White Wedding (22 page)

He gestured to her that she open the window.

‘Morning,’ she called.

‘What light through yonder window breaks,’ grinned Dan, opening his arms in an expansive gesture. ‘It is the east, I think, and . . . what’s your name again?’

‘It’s west, by the way.’

‘I need your keys so I can put your spare tyre on.’

‘Are you fixing my car so I’ll offer to cook lunch?’ she said, oh so aware that she was flirting – not that she even attempted to stop herself.

‘Actually, I have to go to Skipton to get some printer ink. Want to come with me for the ride? And cake? After I’ve sorted out your car.’

You really must not go, said her brain. You need to return home to Barnsley and face the music. You have to say no.

‘Yep,’ she said. ‘I’ll get you my keys.’

Then she closed the window and skipped downstairs like a five-year-old child on her birthday.

Dan’s car had just gone down the hill when Bel’s phone started playing out a series of chimes. Then, in his pocket, Dan’s phone started to play the theme tune
to
Doctor Who
.

‘We both brought our phones,’ said Dan with a resigned nod.

‘I figured it was time I needed to face up to things,’ said Bel, sighing as she pulled her phone out of her bag and looked at the list of emails from Amazon, clients, spam. Texts
from Max and Violet, Faye, her dad, none from Shaden – surprise, surprise. She scrolled past them all looking for ones from Richard . . . and found them, loads of them. They all said more or
less the same thing:

She had a lot of missed calls from him too and her voicemail was full of messages that she couldn’t bring herself to listen to yet.

Her heart seemed to twist inside her. She hadn’t reckoned on feeling so confused when she saw his name on her phone screen. She had envisaged raising two fingers to it but instead there
was a great big fat ache inside her, as if she had just been kicked all over again.

When they pulled up in the car park in Skipton town centre, Dan pulled out his phone and looked through the mails and texts received.

‘Well, well, Cathy wants to talk to me,’ was all he said, before he put the phone back in his pocket. He wasn’t smiling as he said it.

He was silent as he bought his printer cartridges. Even though Bel had met Dan Regent only a week ago, she knew what was going through his mind. She wanted to pull his head down on to her
shoulder and stroke his hair. She wanted to hold his face and kiss his lips. Oh yes, it was definitely time to go home and get off the rebound bus.

‘Right, I promised you cake and cake we shall have,’ Dan said, clapping his hands and trying to inject a bit of jollity into proceedings.

‘I seem to remember there is a tea shop to die for at the back of the castle,’ Bel replied.

‘Bit extreme,’ said Dan, still not quite out of the grim-faced woods but his voice was warming to playful. ‘I’d rather live to enjoy more cake. But lead the way.
I’m in your hands.’

An image flashed through Bel’s mind of Dan Regent in her hands, in bed, naked. She bet he was lovely in bed . . . tender. The sort of man who got up and brought you a cup of tea in the
morning. Richard never did that. He was full of great big expansive gestures like booking weekends to Rome and buying jewellery and bouquets of roses, but he never brought her morning cups of tea
or held out his arm for her to take.

Bel led the way to the tea shop, hoping it was still there. It was, and just as teeny and pretty as Bel remembered. She and Faye and Dad had eaten the biggest pieces of Death by Chocolate here
once after staying for a weekend in Emily. She remembered them all moaning about how sick they felt afterwards.

The Pudding House had very low ceilings and Dan tutted as his head crashed into a hanging lampshade.

‘You didn’t tell me it was suitable only for Borrowers,’ said Dan, feigning pain while rubbing his head.

‘Sit down, you wuss. Anyway, if you’ve injured yourself, you can sort it.’

‘Physician, heal thyself,’ boomed Dan so loudly that the woman at the next table jerked and a profiterole dropped off her fork.

Dan slipped into gentleman mode, apologized quietly and went scrabbling around on the floor for the fallen profiterole, while Bel turned away to disguise her laughter.

Profiterole retrieved, Dan sat down and studied the menu, then he cast it back on to the table.

‘It just feels wrong without all the Bronte names,’ he said. ‘Which sounds better:“Carrot Cake” or “St John Rivers Carrot Cake”?’

‘Do you really want me to answer that?’ asked Bel, raising her left eyebrow.

‘I’ll order, but it’s not the same.’ Dan shrugged his shoulders and pretended to be disappointed.

What a lovely, fun man, thought Bel. She never had any of this silliness from Richard. He was – she searched inside her for a description of him –
so adult
.

