Boot Camp Bride (32 page)

‘So,’ she said slowly. ‘You aren’t returning to Colombia?’

‘I’m staying here, with you. Well - not here with you, you understand. I think the overwhelming smell of damp and sardines would get to me after a while. I want you to move into the mews with me. Come live with me and be my love, as the poets have it.’

‘So, why did you ask for the ring back?’ Charlee demanded, wanting boxes ticked, i’s dotted and t’s crossed. She couldn’t afford to get this wrong.

‘Because it wasn’t offered to you in the right spirit and you accepted it under false pretences. I want to right that wrong. Charlee, I only need - want - you,’ he said passionately. ‘You’ve turned my life on its head, helped me confront the past and deal with it. You’ve shown me that I can stop feeling guilty for what happened in Darien and live a decent life. I’ve never met anyone quite like you. I love you, Charlee and I want -’ He paused in the middle of his passionate speech and sent her a perplexed look. ‘Are you listening to any of this?’

‘Yes! No - wait.’

‘Yes. No. Wait?’

‘I know I’m not making sense but now I know that you’re not returning to Darien, I have something to give you.’ She turned the laptop round so Ffinch could see the screen. ‘Ffinch - the scoop of a lifetime!’

‘It’s in Russian,’ he said, confused by the Cyrillic script and her lack of response to his passionate speech.

‘Correct, but luckily I can translate. This,’ she pointed at the spreadsheet, ‘contains everything the Crown needs to put Trushev and his associates behind bars for the rest of their lives. Names, bank account, drugs consignments, payoffs … it’s all on the data stick.’ Ffinch edged closer to the screen as if fearing the evidence would vanish in a puff of smoke. ‘Without the key players, his drugs cartel will collapse; I will be safe and Anastasia will have her way home.’

‘But how?’ She handed over the data stick and he held it in the palm of his hand as if it was made out of solid gold.

‘Anastasia. She wanted a way out of the relationship and the only way she could achieve that was to put Trushev behind bars. I’m guessing that he threw the laptop containing this information into the creek the night he escaped, destroying all the evidence. Or so he thought.’

‘Charlee. Oh my God. You are magnificent and I love you.’ Leaving the laptop on the kitchen table, he came across and kissed her roughly.

‘You do?’

‘I do. I said so earlier but you weren’t - ’

‘Because of this?’ she asked, pointing at the spreadsheet. She needed to be sure, very sure, before she gave her heart unreservedly.

‘No, you idiot. Because I love you and because … you’re brave, funny, sexy, exasperating, pig-headed, annoying …’ He rained little kisses on her face as he delivered each adjective.

‘Can we just stick to the more flattering stuff?’ she demanded, giving him an arch look and moving out of his reach. There was one final thing she had to say. ‘I may have given you the data stick, but without my knowledge of Cyrillic script - or getting in a linguist - you have no hope of using it. We’re partners, Ffinch; equal partners, every step of the way. Deal?’ She spat on her hand and held it out to seal the contract. Regarding her with complete admiration, Ffinch took her hand and turned it over, then he kissed the back with an old-school courtesy that sent her legs wobbly again.

‘Partners,’ he agreed, looking as if it would take just the slightest bit of encouragement for him to take her on the low-slung futon.

As much as she wanted that to happen, Charlee held out and stated her terms. ‘Montague and Ffinch.’

‘Ffinch and Montague,’ he argued, his eyes alight with love and mischief. ‘And, while we’re on the subject of names, do you think you could bring yourself to call me Rafa? Considering the fervour with which we made love last night, I think it’s time we progressed to using first names. All this Ffinch and Montague business makes me feel like I’m back in boarding school.’

‘And you may call me Carlotta. I rather like that. It makes me seem exotic, different.’

‘You are exotic; and as for different, I can say with some certainty that there’s no woman in the world quite like you,’ he said with feeling.

‘I’ll take that as a compliment, shall I?’

‘It was meant as one. Now, back to business. In exchange for the data stick … Granny’s ring.’ He retrieved the ring from the blue velvet box. ‘Fonseca-Ffinch, campaigning journalists, it has a certain
je ne sais quoi
, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Just like Brad and Angelina in
Mr and Mrs Smith
…’ Charlee said, her blue eyes sparkling.

