Shocked silence filled the room.

Ellie was the first to recover. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course I am sure,’ Sophie snapped, standing to face us in her underwear. She cupped her boobs. ‘Do you think I grew these overnight through wishful thinking?’ She tugged at her waist. ‘Do you think I have been eating croissants night and day?’

Ellie reached for a robe, gently easing Sophie’s arms into it, tying it around her waist and sitting her back on the bed. ‘But that’s wonderful news. Isn’t it?’

‘Maybe,’ Sophie mumbled.

‘Maybe?’ I frowned. ‘What does Ryan say?’

‘Ryan does not say anything, because he does not know.’

‘You haven’t told him yet?’ Kate asked gently.

She shook her head.

‘You two are pretty solid, Sophie,’ I said softly. ‘I’m sure when he knows …’

‘It is a question of timing.’ She sighed. ‘I know he is pleased for you and Alain, Emmy, but I also know he is not affected by all these wedding preparations. That kind of thing is not for him. If I tell him about the baby in the middle of it all, it might look like I caught the wedding bug and I am trying to trap him.’

I dropped to my knees on the floor and took her hands. ‘Sophie, Ryan is one of the most understanding men I’ve ever met. I can’t begin to imagine he would think that way. And I can only assume it’s hormones making you think that way. Ryan’s so easy-going.’

‘But that’s the problem!’

Ellie looked at her, bewildered. ‘Ryan being easy-going is a problem in a situation like this? Why?’

‘Ryan is a free spirit. He does his own thing. What we have together fits with that. I don’t see how a baby could. He is only in France for eight months a year. He goes back to the UK in the winter for work. My flat is tiny. And now that Ryan’s parents’ gîtes are finished and in use, he is back to staying in a room in their house. None of it is suitable, is it?’

Ellie patted her knee. ‘All those things can be dealt with. The main thing is this: are you happy that you’re having Ryan’s baby?’

Sophie’s eyes immediately filled with fresh tears, but they were joyful ones, judging by the broad smile that accompanied them. ‘Yes.’

‘And if you ignore all those practicalities, do you think Ryan will be happy?’

Her smile faltered. ‘I do not know.’

‘Well, Emmy and I think we do know.’ Ellie glanced at me. ‘We think Ryan will be thrilled. Maybe he can find work here in the winter. You’ll get a place to live that’s big enough for the two … for the three of you.’

‘If you leave it too long, Sophie, Ryan may guess,’ Kate said. ‘Then he will be upset. And he’d have less time to set something up for the winter months.’

I nodded my agreement. ‘You should tell him.’

‘Oh … I suppose.’

‘And how are you?’ I asked her. ‘Have you had any sickness?’

‘Sometimes I feel queasy. I have to eat small amounts regularly. But it is not too bad.’ She glanced at the bed behind her. ‘What about the dress?’

‘Maybe they can take it out or add an extra seam or something, so you can breathe,’ Ellie said.

‘But there is no time.’

‘There’s tomorrow. We’ll drive over there this afternoon. I’m sure they’ll want to help.’

I hid a smile. With Ellie in charge, they would probably realise they had no choice.

‘Don’t you have to go back to work?’ Sophie asked worriedly.

‘That’s the beauty of running your own business, isn’t it? You can prioritise. And I’m prioritising this.’

‘But if they can’t …’

‘If they can’t, we’ll sort something else out,’ Ellie said firmly. ‘And you’ll look beautiful, like you always do. Unlike some of us, who’ll look like a shiny barber’s pole, no matter what.’

Sophie laughed, her fingers feathering across her stomach.

Kate turned to me. ‘What are you going to tell your mother?’

I made a face. ‘You want me to tell her that one of my bridesmaids is unexpectedly pregnant and her dress no longer fits?’ I tried to lighten the atmosphere. ‘That she could throw up on the day? Mum might spontaneously combust!’

Kate let out an uneasy laugh.

‘She’d be better not knowing, if we can get away with it,’ Ellie decided. ‘Especially since Ryan doesn’t even know yet. Sophie, when will you speak to him?’

‘Maybe I should do it soon. While I still have the courage you have all given me. But I am so nervous.’

‘The sooner the better, then,’ Ellie said. ‘Do you know where he is at the moment?’

‘He’s working at his parents’ this afternoon.’

‘Why don’t I drive you to him, and then go and sort the dress out myself? We know more or less what needs to be done. I don’t think you need to be there.’

Sophie smiled. ‘I would like that.’

