched out beside her and just looked at her until she thought she’d go crazy with longing if he didn’t put his hands on her.
‘I still can’t believe you’re here,’ she said, searching the depths of his sexy dark eyes. ‘I’m so pleased you made it to the auction. I didn’t know if you would, when I wrote to you. And I haven’t even thanked you for coming,’ she added, still aching for him to touch her.
‘I haven’t yet,’ he said, with a husky catch in his voice that made her shiver with longing, ‘and you will.’
‘I’ll start now then, shall I?’ she whispered, kneeling up so she could untie her wrap dress.
‘That’s a good trick.’ He whistled softly as the silky material slipped off her shoulders. ‘It’s probably just as well I didn’t know about it earlier.’
Coralie was going to say something clever, but his hand cupped her breast, and his thumb stroked her nipple through the thin satin. With his free hand he reached round and unclasped her bra. ‘That’s a good trick, too!’ was all she could gasp before losing herself in a quest to see what else they could do together.
Much later, when the tea lights had burned down twice and the chill had long worn off what was left of the sparkling wine, Coralie sat up and looked at Gethin stretched out beside her and told herself how happy she was. He had a body she could never get tired of seeing, a perfectly assembled combination of lean, hard, rough and smooth. And he knew exactly what to do with it, which was very lucky for her, too.
He scooted over and wrapped his arm across her hips and rested his head in her lap. She slid her fingers through his hair, thinking how much she’d missed him, how she would miss him again and how wrong it would be to get too used to having him around.
He jerked his head up, caught her expression and pulled himself up to sit beside her. ‘Spill it, Coralie. Come on, no secrets now. Not after what we’ve shared. Tell me what’s wrong.’
She shook her head, feeling awkward. ‘Where do we go from here? That’s all I was wondering.’
‘Hey,’ he said softly. ‘If you don’t know how I feel about you by now, I don’t know what else to do.’
She twisted the sheet. It was stupidly insecure to ask for any more than that.
He smiled down at her, pulling her close and dropping a kiss on her hair. ‘We’re going to catch up on all the things we’ve missed, ev
erything we didn’t say and do, and we’re going to be doing plenty more of this. It’ll be perfect.’
‘Yes, it will, won’t it?’ she agreed, wishing she could be certain. Something still bothered her. But when he stroked her shoulder and nibbled her neck and pulled her down beside him, she couldn’t remember what the problem was.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
‘Can you believe it’s only six months since you went out to New York?’ Alys asked, smacking her lips and pouting into the mirror. Coralie, standing behind her, tried to dodge the golden October sunlight slanting in through the bedroom window whilst she squinted into Alys’s beautiful old-fashioned dressing table mirror attempting to pin up her hair.
‘Bleurgh!’ said Alys, applying her lipstick, ‘I am so not used to wearing all this makeup. I feel like a clown! And next week you’re off again.’
‘Alys, you look even more gorgeous than ever. Adam’s mates will all be falling in love with you.’ Coralie grinned, winking at her.
‘Get that clip in your hair, before I do something slow and messy with it that would ruin Kitty’s wedding day,’ Alys warned.
Coralie, leaning over her shoulder, laughed. ‘But, it’s not fair! As chief bridesmaid, isn’t one of my duties to get off with one of the groomsmen? They’ll never notice me with you around. Any chance that Adam might have gone to school with Jared Leto?’
‘Jared? No.’ Alys picked up one of her pink, pearl-drop earrings. ‘He left a couple of years before Adam started.’
‘And now Wilfie’s taken, too!’
They exchanged looks of disbelief in the mirror, still unable to believe how well Wilfie had scrubbed up.
‘Anyway,’ Alys said, turning her head slowly from side-to-side in a last-minute inspection. ‘You don’t need Jared or Wilfie. Not now you’ve got Gethin.’
