Gypsy Wedding (35 page)

Another waiter appeared with a tray full of brimming champagne flutes and began to offer around drinks as the photographer tried to get some semblance of order with the gathering of happy, noisy friends and relatives. He managed to get everyone together for a selection of group shots and as soon as he’d finished, most of the party disappeared round the back of the hotel to the converted barn, where the reception was to be held, searching for the bar, leaving Vicky, Liam, their parents, their bridesmaids and the best man to be grouped for a more intimate selection of photos.

‘Cop a load of Jack,’ whispered Liam to Vicky as they posed for yet another picture. She glanced over her shoulder at Liam’s best man, who was gazing at Kelly like a dog hankering after a biscuit.

‘Dear God, he’s completely smitten,’ said Vicky, stifling a giggle. ‘His tongue’s hanging out and he’s almost drooling. You’d better tell him she’s not one of us before his heart gets completely broken.’

‘Let him have his fun tonight.’

‘Kelly’ll let him have that all right,’ said Vicky good-naturedly. ‘She’s not all set about with rules like our girls are.’

‘And smile,’ said the photographer. Flash – another picture in the bag.

‘You mean …?’ asked Liam.

‘Smile again and look into each other’s eyes.’ Flash.

‘It’s not for me to say,’ said Vicky, loyally.

‘Wait till I tell Jack.’

Vicky laughed. ‘Could be that he gets lucky tonight, just like us.’

Liam roared with laughter.

‘Beautiful,’ said the snapper, his flashgun going into overdrive as he captured the couple looking over the moon with happiness and laughter. He checked the digital display at the back of his camera.

‘I think that’s almost it. I’d just like a few of the bride and her beautiful chief bridesmaid.’

Vicky and Kelly posed together for the photographer while the others, thankful at being released, charged off to join the other travellers and find drinks. The sound of jollity drifted across the bowling-green lawns as the DJ began to pump up the volume from his decks and the party took off.

Finally the photographer finished and Vicky and Kelly made their stately way across the grounds towards the barn.

‘Could you go in and tell Dad that I’m ready to come to the party now?’

Kelly nodded. ‘Of course, hon.’

Kelly pushed her way through the big double glass doors into the seething melee inside. The sound of two hundred travellers having a whale of a time waited for her on the other side. She almost flinched at the din. And the colour was almost as loud as the racket with all the flashing lights from the disco coupled with the brilliant rainbow of outfits all sparkling like fireworks from the crystals and sequins. Above the throng was a glitter ball that added to the dazzling blaze of colour and light.

Kelly shoved her way across the dance floor, where all the young girls were swivelling, twisting and gyrating, to the bar area where Liam, Johnnie, Jack and Jimmy had swapped their champagne glasses for pints.

‘Vicky’s ready for you, Mr O’Rourke,’ yelled Kelly.

Johnnie, full of happiness and goodwill, put his arm around Kelly. ‘Call me Johnnie,’ he insisted.

‘Johnnie,’ repeated Kelly.

‘And you’ve met Liam’s cousin Jack, here, haven’t you?’

Kelly nodded. ‘But we haven’t been formally introduced.’ She noticed his dark brown eyes and even white teeth and thought, not for the first time that day, that he was pretty fit. Fitter than Jordan, even. And this time there was no danger of Vicky coming between her and this hunk. Vicky was well and truly spoken for now, completely off-limits, so out of the frame when it came to being available. Unlike herself. And, thought Kelly, she could be very available where Jack was concerned. She flashed a smile at him.

‘Then I’ll leave Liam to do the honours,’ said Johnnie. He put his beer glass down on the bar. ‘I’m off to help my daughter make her entrance.’

He made his way to the exit via the DJ, who he had a quick word with en route.

Two minutes later the music suddenly fell silent.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ said the DJ into the hush. ‘May I present the bride, Mrs Liam Connelly.’

The vast room erupted as Johnnie led his stunning daughter in her beautiful dress into the centre of the suddenly empty dance floor. Then he took her in his arms as the strains of Eric Clapton’s ‘Wonderful Tonight’ filled the air.