They ordered two slices of coffee and walnut cake and a huge cafetière of coffee. Not even Bel could finish the giant wedge that was delivered to her. Under the table Dan’s leg was
touching hers. It felt lovely and she didn’t move away.

‘So, which Bronte character do you think I most resemble?’ asked Dan, picking up the last nub of walnut and placing it between his lips.

‘Nelly Dean,’ said Bel with a straight face.

Dan chuckled. ‘No, really. Am I a Heathcliff, a Hindley, an Edgar?’

‘What am I?’ asked Bel.

‘No question about it. Jane Eyre,’ said Dan with conviction.

‘Ah, so I’m small and plain. Cheers,’ huffed Bel.

‘You’re small,’ Dan nodded. ‘Not in the slightest bit plain, though. Jane Eyre was a force to be reckoned with. A formidable woman. Now, me?’

Bel tried not to make eye contact with Dan. Because to say that of all the Bronte characters he most resembled Rochester would have been dangerously flirty.

‘Heathcliff,’ she said. ‘Moody, particularly where kitchen implements are concerned.’

‘You’re lying, said Dan, his eyes twinkling so much that Bel felt a rare blush sweep across her cheeks. And she hardly ever blushed.

‘How long will you stay in the cottage?’ Bel changed the subject before her cheeks got any hotter.

‘I don’t know. I need to do some serious writing,’ said Dan. ‘Especially now that you’ve given me my mojo back.’

‘How does your bride get murdered?’

‘You’ll have to wait for the book,’ grinned Dan.

‘And what about Cathy?’

‘Ah, that’s a plot I’m not sure how to write,’ said Dan, his grin shrinking. ‘What about Richard?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Bel. ‘I’m going to have to talk to him at some stage. We’re married, after all.’

Dan put his hand over Bel’s and made it feel as warm and safe as she wished the rest of her felt. His touch was almost painful in its tenderness.

‘I can’t believe I’m saying this but I’m actually going to miss you,’ he said, mirroring her own thoughts exactly. ‘Who will I blame when the tin opener goes
missing?’

Bel shrugged silently and dropped her head. Dan realized that she was close to tears and kindly took the opportunity to go to the loo so that she might compose herself. The waitress brought over
the bill and Bel paid it immediately, before Dan came back.

‘Do you and your husband want a doggy bag of the cake you left?’ the waitress asked.

‘Thank you, but no,’ said Bel, suddenly wishing that she was married to someone like Dan Regent. Someone who took her out for afternoon tea and got dirty kneeling on the ground to
change her tyre. Someone who liked to walk arm in arm with her and didn’t fuck her cousin. She pulled a deep calming breath inside her and managed a smile as Dan returned.

‘Tell me you didn’t pay the bill,’ he said.

‘I did, as thank you for changing my tyre.’

‘Now I owe you,’ he said. ‘This could go on for ever.’

She wished she could stay. She wished he would insist on paying her back for the coffee cake by making her cheese toasties again. Then she could pay him back with a tin of soup, if he would lend
her the tin opener.

They walked back to the car slowly, in genial silence. Then Dan slipped the car into gear and left Skipton behind them.

‘When are you going home?’ asked Dan, as he pulled on his handbrake outside the cottages.

‘Now,’ replied Bel. ‘You’ll be able to get some work done in peace.’

‘About time too,’ said Dan drily. ‘And I can stop fixating about missing tin openers.’

They both climbed out of the car and turned awkwardly to face each other because there was a heavy goodbye hanging in the air.

‘So,’ said Dan.

‘So,’ echoed Bel.

‘Good luck,’ he said. ‘I hope things turn out okay for you.’

‘And for you,’ replied Bel, defying her eyes to leak. ‘And good luck with the bride-murdering book.’

‘Thanks,’ said Dan. Then he bent to kiss her cheek. One single soft kiss that she felt all the way down to her toes. Then he was gone.

Bel picked up her case from Charlotte, locked the door behind her and drove down the lane to the main road without a single glance in the rear-view mirror. She didn’t want to risk seeing
Dan Regent standing there and waving to her, because she knew she would have gone back to him.

‘Can I help you?’ Max turned round from looking at a wall full of wigs to find a petite woman with eyelashes the length of daddy-long-legs’ legs and
backcombed hair. The waist-length ash-blonde ponytail of hair that draped over her shoulder was obviously false but was a fabulous colour match to the rest of her barnet. This was Angelique, the
owner of Angel Hair – wig heaven – a tiny and exclusive shop on the Penistone–Holmfirth Road. Despite its remote location, apparently it had no shortage of clientele, including a
few celebrity clients if the
Chronicle
was to be believed. Male and female. She did a cracking line in toupées as well as beehives.

