by Jill Mansell
‘Oh look at her,’ whispered Kate. ‘Isn’t it just the loveliest thing?’
And Clemency could only nod in agreement, because who could argue with that? She watched as her dearest friend Ronan walked his beloved mother Josephine down the aisle between the rows of chairs until they reached the front, where the registrar and Ellis Ramsay waited for her.
Josephine’s face was radiant. Having lost her beloved husband Donald so many years earlier, she had never even considered finding another man to replace him. Instead she had thrown herself into her work, running the restaurant they’d started together all that time ago.
And when Ronan had met his biological father, Clemency hadn’t been the only one who’d secretly wondered whether Marina and Ellis, seeing as they were both single and had been mad about each other before, might rekindle their relationship.
But it hadn’t happened; the spark of attraction between them had been replaced by the enduring glow of genuine affection and friendship. Instead, quite out of the blue, Josephine and Ellis had experienced an emotional connection that had soon progressed to love. Ellis had bought Ronan’s old flat and begun to spend a lot more time down in St Carys, their deepening relationship beautiful to behold.
Now they were taking the ultimate step and getting married.
It was an emotional moment. Ellis’s glamorous doctor daughter Tia, over from America for the wedding and sitting in the front row next to her half-brother, was already dabbing her eyes. Ellis’s handsome face was a picture as he gazed at Josephine. And as for Josephine, in her stunning amethyst dress and simple gold jacket … well, she just glowed.
‘Look at the aunties and cousins,’ Kate murmured, giving Clemency a nudge. ‘They’re all crying too.’
They were. Mascara was running and happy tears were being shed at a rate of knots. Clemency murmured, ‘We might need to send out for more tissues.’
Izzy had been preoccupied with removing her white shoes. Now, looking up and spotting Josephine beneath the flower-strewn pergola, she let out a shriek of delighted recognition. ‘Nanna!’
‘Sshh, sweetheart,’ said Kate. ‘Nanna’s getting married.’
‘Nanna,’ bellowed Izzy, twisting like an eel in an attempt to escape.
‘Quiet now.’ Kate tried to distract her. ‘Look, what have you done with your shoes? Where are they? Shall we put them back on your—’
‘NANNA NANNA NANNA,’ roared Izzy, sliding off her mother’s knee and racing up the aisle, swerving this way and that and dodging random attempts to catch her. She fell over twice before arriving at Josephine’s feet, where, her little arms outstretched, she shouted, ‘Nanna, up.’
Ronan was on his feet now, preparing to scoop her up himself. ‘It’s OK, I’ll take her away for a bit.’
‘Oh no, you mustn’t. We can’t do this without Izzy.’ Josephine shooed Ronan back to his seat and bent to lift her adored granddaughter effortlessly into her arms. ‘We can’t leave you out, gorgeous girl, can we?’
Izzy beamed, waved her hands in the air and yelled one of her favourite words: ‘No!’
When everyone had stopped laughing, the registrar began the ceremony with Josephine still holding Izzy. And this time Izzy stayed quiet and appeared to be listening attentively while Josephine and Ellis, facing each other, made their heartfelt vows.
Clemency felt Sam find her hand and squeeze it, and she returned the squeeze with a secret smile. That’ll be us soon.
At the very end of the ceremony, the registrar announced to Ellis, ‘You may kiss the bride.’
And Izzy, recognising another of her favourite words, promptly clasped Josephine’s face in her small hands and planted an exuberant kiss just to the left of her grandmother’s mouth.
Amid more laughter and applause, Ellis took a step closer to his new wife and said jokily, ‘Do you think it could be my turn now?’
Whereupon Izzy, with the circlet of flowers tipping sideways on her head, twisted round and kissed him too.
Chapter 46
Two days after Ellis and Josephine’s wedding, Clemency was more than ready to throw her good friend Ronan off the nearest cliff.
‘I can’t believe you’ve done this to me,’ she wailed. ‘I told you there wasn’t time to stop off at the bank, and you didn’t listen. And now you’ve come the most ridiculous long way round and I’m going to miss my flight … which means it’ll be all your fault but I’ll be the one who ends up getting the blame!’
‘Hey, no need to get your knickers in a twist.’ Ronan had the most infuriatingly relaxed attitude towards air travel. ‘Don’t panic, we’ll make it. Most people are so neurotic – they always get there far too early.’
‘That’s because they want to make sure they catch their planes. I like being early.’ Clemency’s fingers were twisting together in agitation; how could he not understand? ‘Then I can relax and not get all stressed out. Oh God, it’s three o’clock! They’ll start boarding in five minutes! I knew I should’ve got a taxi.’
‘Clem, when have I ever made you late for anything?’
Was he being deliberately infuriating? ‘All the time!’
Ronan grinned. ‘It’s only Marcel, anyway.’