‘And you’ll let us know what happens?’

‘Of course.’

I stood and sighed. ‘So how are we going to hide this fiasco from my mother?’

Over the next ten minutes, we composed ourselves, squeezed Sophie carefully back into her dress and applied concealer to her puffy eyes, then instructed her to keep her arm covering the split seam the whole time.

Taking a deep breath, I went outside to fetch my mother, her eyes shining with anticipation at finally seeing my motley crew of bridesmaids in some semblance of coordinated finery.

Her initial reaction was to clap her hands together, pleased with the result. ‘Oh, you all look lovely! I never dreamed this colour range thing would work, but it does. How about a twirl?’

The girls obliged, Sophie’s movements stiff and unnatural with her arm clamped to her side.

I thought we’d got away with it, until Mum spotted Sophie’s necklace on the dressing table and picked it up. ‘Isn’t this yours, Sophie? Put it on, will you? Then we can see the full ensemble.’

An instinctive reaction, Sophie reached out to take it, exposing the gaping seam.

‘Oh!’ Mum’s hand flew to her mouth. ‘Your dress!’

Sophie’s face fell at her faux pas.

I rushed into defence mode. ‘It’s only a little tear, Mum. Nothing to worry about.’

‘Nothing to worry about? Hardly! What on earth are we going to do?’

Mindful of Sophie’s delicate state of mind, Ellie stepped in, her voice calm. ‘It’s all in hand, Flo. I’m sure the shop will be able to repair it in time.’

‘And what if they can’t?’ Mum expertly eyed Sophie, and the result came up short. ‘I don’t remember that dress being so tight before, Sophie. Have you put on weight?’

‘Mum …’ My tone held a warning that she should have heeded, but of course she didn’t.

‘It’s no good getting that seam repaired if the whole dress is still too tight, is it?’

A tear ran silently down Sophie’s cheek, and that was it for me. I took my mother firmly by the arm and steered her to the door.

‘Emmy, what on earth …? I need to sort out what …’

‘You don’t need to sort anything out. Ellie has it all in hand,’ I ground out at her, glancing back at Ellie who already had her arm around Sophie, whose tears were coming faster now. When Mum resisted my tug, I only pulled harder, until I’d propelled her through the door and out into the orchard, where I dragged her a good few yards into the trees, out of earshot.

Mum shook herself free. ‘How dare you manhandle me like that?’

I faced her square on. ‘No. How dare you upset my friend like that?

‘All I said was that she must have put on some weight. That’s only stating facts, Emmy.’

‘And how is that going to help, two days before the wedding?’

‘Exactly,’ Mum declared triumphantly. ‘Two days before the wedding! The least she could have done is watched her weight. And I didn’t say that, did I? We have to think of a way to rescue this. Maybe that lemon and water diet? We have forty-eight hours.’

I gaped at her. ‘Er. No. I do not want a friend going into starvation mode and fainting on my wedding day.’

‘Oh, don’t be so melodramatic, Emmy. It was only a suggestion.’

‘Well, it sucks.’

‘Oh? And what do you suggest?’

‘I suggest getting the dress fixed if we can, accepting Sophie is the way she is, and leaving her alone. You made her cry.’

Mum tutted. ‘You’re being over-defensive, Emmy, if you ask me. And Sophie is being over-sensitive. If she didn’t want all this fuss, she shouldn’t have …’ She stopped dead, her eyes narrowed.

A woman’s instinct. Shit.

‘She’s pregnant, isn’t she?’

I considered denial, but knew it was hopeless. ‘Yes.’

‘How long have you known?’ Mum accused.

‘Twenty minutes.’

Her relief that I hadn’t been lying to her for long, at least, soon dissipated. ‘You weren’t going to tell me, were you? Didn’t you think I needed to know as soon as possible?’

‘For God’s sake, Mum, she only just told us. So no, telling you wasn’t first on my list of priorities, funnily enough. Actually, I thought it might be nice to let Sophie tell Ryan that he was going to be a father before I spread the net wider.’

‘There’s no need to be snippy, Emmy.’ Mum stood with her hands on her hips, then frowned. ‘Why didn’t Ryan know before you knew? Why would she tell you first?’

I bristled. ‘She wasn’t going to tell anybody, but she was pushed into it because you saw fit to drag her over here without a by-your-leave for a dress trial, and her dress split.’

