August
The heat from the summer sun kissed the tanned and freckled skin of the wedding guests as they walked up the long path to the beautiful Grade II-listed church, the best Harrogate had to offer in terms of the ultimate IT wedding venue. One where God had a front-row seat anyway. Behind an oddly discreet line of police tape, a scoop of journalists jostled against each other, all dressed in their best uncrumpled clothes. All eager to snap the incoming guests, the first glimpse of the happy couple.
Quite the guestlist was walking up this pebbled drive too. The hottest reality TV stars, fresh from the villas and beaches, the latest hot things to rock football shorts on the field, today all suited and booted with the local glitterati, were all here to see the modern love story. Meghan and Harry had nothing on Harrogate’s very own playboy and tea baron, Darcy Burgess, who was today set to marry the girl of his dreams or, as the press had come to know her, the elusive girl next door. Uncharacteristically, Darcy had kept his lady out of the spotlight, so today, in the sumptuously beautiful and historic surroundings of St Wilfred’s, all eyes would definitely be on the bride.
Past the line of paps, inside the church, the pews were festooned with flowers, laced into intricate ribbons and designs at the end of the aisles. A large, imposing centrepiece full of calla lillies, white roses and the best that taste and money could buy stood on a pedestal near the altar, and the whole church was fragrant with the scent of expensive perfumes and the ambience of flowers. Everything shone and gleamed, from the brass lectern to the cheeky sparkle in the excited guests’ eyes.
Today would be talked about for months, a real gem on the Northern social calendar. Taken up by the South, the Burgess wedding was certainly a networking event like no other. No one could wait to finally see the girl who had tamed the great player, Darcy. The girl next door. The young lass from the little village shop. A day of new beginnings, in more unexpected ways than one.
New beginnings came in all shapes and sizes. The day Maria Mallory was due to be married would be the first day of her new life too, but for reasons very different to those the average bride would ever think of. In fact, had she known what was coming, she might have stayed in bed that day, quivering under the duvet and throwing holy water on her wedding gown to expel the demons.
Ask any beaming child in the playground what they wanted to be when they grew up and you would get an enthusiastic answer. Thomas wanted to be an army man, Benjamin a vet just like his dad. Cassie wanted to be a ballet dancer, Alex to help sick people.
Kids wanted to be everything, from astronauts to bakers. But Maria had always been different. She didn’t dream of a job. She dreamt of a status, a milestone. Maria Mallory had always wanted to one day be a bride. She’d spent hours at home poring over her parents’ wedding albums, legs dangling off the couch as she studied the happy, radiant faces of her mother and late father on their special day. While other kids played video games and rode bikes, Maria made scrapbooks filled with magazine cutouts, scraps of fabric from her mother’s workbox, recipe ideas for the wedding breakfast. Elizabeth Mallory worked from home as a seamstress, and her daughter would check her diary fastidiously, looking for bridal appointments. Women would come to their house all the time, requesting custom gowns, having their dresses altered, looking through her mum’s designs for the perfect bridesmaid dress to match their perfect white gown. Maria loved every minute, and couldn’t wait to get married. When she hit her teens, her determination to be a bride hadn’t changed. She helped her mother after school, and eventually took over when her mother got sick, running the business and helping at home while doing her own business degree. Even with the bumps in the road, Maria had never once lost sight of her goal: to get married. To have the life her mother and father once had. In sickness and health, true love, till death do us part. To have the wedding of her dreams.
And what a wedding it was shaping up to be! Every man, woman and dog had been chatting about the nuptials for months, and the moony-eyed public were all rooting for the unlucky lovers to finally say I do, and prove that love really did conquer all. What girl wouldn’t want that? Even the tomboys among the fairer sex still had an odd glistening tear at the thought.
But today, as she stood waiting in the wings of the church, missing her parents, sheltered from the view of the baying press outside, with Cassie moaning about her pale peach silk dress beside her, she was… well… disappointed. It seemed everything in her life had been leading to this point, so why didn’t it feel that way? Why did it feel like an anticlimax? She told herself it was just down to wishing her parents were there with her. More so than anxiety. She was still having flashbacks to the dream she had had the night before, when she was wheeled out into the church, dressed like a whipped-cream meringue, with make-up Gene Simmons would deem ‘troweled on’. She had woken in a deep panic, covered in sweat and in the tight grip of fear. She needn’t have worried, though. With her designer gown, make-up artist and professional hairdresser to the stars, all hired by the Burgess family, she looked more than catwalk-ready.
Maria felt like she had reached into the pretty chocolate box and pulled out a disgusting orange cream. She tried to shake off the feeling she was having. It was just nerves, that was all. She had been waiting for this day for ever, since she was old enough to wrap a sheet around her head and marry her teddy bears. Today was the day, and nothing was going to spoil it, least of all her own silly niggles. She felt a prod and looked around, annoyed.