‘Stop being annoying. Just go faster.’ Clemency closed her eyes and willed herself to try and calm down. Marcel was an eccentric but extremely wealthy friend of Gavin’s who lived in Paris and was keen to increase his property portfolio in Cornwall. He had arranged a series of meetings requiring the presence of a representative from Barton and Byrne. But Gavin was off playing in a golf tournament in Portugal and Ronan couldn’t manage to get away either, so the task had fallen to Clemency.
Except the way things were going, there was now every chance she’d miss her stupid flight.
Fifteen minutes later, they reached Exeter airport. Ronan screeched to a halt, Starsky and Hutch style, as close to the entrance as possible and Clemency threw herself out of the car.
‘Don’t mention it,’ Ronan said cheerfully as she hauled her small case off the back seat. ‘My pleasure!’
Clemency blew him a kiss. ‘You’re a nightmare and I’m never letting you give me a lift again.’
God bless online check-in. Thankfully she was able to get through security without any hold-ups. No time for duty-free, of course. With her case rattling along behind her, Clemency raced to the boarding gates. Oh phew, her flight hadn’t closed, and there was the plane, waiting on the tarmac. She’d made it after all.
No thanks to Ronan.
OK. Now she could stop hyperventilating and start to relax.
Once she was on the plane, albeit still out of breath, Clemency made her way down the narrow aisle. Her seat number was 23B. And the flight was pretty full, so there was already someone sitting in 23A. Of course there would be.
Then her seat-neighbour lifted his head and Clemency stopped dead in her tracks and did a double-take. Followed by one more take, because how could it possibly be Sam?
I mean, really. How could it be him?
‘What’s going on?’ When she reached him, her heart was clattering like a tambourine against her ribs. And Sam, who’d been gazing idly out of the window, now turned his head to look at her.
Politely, he said, ‘Sorry?’ and removed the buds from his ears. ‘Oh, hello! We’ve met before, haven’t we? You look familiar.’
But his dark brown eyes were sparkling, and despite his best efforts, he wasn’t quite managing to keep a straight face. Rising to his feet and easing himself out of the seat, he said, ‘Here, let me help you with that case.’ Then, once it had been safely stowed in the overhead locker, he turned and kissed Clemency on the mouth. ‘That’s it. I definitely recognise you now. I sat next to you on a flight back from Malaga a few years ago. I never forgot you, you know.’
She smiled. ‘I never forgot you either.’
‘Glad to hear that.’ He gave her another teasing kiss.
‘But I still don’t know how you did this.’ Clemency shook her head in disbel
ief. When she’d left the flat less than two hours ago, Sam had been wearing jeans and a faded purple polo shirt, and had been working in the kitchen on his laptop.
Now he was wearing a white shirt, charcoal trousers and the soft midnight-blue sweater that he’d lent her on that first fateful flight.
Plus, he was no longer at home in the kitchen. He was in the seat next to hers, on a plane bound for Paris.
‘I drove pretty fast,’ Sam explained. ‘I didn’t stop to go to the bank, and I didn’t take the long way round. I came straight here, and was first in line when they opened the boarding gate.’
So Ronan had been in on it all along, and the delay had been precision-engineered. She might have known. Clemency’s eyes swam with tears of joy, because Sam had planned this whole thing, and it was one more reason why she loved him. Even if, just this once, he’d actually got it a bit wrong.
‘This is such a brilliant surprise.’ She hesitated, hating to have to break it to him. ‘But the thing is, we’re not going to have much time together in Paris. I’m so sorry. Marcel has back-to-back meetings planned with his lawyers, his accountants and his company directors. He says I need to be there, sitting in on all of them so everyone knows what’s going on.’
The cabin crew were instructing passengers to place their bags beneath the seats in front of them and to securely fasten their seat belts. By the time everyone had finished doing this, they were ready for take-off.
‘Oh dear, how can I say this?’ Sam beckoned her closer. ‘Marcel’s in Mexico. There is no business deal. There are no meetings. Sorry about that. For the next two days, it’s just you and me, and the Hôtel Plaza Athénée.’
‘No work? Just us? In Paris?’ As the plane began to reverse out of the boarding bay, Clemency reached for Sam’s warm hand. It felt, as it always did, so good and so right. There were no guarantees in this life, but all she could hope was that they’d be able to carry on holding hands for the next fifty years. Because even when she and Sam were very old and incredibly wrinkly, she knew she would still love him with every fibre of her being. She smiled again. ‘Now I’m even more glad I didn’t miss the flight.’
‘All we have to do is wait for this plane to get up in the air so they can bring the drinks trolley round. Then we can have a couple of glasses of wine to celebrate.’ After glancing at her pale blue cotton dress, Sam said, ‘We should probably stick to white this time.’
‘Or we could live dangerously,’ Clemency gave his fingers a squeeze. ‘And have red.’
