Wedding Tiers

The strings were firm and hard, and it was lucky it was an autumn wedding, because with a bit of luck it would be cool at the reception and they wouldn’t sag. I threaded a bunch of white and palest pink silk ribbons around the neck carefully, like adorning a medieval troubadour’s lute, then covered it and replaced it in the cold larder, ready to deliver tomorrow.

Then I went upstairs to move the vegetables from the spare bed and make it up, though it seemed a lot of bother when Libby probably wouldn’t stay more than one night. It was pretty chilly in there, but would soon warm up once the door was left open and the heat from the stove wafted up the stairs.

As I shook out lavender-scented sheets and pillowcases, I thought how horrified Libby would be when she saw the way Blessings had deteriorated. Her recollections, like mine, would be of how it was once, the snowy interior walls of the Elizabethan part of the house studded with plaster emblems and the garden neatly laid out, all lawns, roses and specimen trees.

But Harry had said it was all sadly changed now…and, come to that, I’d forgotten to remind Libby of Dorrie Spottiswode’s existence, though I expect she would find that out soon enough. Dorrie and I had become friends over the last few years, but I didn’t think Libby had ever met her.

I wondered what she would make of Tim, for she probably only remembered him as the languid fair youth of so long ago. He’s a solicitor in Ormskirk, and I expect he has some private income, though obviously it’s not enough to restore Blessings to its former glory.

Tim was in the pub one evening recently when Ben and I were meeting our elderly hippie friends, Mark and Stella (who unfortunately seem to take the smell of goat with them everywhere, though you get used to it after a bit).

I asked him if he remembered playing tennis with me and Libby when we were teenagers and he said he did—but he was just being polite; I could see he didn’t really. But that was hardly surprising, because we were two awkward, immature schoolgirls and he was almost grown up. He seemed very nice, though he has a permanently anxious look in his blue eyes—an eager-to-please expression—and that shock of white-blond hair makes him look a bit startled. He has a nervous habit of constantly trying to smooth it down, though regular haircuts would be a more practical idea.

But anyway, I was right about the eager-to-please bit, because he certainly seemed to have pleased Libby I’d just started to wonder how many hours it took to show somebody round a house, even a substantial Elizabethan town house, when she phoned to say Tim had invited her out to dinner and she didn’t know what time she would be getting back!

If I hadn’t been so surprised I would have told her to call in for the front door key on her way, but by the time it occurred to me and I phoned back, she had switched her mobile off.

I went back to marzipanning my Diamonds Are Forever anniversary cake, but I was a bit distracted…What was Libby up to? Trying to beat the poor man down on the price?

She staggered in looking glazed at about one in the morning, after hammering on the door to wake me because by then I’d fallen asleep on the sofa in the living room.

‘Did you have a nice time?’ I asked sleepily as she removed her coat and kicked off her stilettos with a sigh of relief.

‘Bliss!’ she said enthusiastically. ‘Sorry to make you stay up, though. I wasn’t thinking straight when I phoned you earlier because—well, you won’t believe this, Josie, but I’m in love!’

I creaked my eyelids open a bit wider. ‘You do mean with Blessings, don’t you?’

‘No! Well, yes,’ she qualified, ‘it’s the sweetest little Elizabethan house imaginable. But I’ve fallen in love with Tim too. Oh, Josie, this is it— love at first sight.’

‘Again?’ I said, putting the kettle on for cocoa.

‘This is different! I fell in love with Phillip and Joe, of course, but not the very second I set eyes on them,’ she said indignantly. ‘But when Tim opened the door, we just gazed into each other’s eyes and…well, we couldn’t look away. And after that…’ she heaved a voluptuous sigh, ‘we talked and talked. Then we realised how late it was and thought we’d better go out for something to eat…Oh, I feel like we’ve been soul mates for ever!’

‘That’s a bit how I felt when I first saw Ben,’ I said, with a reminiscent sigh. ‘Though I suppose I was so young I didn’t understand it was love.’

She snapped back to reality, her blue eyes wide, and said, ‘No, it was nothing like that, though admittedly you and Ben had a bit of a Juliet and Romeo thing going on. Lucky there were family objections only on his side—it takes two families to start a good, tragic feud.’