‘What?’
Cassie was staring at her, fixing her with a look she had never seen on her best friend’s face before, and Maria felt the emotions of foreboding all over again, in stereo.
‘Cassie? What… what is it?’
Cassie swallowed hard and, looking around, Maria noticed they were alone. The other bridesmaids, on the side of the groom, were suddenly noticeably absent, and the vicar was standing there, looking very uncomfortable indeed. Maria’s heart dropped from her chest, nestling in her sparkly ivory court shoes.
‘Cass, what!’ She gripped her bouquet tighter in her hand, causing a calla lily to break from its stem. It fell to the floor between them, and Maria’s eyes narrowed as she focused on the lone bloom.
‘He’s not coming, Mar, I’m so sorry.’ Cassie’s voice was uncharacteristically soft, at odds with her usual ball-busting, divorce-solicitor persona. Maria nodded, and her head kept nodding away.
‘Mar, can you hear me?’ Cassie stepped forward, taking the bouquet from her and dropping it onto a table nearby. Maria kept nodding, sinking into the chair that appeared like magic from behind her. Turning around, she saw the vicar, his hand on her shoulder, a kindly expression on his face. She could hear the murmurs of the congregation outside, no doubt sensing this wedding wasn’t going off without a hitch. In fact, there would be no getting hitched today. Maria’s cheeks flamed and tears started to run down her face. She jumped when Cassie slammed her fist down hard on the table, making her bouquet flip on the wooden surface.
‘That utter bastard! I swear, I am going to staple his nards to the wall!’
Maria wiped at her tears, frowning when her make-up left a smudge on the pristine, white, long-sleeved glove she was wearing.
‘Stay here, okay. I’ll see what I can find out.’ Cass manhandled the vicar out of the door, muttering things about God and angels and pitchforks to him under her breath. ‘Stay put, okay? Don’t come out till I know what’s what.’
Maria nodded to the already-closed door, feeling like her head was separate from her body. It felt like it was floating somewhere, free, above her head like a balloon. Shock. It must be. Either that or she was about to pass out. A beep shook her from her thoughts. Cass’s purse was on the table. Her mobile phone! Maria leaned forward and snatched it up, fumbling through the contents to grab the phone and bring up the call display. Before she could talk herself out of it, she dialled Darcy’s number and held her breath. It must be a mistake, Chinese whispers. He was probably stuck in traffic. Last-minute nagging from his mother, perhaps.
He picked it up on the third ring.
‘Hello?’ he asked lazily. He sounded a little drunk even. ‘Hello, who is this? Hello?’
‘Darcy?’ It came out as a cracked whisper. ‘Where are you? Are you okay?’
A tear ran down her cheek and she went to dab at it, trying not to ruin her expensive face paint.
‘Maria.’ It came out of his mouth, just like that. Flat, monotone. No excitement, no rushed explanations, no desperate plea for her to wait for him. He said it like he was disappointed it was her, regretted taking the call from a number he didn’t recognise. Cass and he had never been that close. ‘It’s you.’
‘Of course it’s me! I’m at the church. Are you here yet? The vicar said you’re not coming? What’s wrong?’
At first, she didn’t hear anything, and she thought the call had dropped till she heard the ching of the glass. A sound she recognised. The glass coffee table in their apartment made that noise when she filled his favourite whisky tumbler and set it down next to her glass of wine as they settled down for the evening.
‘I’m not coming, Maria. I’m sorry.’
At first Maria couldn’t decide whether to cry, wail or laugh. The words sounded so absurd, so silly. She half-expected him to start laughing, that laugh she loved to hear. The one that came from his belly as he celebrated another successful prank.
‘Don’t be daft, of course you’re coming. We’re getting married!’
The glass clinked again, hard.
‘I can’t do it, Maria. I’m sorry. I… Mother… we…’
Maria felt her heart break. ‘Darcy, I…’
‘I’m sorry. I have to go.’
The line clicked, and he was gone. She went to press the button, to call him back, to shout, to cry, to ask him why he’d said those things. Why her Darcy, the man who should be nervously passing wind at the altar, chewing the fat with his best man to stay calm, was at home, drinking instead. Leaving the woman he loved sat in a dress, in an imposing church setting. Trapped. Stranded in her very own fairy tale. Maria pushed the phone back into Cass’s purse, throwing it onto the table as she heard her friend’s loud voice coming closer outside.
‘Mate, that best man is a total jackass, I tell you. I almost decked the arrogant swine!’
‘Cass,’ she whispered.
‘He won’t tell me where Darcy is, or give me his number, and apparently his family didn’t even show!’
‘Cass,’ she tried. Harder this time. Fighting to push the words out of her mouth, amidst the mess of her scrambled thoughts.