‘… Only without the cache of weapons in a secret room under the garage and with fewer rooms being trashed.’ Laughing, he held the ring between thumb and forefinger and quirked an eyebrow at her. ‘Unless your feminist principles prevent you from taking my name? The choice is yours, Carlotta.’

Wordlessly, for no words were necessary, Charlee stepped forward and slipped Granny’s ring back on her finger. She curled her fingers into her palm in case he, or anyone else, tried to take it from her.

‘I choose you, Rafa,’ she said and walked into his arms.

‘Then I am, without doubt, the luckiest man on earth. Home, Carlotta?’

‘Home,’ she agreed.

Chapter Thirty-eight
High Tide and Summer Solstice

A delicate knock on the door woke Charlee from a wonderful dream of her and Rafa swimming in a turquoise sea along with a school of dolphins. She was sure there must be some Freudian significance to the dream but it escaped her for the moment. Her mother entered with a tray of coffee, toast and a bright red gerbera in a vase. Bringing up the rear was Miranda, wearing one of George’s old shirts over cut-off jeans. Charlee rubbed her eyes, it was early and maybe she was still dreaming.

‘Mum?’ she said, sitting up in bed. Her mother had never brought her breakfast in bed, not even when she was a little girl and ill with the flu.

‘We thought, being as this would be your last breakfast as an unmarried girl, we’d serve it to you in bed.’

Unmarried girl? Her mother made it sound like she was the last ugly daughter left at home and they were lucky to have someone take her off their hands.

‘Thanks,’ she said and put the tray on the bedside table. Then she looked at them pointedly, willing them to leave. She didn’t want them spoiling the day with their nonsense, tears and emotional stuff. The church and the Rev Trev were booked for eleven o’clock and she didn’t want to rush. ‘Was there something else?’

‘Do you mind if I sit down, Charlotte? Now that I’m pregnant I find myself exhausted at the slightest effort.’

‘Like walking along the landing from your bedroom?’ Charlee asked, straight-faced.

Miranda and George had just had their twelve-week scan and been reassured that everything was good to go for a Christmas baby. Although she was still as thin as a rail, Miranda had taken to wearing oversized shirts in lieu of maternity clothes and had copies of the scan printed to hand out to relatives and friends. Charlee suspected that it was going to feel like a lo-o-ong pregnancy.

‘Charlotte,’ Barbara Montague snatched her daughter’s hand before she could pull it away. She patted it and her eyes filled with tears. ‘My baby girl,’ she glanced over at Miranda and their faces took on soppy expressions. ‘Such a big day for you. For us all.’ Charlee laughed, it was a bit late for her to be coming over all motherly.

‘I’m ready for it, so if you wouldn’t mind leaving me alone I’ll finish my breakfast before Poppy and Anastasia get here.’ She reached out for a slice of toast and started to chew at it but her mother and Miranda stayed put.

‘I do think that you could have asked Barbara and me to help you get ready, Charlotte. We are family, whereas the other two -’

‘Are my best friends,’ Charlee said, cutting Miranda off in mid-gripe. Then she muttered through clenched teeth, ‘and can be guaranteed not to drive me mad on my wedding day.’ She swallowed her toast and drank some coffee before continuing more diplomatically. ‘Miranda, you couldn’t help because you would exhaust yourself, and Mum - you have to supervise the church and the cars, etc. I think I can get dressed on my own, don’t you?’

‘I suppose so,’ Barbara said, dabbing at her eyes with the edge of her dressing gown. ‘Just one more thing …’

 ‘What now?’ Charlee asked.

‘Just to warn you, to say that … wedding night … men can … it can all be …’ Barbara and Miranda exchanged a look and Charlee blushed to the roots of her fair hair. Surely, even her mother wouldn’t deliver a Sex Ed lesson on her wedding morning?

In spite of everything that had happened at the boot camp, their headline-breaking scoop and Charlee living permanently at the mews, Barbara couldn’t quite let go of the notion that her daughter was still twelve years old. Charlee folded her arms across her chest and adopted a mutinous expression until they got the hint and stood up. Miranda pressed a hand into the small of her back like she was eight months pregnant. Barbara paused on the threshold and turned back with a woeful expression.

‘Was there something else?’ Charlee asked, hoping there wasn’t.

‘Just … relax and give in gracefully, Charlotte.’

Charlee nearly choked on her toast. They were acting like this was a Jane Austen novel and she’d never been alone with a man, let alone … Little did they know she’d been giving in disgracefully to Rafa Ffinch as often as twice a night for the past several months. The mere thought of Rafa and their lovemaking sent squadrons of butterflies fluttering in her stomach.

