Summer Seaside Wedding (11 page)

‘I’ll be in touch as soon as I have any news from the path lab. If it is what I suspect, we’ll take it from there.’

By that time the youth was looking decidedly nervous, having got the picture of how rare anthrax infection was in humans and how serious it could be, and he went to do what he’d been told to do…rest, which was the only good thing about it. It gave him a very good reason for lying on top of his bed for hours on end, watching television.

For Amelie it was a morning of the usual things—a young pregnant woman with unpleasant morning sickness, a patient recently diagnosed with diabetes and suffering from the side-effects of the medication he’d been prescribed, which called for a change of plan, and an elderly woman who’d forgotten to take her blood-pressure medication with her on holiday and was desperate for reassurance that it wasn’t out of control.

All of which she had given her full attention, but when one of the receptionists came round with elevenses and she had a few moments to herself, the flaws in her family life came flooding back and with them the memory of how she’d let Leo see how unsure she was of the future. She needed security like she needed to breathe.

She was deeply in love with him but wasn’t sure of
his reactions sometimes. And her parents, enjoying the delights of Devon, with Cornwall to come, would appear to have not given a second’s thought to how she would react to their news.

Why she felt so upset about that she didn’t know as she rarely saw them in any case, but the truth of the matter was that they’d spoilt it, taken away the wonderful feeling of security that had been hers ever since she’d come to Bluebell Cove and met Leo.

The vicar’s wife had been in earlier, selling tickets for a hoe down on the coming Saturday night, and on impulse Amelie had bought one, without knowing what she was going to do with it as she wasn’t in the mood for socialising.

Yet she could feel her batteries beginning to recharge after the upset of the night before. She was coming out of the slough of despondency. Her parents’ insensitivity was not going to spoil her life any more, she told herself.

They were due back in the village from their stay in Cornwall early on Saturday evening and after a brief stop were driving back to London. So once they’d gone she was going to go to the hoe down.

It would be on her own as Leo had already demonstrated that he’d taken her demand to leave her alone seriously. So it would not be a night of nights or anything of that kind, but it would be better than staying in and moping.

In the days leading up to Saturday the young student
with the rash had it diagnosed as the anthrax bacterium of the cutaneous type, which was treatable with penicillin. So he was still at home, resting and taking the medication, with Leo keeping a firm watch on his progress.

The hay-fever sufferers were paying the penalty of heavy pollen counts and the added problem of harvest reaping, which meant that theirs was a continuous presence in the waiting room. But for the rest of the population of Bluebell Cove there was a general air of well-being.

As the weekend drew near and still in a more positive frame of mind, Amelie was debating whether to buy tight jeans and a check shirt to wear for the hoe down. Having seen something along those lines in the window of the boutique, she decided to brave the cold stare of Leo’s friend Georgina and go to try them on in her lunch hour.

The owner wasn’t there, she was relieved to see. A young, brown-haired girl was serving and as she moved along the rails of fashionable clothes her enthusiasm was waning because it would normally have been Leo that she was out to please. But in the present state of affairs she didn’t even know if he would be there.

Yet she already had the high leather boots to go with the clothes, and the jeans and shirt fitted perfectly when she tried them on, so those things and the fact that she felt she needed cheering up all combined to persuade her to buy, and moments later she left the shop with a spring in her step.

On Saturday night she was ready in good time. The clothes she’d bought looked good on her. She hadn’t a hair out of place beneath a cowboy hat that she’d found in one of the cupboards in the house, and she thought wistfully that all she lacked was Leo. Without him, nothing was the same.

But he was still giving her some space, keeping as far away from her as possible out of working hours and during them acknowledging her presence only briefly.

She was waiting for her parents to arrive. She wasn’t planning on going to the hoe down until they’d been and gone.

A flask of coffee and sandwiches for the journey were waiting for them. She knew her father wouldn’t want to linger after he’d been for petrol to get them home and typical of the man their car pulled up outside the house at exactly the time he’d said it would, and as soon as he’d dropped her mother off he went to the garage.

The moment he had gone Lisette asked urgently, ‘Do you love Leo Fenchurch, Amelie?’

‘Yes,’ she told her, surprised at the question. ‘I love him more than life itself.’

Her mother nodded, as if that was what she wanted to hear, and went on to say, ‘Then if he asks you to marry him, tell him yes. Turn your dreams into reality. That kind of love comes only once in a lifetime. Don’t let it pass you by.’

Amelie was listening to what she was saying in complete bewilderment.

‘Why are you telling me all this?’ she asked.

‘Because I know what that kind of love feels like,’ Lisette replied, ‘but mine was lost to me and I ended up marrying Charles.’

‘And is that the reason why you’re divorcing?’