Whether anyone would ever ‘get’ Gethin, as Alys put it, remained a moot point, but it had been a very happy, if busy summer, she thought, straightening up before she was on the receiving end of a liberal spray of Shalimar.
‘I do think it’s strange though,’ Alys said wistfully, ‘that the events that reconnected Gethin with his Welsh roots seem to have taken you in the opposite direction.’
One day at a time, Coralie reminded herself. ‘I’m so happy to see Gethin so fired up about his work again. I love the stuff he’s doing now.’ He’d begun working en plein air, painting outside to catch the light across the sea in Penmorfa Bay or making brief, lightning sketches of the faces of the people who lived and worked in the small, rural community.
‘Yes, but you’ve done well for yourself, too. Selling your Happy Hands and Rose Works recipes to a major cosmetic house is quite a coup in these difficult times.’
‘If I do.’ Coralie tied the sash of her turquoise taffeta dress, feeling very relieved that Kitty hadn’t let the little bridesmaids have their way. Purple was so not her colour. ‘I’m still not sure that’s what I want to do. That’s partly why we’re going to New York next week. Gethin’s gallery have changed their tune and want to reopen talks with him, and we’ll catch up with his former assistant’s new exhibition, too.’
‘And have some time for each other, I hope,’ said Alys.
Coralie looked at herself and frowned. For all Kitty’s claims that the strapless bodice of her bridesmaid dress was self-supporting, she was still convinced that unless she was very careful she could easily end up looking like the novelty act at a seedy club.
‘Are you decent, ladies?’
As she ever could be, thought Coralie, chewing her lip and looking doubtfully at her reflection.
Huw, pretending to cover his eyes, walked into the bedroom. More used to seeing him in a rather antique pair of moleskin trousers topped with a corduroy jacket of the same vintage, Coralie thought he looked incredibly distinguished with his well-cut silver hair against the black of his morning suit.
‘Oh, look at you!’ Alys jumped to her feet to brush some imaginary fluff off his shoulders. ‘Don’t you look handsome?’
Huw grinned and pulled his wife in to kiss her, despite Alys’s squawks about her makeup. ‘Where’s the bride-to-be then? Not in here?’
‘We’re just going up to her room now, to help her into her dress.’ Alys beamed. ‘Is she getting impatient then?’
Huw scratched his head. ‘Well, I don’t know. I can’t find her.’
‘Oh, Lord!’ Alys plonked herself down on the stool again. ‘She’ll break that boy’s heart if she backs out now. I do hope she hasn’t got cold feet.’
‘Nope! I wore my wellies.’ Kitty laughed, padding in, her feet in thick socks. ‘You didn’t really think I’d jilt Adam, did you? It was just that I was looking at my bouquet and it struck me that one thing was missing, so I dashed down to the garden centre for a sprig of myrtle to tie in for good luck. And when I checked the table decorations in the marquee, one string of fake pearls on the top table had given way, but the beads looked so pretty spilling across the linen tablecloth that I didn’t bother to clear them up.’
‘Kitty!’ screeched Alys. ‘Never mind all that! What about you? I know you’re thrilled to be back in your old jeans, but wearing them with one of Adam’s hoodies and your hair in rollers is not a great bridal look. Have you seen what the time is?’
Come on, Kitty, thought Gethin, beginning to feel nervous. To think he’d been worried that with all his secret preparations he’d be the one most likely to be late to the wedding. Everyone in the congregation was starting to lean out of their seats, wondering if they’d shelled out on all those Egyptian cotton sheets and towel bales in vain. Adam, poor sod, stood squarely at the front of the church, staring firmly ahead. He felt for him. It was hard enough for the guy anyway, with no parents to support him, although the best man, his older brother, was taking good care of him.