‘Thanks Mum,’ she said, desperate to get rid of them. ‘Miranda. That was very … uplifting.’ Dismissed, the two women exchanged a look of fellow feeling and left.

When they closed the door behind them, Charlee let out a squee of excitement and then glanced over at the white linen bag hooked over the wardrobe - her wedding dress. There’d been a tussle over that, too, her mother wanting the full meringue and Charlee demanding something more befitting a country wedding.

If she’d had her way, they’d have sloped off to Chelsea Register Office and got married like a couple of sixties film stars, with only Poppy and Anastasia to act as witnesses. But Rafa had insisted on doing everything according to time-honoured tradition. He was his parents’ only child, and felt that he couldn’t cheat them out of the wedding. Charlee acquiesced, knowing she would happily have jumped over the broom and forgone all this brouhaha as long as it meant they would be married and stay together, forever.

‘Shar-lee, you look beautiful,’ Anastasia said, as Poppy - in her role as chief bridesmaid - fastened the simple wreath of flowers on Charlee’s head. The garland of flowers had been Anastasia’s idea and she’d trimmed it with ribbons which streamed down Charlee’s back, giving her wedding outfit an almost Ukrainian look.

‘Fabulous, Charl,’ Poppy agreed and the two girls stood back to get the full effect. Much to Charlee’s relief, Poppy and Anastasia had bonded over a mutual love of horses and the countryside. It seemed an unlikely match - a girl from Odessa and one raised in the Home Counties - but somehow it worked.

‘Flowers,’ Anastasia handed Charlee a hand tied bouquet which picked out colours in the ribbons and the blue in Charlee’s eyes.

‘Ring,’ Poppy said, holding out her hand for Granny’s ring which Charlee removed, reluctantly. Poppy wrapped it in some scented tissue paper and then put it carefully inside her silk reticule to return to Charlee after the ceremony.

‘God, you two are so bossy,’ Charlee complained, stepping forward to give them both a hug. Then she composed herself. ‘You can tell my father that I’m ready.’ For the first time that morning her voice quavered and she took in a deep breath. Poppy and Anastasia had sent Barbara, Miranda and Charlee’s four brothers off to church about fifteen minutes earlier. All that remained was for the four of them to walk the few hundred metres along the lane to the village church.

Her bridesmaids gave Charlee one last, satisfied look.

Her cream silk and taffeta dress was ballerina length but with a longer fishtail at the back, the whole dress was underlaid with a stiff net petticoat which kept the hem off the floor. The bodice, tight-fitting and sewn with tiny seed pearls, had a shawl collar which perfectly suited Charlee’s slim shoulders. At her throat was the string of pearls Rafa had given to her before leaving for the Walkers’ house the previous night. They’d been nestling in a heart-shaped red velvet box for many years and Rafa’s mother had had them cleaned and restrung for her son to give to his bride.

As Poppy and Anastasia helped her to slip on cream leather ballet flats, Charlee took a deep breath, closed her fist round the pearls and whispered: ‘I love you, Rafa Ffinch.’ Then, without a backwards glance, she closed the door on her childhood, forever, and followed the girls downstairs to join her father.

The Rev Trev was standing at the side door to the church almost beside himself with anxiety when the four of them reached the church’s lychgate. The Montague brothers, Rafa’s Fonseca cousins and two of Anastasia’s minders were arguing with a group of paparazzi and holding them at bay. Rafa had suspected that a few might turn up at the wedding of the two reporters who’d smashed a drugs ring and - more importantly for the Sundays - had chosen Yevgeny Trushev’s supermodel girlfriend for a bridesmaid. As for Trushev - he’d seemingly vanished into thin air soon after the drugs bust at the boot camp and hadn’t been seen since. The smart money was on him lying somewhere on the bottom of the North Sea wearing concrete wellies, a present from the drugs cartel whose money he’d lost.

‘My, my, my,’ the Rev Trev stammered, shaking Henry Montague’s hand and then mopping his forehead with his surplice. ‘I didn’t realise just who would be at the wedding; I mean - Ambassador and Mrs Fonseca-Ffinch. Why did no one warn me?’

‘Well, they are Rafa’s parents,’ Poppy pointed out.

‘I should have asked the bishop to officiate.’ He fingered the silken edge of his stole, clearly believing that he’d dropped a clanger.