‘Yes, that’s the reason. Charles doesn’t think people should have feelings. Given the chance, he would exchange me for a robot without batting an eyelid.’

‘So
my
feelings of rejection come from that tarnished point of view, do they?’ Amelie said. ‘Yet you’ve always gone along with it.’

‘I had no choice because you are not his child,’ was the incredible reply. ‘He had always wanted me. Charles was head of my department, as he is now, and he said he would marry me and that I could keep you, as long as he came first in everything and you were always kept out of sight in the background. Does that explain what has happened over the years?’

Groping her way to the nearest chair, Amelie sank down on it. ‘So who is my father?’ she croaked.

‘He was an Englishman called Robert Templeton. Robbie was killed in a skiing accident when I was four months pregnant. We were planning to be married before you were born. He was the only man I’ve ever loved, so you see why I say if Leo loves you as much as you love him and he asks you to marry him, don’t hesitate.’

‘I’ve got to be asked first,’ she said flatly. ‘And why are you telling me all this now after allowing me to feel so unwanted all my life?’

‘Charles would never let me. He is a proud man and said he would throw both of us out if I told you, and it
is he who is the wealthy one. I own nothing. But now I see you with this man and know it is the time to speak because I can tell he will love and protect you.’

They could hear the man she had known as her father all her life coming up the drive and Lisette said, ‘He thinks I have found someone else but it isn’t so. It’s just an excuse to get away from him.

‘There is just one thing before we leave,’ she said pleadingly. ‘If you marry your doctor, please let me come to the wedding.’ Then, reverting back to her usual manner, she kissed her lightly on the cheek and went out to join her father, leaving Amelie to follow her to where their car was parked at the roadside as if nothing unusual had happened.

She went back inside on leaden feet and when the door closed behind her she knew she wanted Leo there to hold her, talk through with her what she’d just been told, but there’d been no sign of him at the apartment all day and the hoe down would have started by now. She could hear country and western music filtering through from the village hall.

As she stood irresolutely, fighting back tears, she saw him coming up the drive, and when she opened the door to him he looked at the clothes she was wearing and said, ‘So you
are
intending going to the hoe down, Amelie. I was beginning to think you were giving it a miss.’

When she didn’t answer he told her, ‘I’ve stayed away from you for as long as I could but not any more. I saw your parents driving off as I was coming up the road. Was everything all right with them?’

Ironically, now he was there she found she couldn’t speak; she was still in shock, so she just nodded and desperate to bring the moment back to normality picked up her handbag and her ticket for the hoe down and with a grimace of a smile pointed to the door.

A
S THEY
walked the short distance to the village hall Leo glanced at her a few times and wondered what was wrong, but something told him not to press her to tell him.

It was significant that her parents had stopped off on their way back to London and had left Amelie in this state. Slow anger was kindling inside him at the thought of them bringing any more insecurity into her life.

On the other hand, the state she was in with her ashen face and the lack of response speechwise could be for some other reason than the Benoirs, yet he doubted it. He’d had plans for tonight, big ones, but with Amelie clearly emotional all he could do was register concern.

The hoe down was in full swing when they got there, and a barn dance was in progress, so he took her out onto the village green and in the scented autumn night asked gently, ‘Are you going to tell me what’s wrong, Amelie? I’ve never seen you like this before. It’s as if you’re in shock.’

‘Charles isn’t my father,’ she croaked, and he observed her incredulously.

‘Who told you that?’

‘My mother, the one person who is sure to know.’

‘So that is what it’s all about,’ he said slowly. ‘Why he’s so crabby. Not all men have Harry Balfour’s generosity of spirit. How do you feel about that?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said raggedly. ‘It was so unexpected I’m still in shock.’

‘What made your mother tell you after all this time?’

‘She didn’t want me to make the mistakes she made.’

‘And what were those?’

‘Not marrying the man she loved and losing him in an accident, I suppose, then marrying a man she
didn’t
love. It was all so sad, Leo.’

He reached out for her and held her close, and there were no requests to leave her alone this time. As he looked down on the shining crown of her dark head he said, ‘The past creeps up on us when we least expect it, Amelie. I’ve made
my
peace with my past. Would you like to hear about it?’

‘I suppose so,’ she said listlessly, and he led her by the hand away from the noise to a bench outside the church and when they were settled he said, ‘You are the only person I have ever spoken to about this.’

Her eyes widened, he had her full attention now. ‘When I was twenty-five and in my last year at medical school I fell madly in love with one of my fellow students. Her name was Delphine and we were both of
the same mind, that we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together, but it was not to be.

‘Delphine had an undetected heart defect and in the middle of our wedding arrangements she was rushed into hospital with a cardiac arrest that proved fatal. The heartbreak and pain that followed her death were indescribable, feelings I’ve never forgotten. So much so that I’ve spent the last ten years on the social merry-go-round instead of putting down roots and having a family, because I didn’t want to risk ever having to go through that again.