Whilst the organ swelled to cover the audible murmurs, Gethin reacquainted himself with the room. Penmorfa’s tiny chapel was unchanged; its simple interior unadorned except for the lectern and altar cloths which were lovingly embroidered with a design of wheat and fish. As a little boy he’d thought the fishes particularly exuberant, as if, with the village being so close to the sea, someone hadn’t been able to resist making them look as if they could smell the salt air and were just about to dive for freedom. He just hoped Kitty hadn’t done the same.
Just then he heard heels clipping behind him and the processional music began as Alys, looking ravishing in an Edwardian-style suit in a dusky pink silk, hurried down the aisle to take her place. Alys wouldn’t make a bad mother-in-law, he thought, looking at her appreciatively as she gave Adam’s brother a quick thumbs up before sliding into the pew. Like one of her own garden centre prize blooms, she just got better-looking every year. Was that a tear he noticed shimmering on her cheek beneath her glorious wide-brimmed hat? Overflowing emotions, probably, on this momentous day. Joy, of course, and now that her daughter had turned up at last, more than a little relief.
Gethin turned and got a quick glimpse of Huw looking dashing in his morning suit. How hard, he wondered, had Kitty worked to persuade her father to dress up for the occasion? Not very, he guessed. ‘But, Dad,’ he could hear her saying, with a catch in her voice. ‘Please. For me.’ He could imagine the look that went with it too; any resistance from Huw would have been futile.
The bride looked beautiful but the star of the show for him was the chief bridesmaid, a girl with sherry-coloured curls and rosebud lips, who was smiling at him with tears in her lovely, tawny eyes. Gethin felt his smile grow wide and his heart beat faster, although this was probably not the moment to pull her onto his lap.
Kitty, apparently reading his mind, stopped to throw him a suspicious look beneath her veil. He was grateful to one of the little bridesmaids for recovering the situation with a swift prod to her silk-covered back. Coralie, regaining her composure, gathered them all up and shepherded the whole party towards the altar. He didn’t blame Kitty for a certain amount of mistrust. He’d been doing some think
ing, keeping his plans close to his chest, and the only part he’d managed to figure was that everything hinged on Coralie. It was anyone’s guess what happened after that.
As Kitty reached the altar, her astonished gasp showed that Adam had been keeping a surprise of his own. He turned, grinning broadly, to reveal a real shiner of a black eye, leading Kitty to throw all protocol out of the window by fussing and cooing all over him.
The Vicar, in her own imitable style, calmly restored order, welcoming the congregation and revealing that the groom’s black eye was nothing more sinister than the result of an early-morning surfing session to burn off some pre-wedding nerves. ‘So now,’ she continued, ‘on this day when Kitty and Adam prepare to launch, well, maybe not a surfboard, but a new boat, shall we say, in which to sail through life and learn the ropes together, let us begin …’
Letting the words of the solemnisation of matrimony flow over him, Gethin took a deep breath and looked round the room whilst he tried to refocus. Somehow the pews had managed to accommodate what felt like the whole of Penmorfa, but it was a bit of a squeeze. Kitty’s Cardiff friends and Adam’s surfing mates were already eyeing each other up. Some of the couples amongst them sat hand in hand, reliving their own special day; others were thoughtfully anticipating their own. And that had to be Adam’s older sister, the physiotherapist, since she looked so much like her brother. He remembered Adam joking she was the brains department of the family.
All at once, the fidgeting and shuffling in the congregation seemed to stop.
In the sudden quiet the Vicar’s calm voice rang out clear and true above what seemed to be a collective holding of breath. You couldn’t help it, he thought, the power and poetry of the words just grabbed you, whether you believed in them or not. All that dreadful day of judgement stuff and secrets of all hearts being disclosed was guaranteed to make you feel guilty about something. But at least Coralie, smiling reassuringly at one of the little bridesmaids, had shed her secret worries about what might be in store for her when the final trumpet sounded. Unable to take his eyes off her, he leaned forward to catch a glimpse of her face in profile and had to take a deep breath when she looked over her shoulder, caught his eye and gave him a dazzling smile.
Move Over Darling Page 27