‘And you are,’ he told Vicky as they waltzed together. ‘I couldn’t be more proud of you if I tried,’ he said.

‘Thank you, Daddy,’ said Vicky, not knowing if she was going to laugh or sob with happiness. ‘And thank you for making today so perfect. I can’t get over how lovely this place is. It’s been amazing.’

‘It’s your big day, it’s no more than you deserve.’

‘But I nearly didn’t deserve it, did I, Dad?’

‘Hey, none of that now. That’s all in the past and no harm done.’ He squeezed her arm. ‘And what Liam doesn’t know …’

Vicky gave him a rueful smile. ‘Thanks, Daddy. And thanks for letting Kelly be a part of this.’

‘Liam and I both agreed that it was the right thing to do if it would make you happy. Like me he didn’t want anything to spoil your day so if you wanted Kelly here, then you were going to have Kelly here.’

The music drew to a close and Liam appeared beside them.

‘I think this next dance is mine,’ he said.

To wolf-whistles and huge cheers Johnnie handed Vicky over to her new husband as Whitney Houston began to belt out ‘I Will Always Love You’. Vicky put her arms around Liam’s neck and kissed him full and hard on the mouth.

‘And I’ll always love you,’ she said, panting slightly. ‘I can’t tell you how much I do.’

Liam, speechless, just held her close as they danced together. The minutes passed in a haze of happiness until the music finished, another record was put on and the dance floor filled again but the pair of lovers were oblivious. On and on they danced with eyes for no one else, not spotting Mikey and Shania snogging, nor Kelly being grabbed by Jack and hauled outside, nor Kylie getting fed up with her big dress and ripping off the underskirts.

Finally Mary-Rose came over and suggested that she and Liam ought to cut the cake.

‘Already?’ said Vicky.

‘Already? The guests have been here two hours and they’re starving for something to eat.’

‘Two hours? Surely not.’

Mary-Rose thrust her watch under Vicky’s nose. Vicky blinked. Blimey. Of course, the photographer had taken ages but even so …

Once again the DJ was asked to call for quiet and Vicky and Liam made their way over to the big trestle table at the far end of the barn where her seven-tier cake, lit with fairy lights, glittering with edible gold foil and wreathed with dark green ivy and cream icing-sugar roses to match the dresses, towered over the buffet. She and Liam clasped hands over the handle of the big knife before making the first cut. Another cheer raised the rafters.

Johnnie banged a table. ‘I’m not much of a one for speech making,’ he said. ‘And there’s still a lot of money behind the bar that needs dealing with and there’s a buffet here that needs eating, but before you do I’d like you all to raise your glasses to my beautiful, clever and wonderful daughter Vicky, and her handsome and talented husband Liam. The bride and groom,’ he toasted.

‘The bride and groom,’ echoed everyone present with yet another cheer. Vicky and Liam kissed as a posse of waiters ferried the cake away to be cut up properly in the kitchens and their friends and relations surged forwards to attack the buffet.

When most people had been fed, Jack then made a speech during which he managed to reduce the audience to fits of giggles describing Liam’s early attempts at carpentry – the only carpenter apparently who had ever managed to make a three-legged stool which wobbled – before he praised the beauty of the bridesmaids’ dresses and then the bridesmaids themselves, sending Kelly, Vicky noticed, yet another wink. A wink that was returned with a blatantly lustful smile.

Vicky felt her face flare red with pride as a couple of women in the audience shouted out that they wanted Vicky to make dresses for them.

‘Your first orders,’ muttered Liam beside her and giving her a squeeze.

Maybe
, thought Vicky,
maybe but what does dressmaking compare with what I have now?

Finally all the formalities of the wedding had been dealt with. The waiters filed back into the reception to hand out slabs of wedding cake and the music was racked back up as the party, now fuelled by a certain amount of beer and champagne, really got going.

‘Mrs Connelly?’ said Liam.

‘Yes, Mr Connelly?’