‘But then you came along and changed my life for ever. Being with you, falling in love with you, didn’t feel like a risk, it felt like it was heaven sent, yet still I was haunted by the past. But not any more, Amelie. Finally I’m free of the guilt and of the fear, free to tell you how much I love and adore you.’

There were tears in her eyes. ‘Couldn’t you have told me about Delphine before?’ she asked gently. ‘I would have understood you so much better. Poor Delphine. Poor you.’

‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘I won’t ever forget her but it will be without the nightmare that I’ve carried around with me all this time. I am ready to move on if you’ll only say you love me.’

The bluebell eyes looking into his would have been enough answer but she asked tenderly, ‘How many times would you like me to say it? Ten, twenty, a thousand times, or more?’

‘More,’ he murmured with his lips against her hair. And then he was kissing her, and kissing her, until
she said breathlessly, ‘I can’t believe that only an hour ago I was feeling so miserable, yet now I have a father who would have loved me had he lived, and a better understanding with my mother, but you are my true joy-bringer, Leo, with your love and tenderness and the desire you arouse in me. The Angel Gabriel would find you a hard act to follow.’

He was smiling at the comparison and, taking her hand, he brought her to her feet and asked, ‘Can you smell food, Amelie? They will be serving supper at the hoe down about now, and it is always a feast of delight, so shall we join them? And then, afterwards, would you like to go for a drive?’

‘Absolutely,’ she replied dreamily. ‘Whatever you say.’

For the first time in her life she was totally content and it was all due to the man beside her. He hadn’t asked her to marry him yet, but she felt sure he would when he was ready.

The meal was, as Leo had said it would be, a feast, with cheeses galore and fresh vegetables from village gardens served as salads and soups, along with ham from the pig farms and fruit from the trees, and fresh loaves from the bakery, crispy and warm.

They sat with Harry and Phoebe and their two little ones, and while the two women chatted the head of the practice said to Leo, ‘So have you been to fix it with the bellringers yet, and suggested to Ethan that he gets a season ticket for crossing the Channel? Since he went to live in France he’s been over here more than he’s been over there.’

‘Is it so obvious?’ he replied laughingly. ‘We have to fix a date first, but it won’t be long, I hope.’

It became clear that Leo hadn’t meant a lazy cruise around the neighbourhood when he’d suggested they go for a drive as the road signs indicated that he was heading for the airport.

Minutes later they were parking there and as she stood gazing around her on the tarmac he said, ‘This way, Amelie.’ She followed him to the arrivals lounge. The walkway from the aircraft was deserted, as he had hoped it would be, and as she observed him questioningly he went down on one knee and said, ‘This is the place where my life began again. Will you marry me, Amelie?’

She was laughing, joyful peals of delight. ‘Yes, please,’ she cried, and if she’d had any ideas that the request might have been impulsive rather than planned, he opened his clenched palm and revealed a solitaire diamond ring.

‘I bought it weeks ago,’ he told her. ‘Yet the chance to ask you never seemed to materialise, but now all our problems are sorted, so how soon can I put a band of gold on your finger next to the diamond, Amelie?’

‘Soon.’ She glowed. ‘I would like to be married while it’s still harvest-time if possible. How long does it take to get a licence?’

‘And a memorial plaque.’

‘What for?’

‘For
this
spot, to commemorate
this
event, if the airport authorities will allow it,’ he teased. ‘And now come
here, my lovely French doctor, and let me show you how much I love you.’ As he kissed his wife-to-be a cheer went up from the curious and the romantics who had been gathering to watch.

As they approached the village on their way home, Leo pulled up across the way from the headland and said, ‘I have something to tell you, Amelie. Would you like to get out of the car for a moment?’

Taking her hand, he took her to the same spot where they’d met unexpectedly on the night that her father had told her about the divorce. Turning her towards the solitary house that once again was in darkness as Keith was still on his cruise, he said, ‘This will be my wedding present to you.’

Her eyes were round pools of amazement. ‘You mean that we…’

‘Yes, I mean that we are going to live here. I bought this house for us. I know how much you love the water and this house has the best sea views of anywhere in Bluebell Cove. The sale is going through and as I’m a first-time buyer it shouldn’t take long. Would you like to wait until it is ours before we marry, or just set a date now and hope it might have gone through when the day arrives?’

‘I’d rather wait,’ she said joyfully, ‘so that we can start our life together in this wonderful house.’

‘Me too,’ he said, holding her close. ‘And now I’m going to take you home to bed in your posh lodgings, then it will be bed for me too in the apartment, and soon I won’t ever have to do that again.’