‘I’m getting married soon,’ said Max. ‘And I want . . . need a hairpiece.’

‘Then you have come to the right place,’ said Angelique, sweeping her hand around her shop, which was floor to ceiling full of hair. Angelique had tiger-striped false talons and a
gorgeous spray-painted mocha tan that made her blue eyes pop out. Max couldn’t wait to begin her transformation. She hoped her cocoa-coloured eyes shone as brightly against a backdrop of San
Maurice spray tan.

‘What were you thinking?’ asked Angelique. ‘Something like this, maybe?’

She picked up a small round of hair and clipped it expertly on to Max’s head.

Max shook her head. ‘Too small,’ she said, while lasciviously eyeing up the long Rapunzel-like locks to her immediate left.

‘O-kay,’ said Angelique, taking down a tumble of dark hair and pinning it with expert ease on to the crown of Max’s head. It weighed a ton. Angelique reached for some big pins
and began to pile up the hair into a huge tower. Then she reached for a sparkly tiara and slotted it into her hair creation.

‘You see, hair like this and you’ll look like a princess on your big day.’

Princess – magic word. It was as if Angelique could see right into Max’s head and tailor her sales banter accordingly.

Max stared back at the beginnings of a gypsy bride in the mirror. The glittery embellishment was far too small, though. It wouldn’t even show up on a gypsy girl’s radar. A wig of
this magnitude needed a full Russian tsarina’s Swarovski-encrusted shebang. In her head Max added that tiara, glittery lips and massive eyelashes to her image in the mirror. She batted away
the vision of Stuart wagging a warning finger at her.

Her hair was a gorgeous spire of fabulousness. The wig was taken off, bagged up and bought. Of course now she needed to go hunting for that blingy tiara. And she had allowed herself the full
Saturday to go wedding shopping. Yet another item was added to her list of ‘boughts’ and another to the ‘to buys’.

While Max was in Angel Hair, and from the sanctity of their study Stuart heard the key in the outside door, bang on time. If he was in, he always kept out of the way when
Sheila came on Saturdays and Tuesdays because he felt guilty that they had a cleaner. He couldn’t lounge about while she busied around him; he would have felt uncomfortably indulgent. Instead
he would bob his head out of the door to say a quick courteous hello and then pretend he was busy.

Although this time when he emerged to say his hello it wasn’t Sheila who was standing with her bucket full of cleaning items but a much younger woman.

‘Oh hello,’ he said, thrown a little. One, because it wasn’t Sheila, and two, because the short, slender woman with the swingy brown ponytail was vaguely familiar.

‘Hi,’ said the woman. ‘I’m Sheila’s daughter, Jenny. I’m covering for her as she’s pulled her back and can’t walk . . . Stuart?’

Then she smiled and he realized exactly who she was. ‘Jenny? Jenny Thompson?’
Smiling Jenny
.

‘Stuart Taylor. Oh my God, how lovely to see you again. How many years has it been?’

Stuart smiled. ‘Oh too flaming many,’ he said. ‘Seventeen?’

‘It’s never that long since we left school, is it?’ Jenny started to tot up in her head and gasped. ‘My goodness, so it is. How scary is that!’

‘I didn’t know that Sheila was your mum. All the time she’s been working here, and I never knew.’

‘Well, Thompson’s a common name,’ said Jenny beaming that same smile she did at school. ‘Smiling Jenny’ she used to be called, and she was always wearing bright
colours. The clothes had changed, seeing as she was in jeans and a black T-shirt with a cleaning tabard over it, but her smile was the same.

‘So, what’s happened to you since I saw you last?’ said Stuart, realizing that he was grinning as widely as Jenny was. ‘Are you still with Gav? Surely not, after all
these years.’

Jenny and Gav were glued at the hip and had been since primary school.

‘Sadly not,’ said Jenny. ‘He was killed in a bike smash ten years ago.’

Stuart was genuinely shocked. ‘Oh Jenny, that’s awful. I’m sorry, I didn’t know.’

‘It didn’t make the newspaper at the time,’ said Jenny. ‘And his parents didn’t want any obituaries written. You’re not the first to say you never heard about
it.’