‘It’s a good job I did, isn’t it? Otherwise it would have split on the day, and then where would we have been?’ Her wedding organiser hat firmly glued to her head, her mind raced with further problems. ‘How far gone is she? Is she being sick much? Will she be okay on Friday? She’s not ducking out, is she?’

Her barrage of questions was too much. My blood, already on a slow boil, began to bubble.

‘Have you heard yourself? I’ve just told you the wonderful news that one of my best friends is having a baby, and all you can worry about is the dress. You haven’t even asked how she is.’

Mum looked like I’d slapped her face. ‘But I did! I asked if she was sick.’

‘Only because you’re worried she might not be well enough on Friday. And then straight on to the dress.’

‘I can’t help that,’ Mum snapped. ‘Those dresses took forever to find, and now?’

I stepped closer and spoke through gritted teeth. ‘Ellie is doing her best to get it sorted. But hear this. I couldn’t care less if Sophie turns up on Friday in her pyjamas, as long as she’s there, if she’s up to it. I don’t want her uncomfortable all day because we have a sodding dress plan.’

‘There’s no need to use that language with me, Emmy. Of course we have a dress plan. All aspects of this wedding have taken a great deal of planning. I’ve spent hundreds of hours on it!’

‘I know you have. And Alain and I are genuinely grateful.’ I tried hard to moderate my tone so that it matched my words. ‘But you need to back off now. It’s all in place, and if things aren’t perfect on the day, then they’re not. You can only plan so far, and then you have to let things just be.’

Mum stared me down. ‘What in God’s name has got into you, Emmeline Jamieson?’

Oh dear. Red flag.

‘That. That!’

‘What?’ Mum looked bewildered and angry.

I was past caring. I wish I could say that Alain’s words of advice the other night had permeated through and I was doing as he advised, but that wouldn’t be true. The fact was, I was plain old spitting mad.

‘Treating me like I’m still …’ I couldn’t say ‘a child’. Even in my temper, I knew that wasn’t fair. ‘Like I’m still under your jurisdiction. I’m not. I have a life that’s independent from you.’

‘I know that, Emmy. I can hardly not know, can I, what with you living in a different country and about to get married!’

‘But you don’t seem to understand. Yesterday, you thought I could take the day off to follow you around. I couldn’t. I had work to do.’

Mum took a deep breath. ‘I’m aware of that. You made your point, and I didn’t insist. I’m not sure why you’re making all this fuss over one incident.’

‘It’s not only one incident, though, is it?’ Despair tinged my voice now. The feeling that I needed her to know, needed her to understand, washed over me in a wave. I’d already lost the plot, so I figured I might as well go the whole hog. ‘Every step of the wedding, every arrangement, you’ve pushed and I’ve had to push back.’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Emmy. That’s called a discussion.’

‘No, Mum. You asking me months ago if we wanted a blessing and me saying no was a discussion. Asking me half a dozen times since, including a week before the wedding, is not a discussion – it’s you trying to get your own way over something, without trying to see that it’s not what I want.’

‘What you want?’ Mum was livid now. ‘This whole wedding is about what you want!’

‘So why does it feel like I’ve had to fight you the whole way? I’m tired, Mum.’ Angry tears were threatening, but I held them back. They were the last thing I needed her to see.

Mum’s mouth was tight. ‘I’m sure you are tired, Emmy, and overwrought with such a big day coming up.’

‘I mean tired of this. Of us.’ I scrabbled for a way to explain, as Alain’s words from the other night hovered in my mind. ‘You and I need to find a new way of doing things, because I can’t do this any more. I do my best to please, to avoid confrontation, but you’re too pushy, too bossy, too … too much!’

Ah. I don’t think that was quite what Alain had suggested. But it was too late.

The impact was devastating. Tears spilled onto my mother’s cheeks. I hadn’t seen her cry in years.

‘Well, thank you, Emmy. All I do is try my best to make things nice for you, and this is the thanks I get.’

‘Mum, I am grateful for all you’ve done with the wedding, and I didn’t mean—’

She held up a hand. ‘There’s no smoke without fire, Emmy. I’m sure you did mean it.’

She turned on her heel to go, but I grabbed her arm.

‘Mum. You can’t tell anyone about Sophie’s pregnancy until Ryan knows. Not Jeanie, not even Dad. Please.’

Her face was hard and cold. ‘What do you take me for? Do you think I lack any sort of understanding? Nobody will hear it from me. You seem to see me as some kind of monster. I’m not that person, Emmy.’

She stalked away, her back rigid.

Shit, shit, shit.