‘I wanted you, Rev Trev,’ Charlee said sincerely, laying her hand on his arm. ‘This church and all my friends and family. Not some crusty old bishop who’d no doubt feel obliged to preach a sermon to a captive audience when everyone is desperate to get to the champagne and canapés.’

‘Quite,’ her father said with finality. ‘Shall we? Boys!’ He waved the Montagues and the Fonsecas forward. The men were standing goggled-eyed at the collective loveliness of Poppy (who the Montague brothers had previously thought of as a horse-mad teenager in jodhpurs and smelling slightly of manure); and Anastasia - who looked tall and lovely in a matching deep-blue satin dress overlaid with cream lace.

The ushers and the Rev Trev slipped away and after a few moments the organ struck up ‘The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba’. Charlee and her father stepped over the threshold and into the church. The congregation got to their feet and tried their hardest not to glance over their shoulders as the bride processed up the aisle.

Charlee was oblivious to it all. The colours, the scent of dust and hymn books undercut by roses and lilies, the light streaming through the stained glass window and the choir waiting for the first hymn. Her attention was focused on the red carpet leading to the nave where a broad-shouldered man in a morning suit was waiting. The man she loved above all others. For a moment she faltered, lost step with the music, and then she was by Rafa’s side and he was looking at her as if all his Christmases had come at once.

‘I love you,’ he mouthed, making Charlee’s heart flip over and her hands shake so much that she feared she’d drop her bouquet. Smiling, but feeling a little unsteady, she handed it to Poppy. Henry Montague took a step back because Charlee had declared she was no man’s property to be ‘given away’. She’d given herself to Rafa and that was enough. There was a general rumble as the congregation sat back in the pews and the ceremony began with the time-honoured words:

‘Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today …’

Rafa searched for Charlee’s right hand, linking his fingers through hers. The words of the marriage service echoed round the tiny church and on the longest day of the year, in high summer, Charlee and Rafa were wed.

A huge marquee had been erected in the Montague’s orchard. Charlee and Rafa stood in the receiving line as friends and family shuffled past amidst kisses and well wishes. Rafa’s Brazilian cousins waited their turn and then solemnly kissed the back of Charlee’s hands before turning their attention to Rafa, slapping him on the back and digging him in the ribs.

They wished him a bawdy night of love (in Portuguese) and said how they envied him having the lovely Carlotta in his bed. Charlee laughed and Rafa whispered to his cousins that Charlee spoke fluent Portuguese and had understood every word. They fell over themselves apologising but Rafa waved them away.

‘I agree with all of your sentiments. I am a lucky son of a -’ Charlee dug him in the ribs as an aged aunt, wearing what looked like a lopsided turban, stood in line to give them a whiskery kiss. Rafa caught Charlee’s hand and pulled her closer into his side, whispering what he was going to do to her when they were alone. Charlee, storing up her mother’s ‘give in gracefully’ comment for later, pretended outrage at what he was proposing.

‘Ladies and Gentlemen, be upstanding for Mr and Mrs Rafael Fonseca-Ffinch,’ Charlee’s father said, and they took their place at the top table amid applause from the assembled guests.

Later on, after the first dance - which was not ‘I Like Big Butts and I Cannot Lie’ - Charlee cornered Rafa and demanded to know where they were going on honeymoon. A trip to establish the Elena and Allesandro Foundation for Street Children in Bogota (with a generous donation from Anastasia) had been arranged for the near future. Fitted in, that is, between interviews about their coup on the marshes - once the case was no longer
sub judice
- and after-dinner talks to raise money for the foundation. There was even word of them co-authoring a book based on their experiences.

Life was good.

But that all lay in the future. Tonight, was just about the two of them. Charlee had been instructed to pack a holdall with some casual clothes. Puzzled, she’d obeyed. Anastasia and Poppy would pack her suitcases with her trousseau and drive them to the airport in two days’ time when she and Rafa would fly off to somewhere ‘hot’.

That was all he’d tell her, for now.

At four o’clock, Rafa’s navy-blue and white camper van was waiting on the drive, tied up with yards of white ribbon which was finished in a large bow over the nose. Some wag had stuck their names onto the windscreen - Carlotta and Rafa - and they laughed, remembering Christmas Eve when Charlee’d suggested the selfsame thing and Rafa hadn’t found it in the least bit funny.