Her friend turned and knelt before her again. Maria looked into her eyes and swallowed hard, trying to dislodge the huge lump in her throat. The more she swallowed, the thicker it felt.
‘Cass,’ she tried again, her voice betraying her. ‘Get me out of here, okay?’
Cass nodded. Marching over to the window, she wrenched it open, looking outside. Seemingly satisfied that they had an escape route, she beckoned for her friend.
‘I scoped this out too, just in case. Come on, my car’s outside.’ Maria nodded and five minutes later she was in the passenger seat of her friend’s Mercedes, hunched low, being whisked away from her own wedding. For the first time in her life, she was glad her parents weren’t there to see how her life was going. Cassie placed a warm hand over hers.
‘Stay with me, okay? I’ll arrange for your stuff to be collected from Arsy’s.’
Maria nodded, too numb to even complain about her friend’s nickname for her would-be groom. Darcy Burgess of the Burgess Tea empire, a well-respected Harrogate institution. Currently about to corner the Yorkshire market in herbal teas, they sold everything from ginger snaps to ornamental teapots to go with their amazing tea blends. Beatrice Burgess, the head of the family, was an all-encompassing woman, driven and one hundred per cent committed to making sure her children, Laura and Darcy, didn’t do anything to embarrass her beloved empire. She made the Godfather look like small potatoes, and her wrath wasn’t something to seek out.
Darcy, who had just jilted her at the altar, in front of their friends. Darcy, who, up until yesterday, she had lived with in his plush apartment in Harrogate. She started to sob quietly. Cassie swore under her breath and turned on the radio, jabbing at the buttons as though they were part of Darcy himself.
‘Poncey git. Who wants to marry a Darcy anyway?’
Maria looked across at her in exasperation. ‘Millions of women, Cass. Millions. Mr Darcy, Mark Darcy? Come on, I know you have that poster of Colin Firth on your fridge.’
Cass’s lips pursed, and she grinned at her mate. ‘Okay, okay – but seriously, Mar, you’ll be okay. Everything will work out.’
Cass looked at her, but said nothing, flicking her attention back to zooming through the streets.
‘And?’
‘He said sorry.’
Cass’s lips clamped together, as though trying to ward off something unpleasant from being rammed between them, or trying to escape.
‘Oh, he’ll be sorry all right.’
Maria nodded, looking down at the engagement ring on her finger. She didn’t think for one minute he would be, but what else could she say?
‘I’m hungry,’ was all she could think of. ‘I didn’t eat a thing this morning, I didn’t want a podge in my dress.’
Her friend smiled. ‘I know just the thing to cheer you up.’
Ten minutes later, a very startled food server was taking an order from a weepy bride and a very angry woman in a flouncy peach dress. They took a booth in the back, ignoring the stares of the lunchtime crew and the mothers feeding their children a junk-food treat. Cassie put the tray down in front of them, and Maria sank her teeth into a cheeseburger, a napkin shoved into the front bodice of her couture gown, one Darcy’s mother had insisted she wear, rather than one of her own designs. A glob of ketchup dripped from the side of the napkin onto the ivory material, and Maria wiped at it half-heartedly, leaving a small red dot on the fabric. Oh well, she thought to herself. Not like I’ll be saving it for my daughter, eh? She swallowed the last of her burger and looked across at Cassie, who was shovelling fries into her mouth while barking orders into her phone. She reached for hers out of habit, before realising that her bag, containing her keys and phone, was still in the hotel. In the space of a morning, I have lost my fiancé, my home and my sanity, she thought to herself glumly. The reality of her situation dawned again, and she felt the threat of her cheeseburger coming back up. Cassie barked out a final command and stashed the phone back inside her tiny peach purse. Her face paled as she looked at the current state of her childhood bestie.
Maria looked across at her. ‘Cass, what the hell am I going to do?’
Cass gripped her hand in both of hers, squeezing it tight. ‘Mar, you are going to pick yourself up, get a new place, go back to work, and never speak to Arsy again.’
Maria smiled weakly at her, looking away quickly from the builder who was looking her up and down while devouring a family-sized box of chicken nuggets.
‘That easy, eh? Just like that?’
‘Yep.’ Cass’s eyes flashed with determination. ‘You can do it. And tonight,’ she continued, smiling devilishly, ‘we are going to get you very, very drunk.’
Maria rolled her eyes. ‘I can’t go out tonight. I don’t even have anything to wear.’ She looked down at her wedding dress, to point out the elephant in the room. Cassie smiled weakly.
‘No night out. PJs, boxset, and copious amounts of Chinese food and alcohol.’
Maria nodded. Not quite the night she had planned, but it sounded good right about now.
‘Deal,’ she said, slurping her vanilla shake. ‘But no Colin Firth.’