I let that go. I played Juliet to Ben’s Romeo in the school play one year, and I hated the end, though if they had both got up and run off hand in hand, I suppose it wouldn’t be a tragedy.

‘Did you actually find time to look around Blessings—remember, the house you were so keen to buy that you flew all the way over from Pisa with a viewing order?’

‘Of course I did, and it’s even more wonderful than I remembered, though it’s so run down and shabby! Those plaster walls with funny little animals and shields and stuff moulded into them, and the huge beams and little diamond-paned windows with ripply glass. Tim adores the place and, do you know, he loves Italy too. He’s been to Pisa but always wanted to go back for long enough to explore it properly! Isn’t that a coincidence?’

‘Mmm…’ I said, starting to feel sleepy again. This was way past my bedtime.

‘In fact, we seemed to agree about everything. And the great thing is, there’s no need to buy Blessings if Tim and I are getting married so I can spend the money renovating it instead.’

I missed my mouth entirely with the last dregs of my cocoa and it went down the front of my dressing gown. ‘Married? Libby, you only met him two seconds ago!’

‘That’s all it took for us to fall in love and know we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together,’ she said simply. ‘Tomorrow we’re going to buy an engagement ring and I’m moving into Blessings.’

‘Bloody hell!’ I gazed at her anxiously. ‘Look, Libby, hadn’t you better think about it a bit first and not do anything hasty? I mean, I know you fell in love with your first two husbands quickly and married almost immediately, and it worked out fine, but this is hugely rash. And he’s not rich, either.’

‘I know, but it doesn’t matter.’ Then she bleated, ‘Resistance is useless,’ in a Dalek voice, and giggled like a teenager.

‘You’ve gone mad, Libs!’

‘Yes, but mad in a good way. Tim’s handsome, sweet, funny, and kind—everything I could possibly want…’

I gave her the sweet and kind, but he definitely wasn’t handsome. So it must be love.

‘We’d like to get married tomorrow.’

‘Well, you can’t,’ I pointed out. ‘I really think you ought to consider all this in the cold light of day, not get carried away and—’

‘Break out the elderflower champagne and let’s celebrate!’ she interrupted gaily. ‘Come on, Josie, don’t I always know exactly what I’m doing?’

‘You did’, I conceded, ‘but that was before you turned into Love-Crazed of Pisa!’

But by then, being Libby, she had taken out a little pink leather-bound notebook from her handbag and started to make a to-do list.

‘What’s the name of the vicar?’ she asked, looking up.

She was still in the same state next morning, except the list was now two pages long.

Over breakfast I showed her the Country at Heart article, which she read through twice, and then commented, ‘It doesn’t sound like you at all!’

‘It isn’t. I’m quite positive I didn’t say most of that. In fact, some of it is quite idiotic.’

‘The average reader probably won’t think that, and it’s great publicity for the cakes—and for Ben too, come to that.’ She peered more closely at the photograph of him in his studio. ‘I’m not sure about whatever it is he’s working on, though. It looks like an explosion in a half-set black pudding.’

‘His work has been a bit odd lately,’ I admitted. ‘I don’t like it very much, but it must be good or he wouldn’t have won that prize.’

‘I tell you what,’ Libby said, tapping the page with her long, French-manicured nails, ‘I bet lots of Skint Old Northern Woman readers get this magazine too, and they will put two and two together. Your cover will be blown.’

‘Oh, I hope not. I’d have to be so careful what I said if everyone knew who I was!’

She’d got me worried, but later, when I got Ben on the phone and told him, he said he didn’t think the readership of a little niche magazine like SONW would be the same as that for an expensive glossy like Country at Heart. But he was pleased he was in it, I could tell from his voice.

I didn’t mention the Libby and Tim situation. I thought I’d give it twenty-four hours and see if it wore off.

Chapter Four Love, Actually (#ulink_fe4eed71-bfde-5cc5-b860-c2a9f3e845bd)

A friend is suddenly moving back to the village after dividing her time between Italy and London for several years—in fact, she is here!

She always had a fancy to live in a nearby small Elizabethan house and, when it recently came onto the market, she snapped it up—and the owner with it. Reader, she married him!

I’ve had to quickly finish off the Diamonds Are Forever anniversary cake I was making (a special order) so I could start on my friend’s bridal cake…