‘I’m not really hungry for cake.’

‘Is that so?’

He gazed at her. ‘But there is something I do want.’

Vicky raised an eyebrow. ‘Really?’

‘Mmmm. Can you guess?’

‘Possibly.’

‘We could slip off.’

‘To our room?’

‘I’ve got a better idea.’

Vicky’s eyebrow went up again. ‘Which is?’

‘The limos are outside. I think we ought to get one of them to take us back to my place. I’ve got a bed that needs testing.’

‘So you have,’ murmured Vicky. ‘It would be a crying shame if we found out there was something wrong with it; that it was faulty or lumpy. Best we find out sooner rather than later.’

‘The trouble is, it’s going to be hard to get away unnoticed.’

‘I think if we mention that we’re going for a walk in the garden no one will think much of it.’ Vicky giggled. ‘It’ll be just like being grabbed all over again.’

‘I don’t think what’s going to happen next is going to be anything like getting grabbed,’ said Liam with a slow sexy grin.

Vicky felt her insides crunch in delicious anticipation. Dear God, this was it – or it would be shortly!

The pair made their way over to the bar where they mentioned casually to anyone who cared to be told that they were slipping outside for some fresh air.

‘See you later,’ said Mary-Rose, with a knowing look.

Vicky gave her mother a hug and resisted the temptation to tell her that she probably wouldn’t, although she had a suspicion that her mother already knew.

On their way out they passed Kelly and Jack, who were locked in a kiss.

Vicky tapped Kelly on her shoulder as she passed.

‘Sorry to interrupt,’ she said.

Kelly pulled away from Jack and opened her eyes. ‘Hi, Vick,’ she said through swollen, over-kissed lips. Her pupils were dilated and she was breathing heavily.
She looks drunk on whatever she and Jack have been up to
, thought Vicky.

‘Kelly,’ she said. ‘You know that phrase “get a room”?’

Kelly nodded. ‘Sorry, Vick, we just got a bit carried away.’

‘No, I don’t mean it like that. But Liam and I are off. Which means my suite is vacant. That is …’ She looked at Kelly and Jack. ‘Well, it’s up to you. It’s room number forty-five, though, if you’re interested.’

Kelly was already dragging Jack towards the hotel reception as she called ‘thank you’ over her shoulder.

‘Waste not, want not,’ said Vicky primly.

‘What are you like?’ said Liam, shaking his head and laughing.

‘You’re going to find out in about thirty minutes,’ said Vicky with a wicked grin. ‘I think Kelly is just about to make Jack a very happy man.’

‘And you’re about to do the same for me,’ said Liam with a gleam in his eye.

Vicky giggled again as her insides squished in delicious anticipation of what she was about to experience. ‘I’m glad she and Jack get on so well. Just think if they really,
really
get it together we might even end up neighbours.’

‘I’d like that.’

Vicky stopped walking along the gravel path towards the hotel car park and the waiting limos. ‘Do you mean that? Really?’

‘Yeah. As I’ve said before, if Kelly being around makes you happy then it’d make me happy too.’

Just when Vicky didn’t think her day could possibly get any better it just did. She leaned across her voluminous skirts and gave Liam another great kiss on the cheek. ‘You are the most darling man and no mistake,’ she said.

‘And you’re very lucky to have me,’ he acknowledged.

Vicky was still laughing as she and her dress were piled into a limo for the third time that day. As the car drove away from the hotel, down the long gravel drive, she snuggled up next to her new husband and felt utterly content.

She felt even more content when she woke up the next morning. Beside the bed was a mountain of ivory silk and net underskirts that Liam had peeled off her layer by exquisite layer as he’d helped her undress. Any worries about embarrassment had been dispelled by his gentle caresses and kisses as he’d slowly sought out his prize, hidden under the yards of fabric. Once she was naked he’d picked her up and laid her on the bed before slipping out of his clothes and climbing under the covers to lie beside her.

Vicky had shivered at that moment, partly wound up with excitement and partly scared.